starbucks Siren Espresso Machine Review

Well the Sirena is my 3rd espresso machine from Starbucks. It was designed by BMW and I admit it looks pretty cool. It is designed to automatically tamp the ground espresso and uses a rubber disk in the bottom of the portafilter. This supposedly takes the guesswork out of the grind/amount/tamp pressure equation to get that perfect shot. I found it to be consistent, but not great. I removed the disk and use it old school, tamping it myself and the end result is a superior shot pulled. The heat up time (how fast it gets to the proper temperature for pulling a shot or steaming / frothing your milk) is a bit faster than my previous machines, but I still recomment frothing your milk first as it tends to hold temperature better than a shot in a demitasse, and the recovery time to pull a shot is a bit shorter than to steam. I really like the portafilter, it has the larger diameter of a commercial espresso machine, which I think lends itself to a superior extraction when the shot is pulled. All in all, not a bad machine, but I think that for a little more money, there are better options.