Profitec Pro 800 Lever Espresso Machine

Clive Coffee provided excellent consultation and customer support in my pursuit of a new espresso machine. Clive Coffee also provides great resources to educate and inform customers in very important ways. I was able to trade in my ECM HX machine for the Profitec Pro 800 Lever machine. I love lever machines for a few reasons.....total control of extractions, the more historically tactile experience of crafting a coffee, the design and engineering of this machine that make it an amazing work of art in my kitchen, but also easy to service. The lever assembly is very simple in design and easy to service, and the boiler element and probes are easily accessible....more so than other machines I've owned, and I've owned several. A lever machine like this isn't for everyone, but for those serious espresso enthusiasts out there who appreciate the passion and artisanship of being one with the machine to craft a delicious coffee, you should seriously consider the Profitec Pro 800.

Amazing, its so fun to use!

I love my Profitec Pro 800.

This machine is everything I hoped. Great shots, strong construction, beautiful design. Nothing beats a good lever shot. Clive service and support has need outstanding too.

So far this machine has been absolutely fantastic. Very user-friendly and after the initial learning of how it operates it's very simple and effortless to create great espresso.

The more I learn how to use the Profitec Pro 800 and dial in variables, the more I like it. The process of pulling a shot is a tactile pleasure, but the surprise is the great steam pressure compared to my previous machines. I am very, very happy.

I love the machine. It makes perfect shots and is almost entirely silent when plumbed in. Unfortunately, I had to reduce the water pressure running to the machine. After quite a bit of trouble shooting I ended up ordering a pressure reducer from another vendor since Clive doesn't offer one. They also seemed to be uninformed about this issue, although you can find multiple users with the same problem on some forums online. Clive would be wise to include a pressure reducer as an optional bundle with this product. I would have been much happier plumbing it in right away rather than a month later after the trouble shooting.

HUGE upgrade from my BBE. To have espresso that’s actually HOT and tastes far better. Love the manual feel to this machine. Can tell build quality is top notch. Definitely recommend if someone’s looking for a lever machine

A perfect machine, very unique.

I really love the Profitec 800. The learning curve is easy, I enjoy the prep each morning - it is not too much and most of all it makes a great shot. I actually feel like the machine is more forgiving than the previous dual boiler I had. I’m the sort that usually is always looking for the next best thing but am so satisfied with the 800. My wife enjoyed popping in. Nesspresso capsule and having morning coffee. She hates messing with things in the morning. After three months she is now using the 800. I honestly don’t feel like there is a coffee shop in my city that can equal what is created with the 800. It makes it tough when I go out of town for an extended time to be away from the Profitec. So glad that Paul at Clive encouraged me about this machine. Thanks!

Purchased a Profitec Pro 800 over a year ago. The machine came in perfect, gleaming glory and is still looking good and producing great shots. I swapped out the stock shower screen for IMS and gaskets for Cafelat silicone, which seem to result in richer shots with more clarity. It took a little while to dial in finessing the lever, and still does whenever I change up roasts, but I have rarely produced a bad shot with this machine and quite often gotten very, very tasty ones. The updated model looks even better with simple yet practical changes.

The machine arrived quickly and in perfect condition. The dial in on the specialita has been great so far as well. Gorgeous machine, and it pulls some amazing shots. I still have far to go, but the pro 800 is a pleasure to use while moving towards the best espresso I’ve ever had. Honestly, with the pid, this machine excels with light roasts, truly bringing out the fruity and delicate flavors I was missing before. Couldn’t be happier, and I’d recommend the machine to anyone who wants a dipper. One negative - if you’re making a bunch of milk drinks consecutively, you’ll lose boiler pressure. It’s not too long to get it to hear back up, but something to consider.

This machine... an absolute masterpiece. We were looking for a more authentic lever espresso machine, and the Pro 800 delivers. The shot quality is fantastic, and the overall design speaks for itself. Definitely worth the investment.

