after months of waiting, my pre-production ES-2 Espresso Machine has arrived from Espresso Strietman in Holland.
Wouter Strietman has made a pre-production run of 20 machines and I was lucky enough to secure one of them, drawing inspiration from machines like the Arrarex Caravel from the 1960’s and incorporating modern electronic temperature control they are an amazing design.
The courier waved me down in Woolies car park this morning to tell me she had a box for me,
I whisked it home and unpacked the very well padded parcel to reveal the component parts of the ES-2, I have put it together with the drip tray holder inverted which allows it to sit upright on the table for pictures, the intent is to wall monut the machine.
as you can see, there is not actually much to it and assembly took a matter of minutes with no instructions required! everything is well built and very solid feeling, i love the industrial finish – its not a polished and glossy finish like my big Izzo lever but it really suits this machine I think.
you can see the nice detail on the control unit here, and finally the assembled machine. it will be a few days before I have it up and running as I dont have time to work out the mounting system and set it up but I am hugely excited to see just how good the extractions are from this timeless design of coffee porn! Wouter also kindly included a couple of nice porcelain cups bearing his name as well as 3 different portafilters to try.
in my excitement this morning I did forget to mention the relationship with Wouter through this process, he has been fantastic, communicating at every step of this unique process, adaptive to issues as they came up (he couldnt use wood handles and send it to australia easily), he has sent photos through as work progressed and generally been a pleasure to deal with. i am sure I will have even more positive feedback once i get to the point of pulling shots on this beauty!