Monday, October 21, 2013

Londinium I - Unboxing

It's been a while and time for updating this page has been limited. Enjoying wonderful syrupy espresso's however has not stopped - on the contrary! I'm now enjoying wonderful espresso drinks from my recently acquired LONDINIUM I lever espresso machine.

I have sold the La Marzocco GS/3 the short story being that however fantastic the GS/3 is, I was really missing a more "hands on" feeling. Getting great shots from the GS/3 is just - a bit too easy! So I sold it but without any plans on where to go from there. For a period I was really in to black coffee (still am) an enjoyed lots of different brew methods (Hario filter brew, Aeropress, Chemex, French press etc). I didn't leave espresso brewing entirely as a good friend was good enough to lend me a nice little E61 HX machine - The La Valentina Junior. Really a good and nice looking machine with a small footprint for those interested.

Knowing that I couldn't be without an espresso machine I started looking and by coincidence I saw the pictures of a late 50's Faema Lambro Lever machine for sale in Germany at what I believed to be a reasonable price. It was of course sold before I got to respond and the next one as well. These were fully functional machines but needed a bit of restoration. Not easy to come by and fully restored Faema Lambro's, President's and Urania's cost on the wrong side of Euro 2,500. I love the simplicity and silence of the vintage lever machines but unless you restore one yourself, it simply is not worth the price tag (my opinion).

My Lambro adventure lead me to the Londinium I project in England headed up by Reiss Gunson and his Londinium Espresso company. A truly exiting project of which you can read much more about on: http://londiniumespresso.com/

A long story short: I added a Londinium I to the shopping basket back in July 2013 and received delivery late August 2013.

The L1 came in two boxes - a big one with the machine and second smaller box with the upper part of the group. Veeeery nice packaging - kudos to the Londinium Espresso team!
Enjoy the unboxing pictures which were made with my mobile phone out of sheer impatience!



















Ready to go!

3 comments:

Frans said...

Thankyou for this post! I'm an L1 owner too and your story with the beautiful radiant pictures you made, revived my memory of the festive unboxing and installation of the machine here. Beautiful!

Sonne said...

Thanks Frans. I have followed your posts on web with interest as well.

yoshi said...

Thank you for your post and the beautiful fotos. I have just ordered an L1 and I cannot wait until it enters my kitchen counter. How World You describe your espresso shorts compared to your Former GS3?