Salvatore Espresso Systems
What products are listed for this advertiser?
American Made Coffee Bean Grinder, American Made Espresso Machine, and Made in the USA Lever Type Espresso Machines.
When we got there, we even got a tour of Salvatore Cisaria’s workshop and found out he makes his fantastic machines entirely by hand. I mean, he makes his own moulds for brass fixtures and chromes them. He cuts the brushed stainless steel himself. I think the only part he doesn’t make is the filter baskets.
It also turns out that Salvatore used to fix Italian espresso and pasta machines. He soon figured out what worked and what didn’t and what the ultimate machine should have; things like a separate pressure system for the coffee and for the milk frothing wand, so that you can make coffee and do the milk at the same time. What a concept!! Also he decided on simple rocker switches instead of those clumsy knobs to turn everything on and off, even the steam for frothing the milk. Who hasn’t gone to back off the steam and had milk go everywhere as it takes a few extra seconds to wind the steam off? Well that often happened to me with those crappy other machines.
Depending on his work load, Salvatore takes around 6-8 weeks to make a machine to order. On display were all sorts of wacky ones, like a coffee machine that looks like a jukebox or one that was shaped like a classic car – that kind of thing. The basic semi-automatic model set us back $1200 at the time, and that was 8 years ago. The same one costs about $1360, now… By the looks of their photos, they now all come with a pressure gauge and soft switches.
It was so cool and exciting to meet Salvatore and his wife, Wendy, and to see how it all works.
About 8 weeks later we were the proud owners of a ‘Famosa’ – one of the most beautiful espresso machines around. His design really is quite Bauhaus, by which I mean form follows function. (One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus movement was to unify art, craft, and technology.)
But this machine is da bomb! The ones Salvatore makes for commercial use have the same internal workings as the home machines. They’re all well-made and industrial grade. We love it. Everyone loves it. We used to use it every day, but in the past year we’ve both cut way back on coffee so I use it probably 3 times a week and anytime anyone wants one of my killer frothy hot chocolates. It’s never needed overhauling or anything, but we did have one instance where there was a problem – the water wasn’t coming through properly from the reservoir to the pump (before it expressed). Fortunately my guy is fairly handy with machines and Salvatore talked him through the problem that turned out to be a damaged filter in the water system. If it had been more complicated than that, we’d probably have had to return the machine for repairs and he probably wouldn’t have been able to get around to looking at it for several weeks… Oh, another time Ash replaced a seal (they posted one to us) and all he had to do was deal with was four screws. Easy.
The following is a reply from Salvatore Espresso Systems to our question – "Are your products Made in the USA?"
Yes completely handcrafted and Made in the USA
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What does Made in USA mean?
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