Coffee, Espresso, Etcetera

Coffee has been an important drink in my life ever since I am fourteen or something like that. What happened back then? I believe we went canoeing somewhere in the polder of Noord-Holland. My parents brought food and drinks of course, that's what parents do. On the way back home in the car I was rather thirsty and my mother poured me a drink in a baby-cup (looks like a lidded coffee cup for a takeaway coffee, but back in the late eighties or early nineties those things were not common in the Netherlands yet...)
Nevertheless, I received the closed cup and did not see or smell what I got to drink. I may have thought something like tea or hot chocolate. I took a sip and did like it! It was coffee with milk and sugar. Before that moment I always said I hated coffee.
During the years I first got rid of the milk and eventually lost the sugar as well. The losing the sugar I remember quite well, it was back in 1996 when I lived in Spain and where I lived first the sugar was finished and later on the artificial sweetener which was still somewhere in the house got finished as well. As no one ever thought of buying sugar we all quit using it ;)

But traveling around the (western) world, you start to get to know your coffees. A certain taste is developed and you become more and more critical:.

Me: 'Hey, you brewed this coffee with old coffee!'
Someone: 'Eh, well, it may be two months old, I don't taste anything odd?!'
Me: 'Ordinary coffee should never be older then at most two weeks...'
Someone: 'Errr...'

Me: 'Hey, you should decalcify your coffee machine.'
Someone: 'Errrr its only 10 years old...'

Anyway. Even I sometimes long for a solvable Nescafe as it reminds me of good old times (it's not that bad for when you are traveling light). It is often even better than those coffee-padmachines (Senseo Drama, not talking about espresso systems with pad, those are often pretty fine, depending on the brand of the pads).

But now... I thought I knew a bit about making coffee (hey, I'm not a Barista!).

Personally I never really thought about those machines with levers to pull... Until I got to pull one myself. Timing is everything. I am talking about the Mirage Idrocompresso by Kees van der Westen:

Well, see for yourself. Apart from the wonderful taste you can produce with it, it even looks impressive.
I tried to find out how much such a machine would cost. Nowhere to find. I would say two times half the price ;)

From what I read about it in reviews, it is one of the top-models you can get these days. Although I am pretty curious what will happen when fully automated machines can do the same...