Quote Originally Posted by Zoidburg View Post
Hi Marco,

Its all a big learning curve at the moment and il admit to not knowing how to get the best out of the Sage just yet. But what i will say is that even for a novice the coffee is already much better than our old pod machine so in that respect im happy so far.

The tamper that came with the sage is a metal one so im hoping that will be sufficient for the time being. Well spotted that we are currently using a cheap electric grinder, having spent an hour perusing this thread last night I may look to invest in a better quality one.

At present my coffee making technique is as follows

1. grind beans in grinder for 20 seconds.
2. fill coffee handle / holder thing with ground coffee and tamp down
3. fix into machine and press play, await expresso for 30 seconds or so.
4. froth milk in S/S jug and pour on top.

I am definitely interested in producing better end results so any top tips would be more than welcome
I use one of these for grinding - no idea about whether it is better for the beans than my old Delonghi electric, but far less mess (the grind used to get really charged up with static electricity and fly all over the place ). Also there is a zen like state reached while grinding away, and the anticipation adds to the experience :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kalita-Coff.../dp/B0006BLI2W (didn't pay that much though - price seems to have rocketed!)

I was really surprised how much better my coffee was using a decent tamper (and far easier to exert a decent pressure with this rather than the plastic one supplied with my Delongi coffee maker) - more of an effect on the flavour than the change of grinder imo:

https://www.delonghi.com/en-gb/dlsc0...mper/p/DLSC058