After a long day's shopping in Nottingham recently our final port of call was House of Fraser and the wonderful smell of coffee wafting around the shop floor led us to the Gaggia display counter.
The barista immediately asked us if we would like a drink and it seemed a shame not to, so black coffees were produced for hubby and myself and a hot chocolate for the grandson.
The salesman/barista was passionate about his products and told us all about them at length and our eye was caught by one particular model, the Selecta, which was on promotion at half price. For a limited period this machine was on sale for £134.99 instead of the usual, double priced amount.
The beauty of this machine is that as well as being able to take the pods which we still had left from another machine, it also makes tea from bags or loose leaf tea, ground coffee, froths milk for chocolate drinks, as well as many different varieties of teas and coffees which can be purchased directly from the Gaggia website, www.gaggia.uk.com, if you don't happen to have a department store available where you live from which
to buy them. You can also register your product online for the 24 month standard guarantee. This will also enable you to get discounts for their coffees and accessories and once you've spent £50 they will extend your guarantee to 36 months, so they must be fairly confident that we will be getting a product which will stand the test of time and last well.
My husband is a salesman's dream and it wasn't long before money had exchanged hands and a very large box passed over to us.
Open opening the box you are greeted by a fairly substantial in weight, though compact in size, machine. It doesn't take up any more room on the counter than its predecessor, the Senseo, in fact being straight lines and no curves like the Senseo, it probably takes less. The machine is mostly silver in colour with a black trim and quite a pleasure to behold. Included with the machine are a filter holder, a filter basket to make one or two cups, a tamper to make sure that you get your ground coffee as level as possible before attaching the filterholder to the machine and a measuring spoon, which for some reason they call a "tab" (must be an Italian thing). Inside the holder is fitted a disc which apparently enables the machine to produce the perfect Crema which I take to be the layer of froth on top of the finished product There is also a turbo frothersteam nozzle to blast the milk to get your froth to mix with chocolate or to make your own capuccinos and lattes. A 20 page instruction leaflet is also inside the box. The first 10 pages devoted to the mother tongue, Italian and the second best English version follows on the next 10. I don't know what you would do if you spoke neither language, perhaps have a word with the barista and get him to advise as to where to get a translation into your language of choice.
The Gaggio works on the principle of rapidly forcing water which is heated to the correct temperature, through the ground coffee and according to them the heart of the Gaggia machine is a precision engineered pump. Neither engineering nor pumps being one of my strong points, I'll just take their word for it.
At the top of the machine is a covered water reservoir which you fill to begin the coffee making process. There is a max. line printed on the side of the clear reservoir to prevent over filling. The instruction book also advises to use bottled water but I find good old tap stuff does the job OK for us.
Before you can begin making the coffee you need to prime the pump, which is listed in the leaflet as being self priming, so it must need a bit of help first before it can start doing it itself.
To do this just put an empty cup on the drip plate situated below the two nozzles from which the coffee shoots out from and press the hot water/coffee switch. After a few seconds the pump will begin to work and water will appear from the brewing head. As soon as the cup is filled the coffee switch needs to be set to "off" and the machine is now ready for action, using real coffee after the trial run with water has got it in the mood.
There are only 3 buttons across the top of the machine, so nothing too complicated. The first is the on/off switch, the centre one is the steam switch and the third is the hot water/brew switch which operates the pump.
Right, primed and ready for action we gave the machine a test drive using one of the pods left over from aforementioned Senseo machine. This was placed in the filter basket, which was hooked to the machine by pushing into place and turning, the brew switch pressed and with great excitement we witnessed our first coffee appearing from the nozzles. Oh, I forgot to mention, put a cup underneath or you will have a nasty mess in the drip tray below. The pump continues to operate until you press it off so you can gauge when the cup is full and stop it. Unlike other machines, this doesn't measure the amount dispensed and leave it up to you to stop it when necessary. The drip tray lid can be removed so that you can put larger cups in and if you're really greedy and want a gigantic cup the whole of the drip tray can be removed and you can stand your cup straight on the bottom of the machine and do away with it altogether.
The coffee appears in a steady stream which is neither a gush, nor a trickle, just a happy medium between the two.
We were given a goody bag upon purchasing the machine with various tea and coffee bags which can be used in the machine and I haven't found one that I dislike yet. The lemon tea is to die for, not like the instant stuff you buy in jars which is always too sweet for me, the fruit teas are bursting with flavour, much more intense than just pouring hot water into a bag in a cup.
If you fancy a capuccino then make the coffee in a wide cup and leave space to add the frothed milk afterwards.
Frothing the milk is simplicity itself and the turbo frother will produce an abundance of froth.
It is advised to use low fat milk as this will produce denser frother and it won't collapse quickly.
To get the froth you just press the middle switch (steam) to the on position and wait approximately 15 seconds and a temperature ready light will come on. Stick the milk jug under the steam nozzle so that the tip is just under the surface of the milk and slowly turn the steam valve knob anti clockwise to release the steam. The more you turn the knob, the greater the steam pressure, so go steady. Then just spoon the wonderful froth onto the coffee and there you have it, perfect. I don't have the sprinkled chocolate on mine but at this point you could dust with your chosen topping, ie. cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate gratings or cocoa.
Another beauty of this machine is the flat cover over the water reservoir. You can sit your cups on here to warm until you're ready to make the coffee.
If you want the technical specs, I couldn't find any on the instruction leaflet, so I suggest a visit to the website for those who want to know more.
As you may have guessed from my enthusiasm, I absolutely love this machine and its capabilities are endless with the vast array of different teas and coffees you can use in it.
Pictures of Gaggia Selector Deluxe
Coffee machine
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