If you've got experience with lever machines, you might really like this one. This machine is quiet and only makes noise for a less than an minute until it needs to fill the boiler from the fresh water tank which makes it perfect for my house where both my wife and I work from home. I'm just a newcomer to espresso making, but even so I've made some very tasty shots with machine - it seems quite forgiving. I am getting a fair amount of side spray with the stock baskets and protafilter. Perhaps that has more to do with my grind settings than the equipment, I don't know. I've got some VST baskets coming, so we'll see if that improves things. This machine is very simple. Flick power switch on and the pump will fill the boiler. Wait till it heats and the pressure reaches ~1 bar. I'm finding it heats up to the configured temperature within 20 minutes (some sources say it takes 40, but that is not my experience), so it's not that long of a wait - we keep our house about 66-68 degrees F. My machine came to me drop-shipped on a pallet and *very* well packaged. No chance of damage during transport. It is *heavy* though - I was able to wrestle it onto our counter, but it would have been easier with two. I love the fact it comes with three portafilters too - out of the box I've got everything I need. The build quality seems excellent. I got the optional walnut knobs - the hot water one seems loose, but the steamer one is nice and tight. There might be better options on Etsy etc. for custom wood options. Operation is simple: When temp and pressure are ready, pull the lever down. Wait till the espresso starts to drip then lift the lever up with care. That's it! Then just enjoy your shot. The two-holed steamer tip seems fine for small jobs like 3-8oz milk. I thought my wife was going to go ballistic, but she loves the drinks I make her from this machine (and I'm loving the drinks I'm making for myself too ;). If you want fancy maybe consider the Lindinium, but this is just the same machine without the fancy frills - besides you can get custom wood accents on Etsy without paying the Lindinium price for them, Clive was awesome - no hassle order, no hassle returns (I did return some accessory items such as distributor). Easy setup - the legs adjust so you can level the machine. Clean up is easy with just a couple microfiber clothes. Get the Clive barista kit and you are good to go. If you want to experiment and finesse but want a decent to superb shot at the end of the day this is your machine. Other machines allow you to "dial in" many aspects of the brewing/extraction process. This machine requires you to learn about what's going on at each stage from coffee selection, grind, tamp, pre-infusion, and brew ratio. I like that, I want to learn about what I'm doing so I can do it better and if you do too, this is a great machine. Also I just love how it looks in our kitchen (OK, I said it.) I've paired with an Atom 65, which produces a superb grind, but is a bit difficult if you need to switch up beans often. If that's your use case, consider a single dose machine like monolith or niche zero. If it's not the Atom is a beautiful machine and does seem to produce very consistent grind.

I love my Profitec Pro 800. Paul and the crew at Clive were fantastic at helping me talk through the options and pick the perfect machine for what we were looking for. I wanted a machine that gave us some manual control, but was smart enough that we couldn't mess it up too much. The Pro 800 with a Eureka Atom 75 grinder have proved to be the perfect combo to make our at home espresso perfect.

All coffee lovers in the world except this machine have no machine that makes coffee better than this machine! And that's a fact!

First, I'd like to say thanks to Paul and Clive Coffee in general for helping get this beast of a machine out to me. They provided great customer service and showed a lot patience while dealing with a unique situation. It took a lot of special arrangements that will likely never happen again to get it to me, but I have it now, and that's what matters.

The machine itself is a great espresso machine. I was enamored with the idea of a lever for a long time, but after having to deal with it, perhaps I might have been happier with a flow-profiling machine instead. However, the easy and cheaper maintenance aspect will likely come into play later, and then I'll probably be extra glad that I have a simple lever over a complicated flow-profiler.

I was shopping between the Pro 800, Londinium R24, an ECM Synchronika with flow-control, a Vesuvius, and a Rocket R9One. I liked the 800 because it has the profile I'm most interested in. I also liked the simple and classic setup of the dipper lever which means future maintenance will be a breeze. The R24 was close as I liked the rotary pump and the adjustable pre-infusion, but I felt the extra price wasn't worth the incremental improvement over the 800. The synchronika's preinfusion was gimmicky and didn't want to bother with a knob that I couldn't reproduce results with on a regular basis. The vesuvius was another close one, but in the end, I knew I'd be setting it mostly to lever profile. also I was worried a bit about the electronic only interface, and components being available since I am in Japan (parts would be difficult to come by here). The R9One was also nice as I liked it overall, but the complexity of the internals had me a bit worried.

So that thing about living with a lever espresso machine on a daily basis is trying to weigh the shot while it's pouring. Because you can't stop the flow on a lever machine, you can't just pull the cup out only to have the extra espresso pour all over your scale. Sure you can pull the scale, but that basically makes it impossible to steam at the same time. Maybe at some point, when I've got the routine dialed in, I can go strictly by volume and eyeball my shots so I can go back to steaming my milk at the same time.

That being said, the espresso that has come out of this machine has rivaled some of the best shots I've had from synesso machines, victoria arduino black eagles, and la marzocco GB5s. Considering the limited options you have available on a non-profiling machine, I am genuinely amazed at how much you can affect the taste with varied pre-infusion times, temperatures, and the magical auto-profiling provided by the lever. These are some serious machines I'm comparing a modest pro800 to, and I have to say that it's holding its own against machines that cost 4-6 times more!

I've brewed some medium/city roasts, and a little darker beans so far, and I've been able to get the flavors I've wanted to out of both within a few shots of dialing in. I dare say that I've already produced one of the best americanos I've ever had from this machine. Time will tell if it can handle the extreme ends of the spectrum at the very light (I drink only once in a while as espresso, i prefer these as drip) and the very dark (I rarely drink these any more). I do have some geisha coffee available to me here for the light roasts for me to test out, and I can get dark coffee almost anywhere, but have yet to find one I really like anyway. I can update my review if anyone may be interested.

Steam power was a little too strong for me with the stock two hole tip it comes with since I usually only steam small amounts of milk for a cortado or wet cappuccino. I swapped it with a smaller two hole tip, and now I'm able get decent milk foam. I haven't perfected it yet, but that's my technique, and not the machine. Even with the reduced power here in Japan, I'm still able to get plenty of steam power.

On the other side of this review, a couple of minor complaints: 1. it was shipped with a slightly loose drain bolt in the drip pan. I didn't notice this until there was a small puddle on my table, wet carpet, and stained wallpaper. Make sure it's tight before putting any water through the machine! 2. the stock shower screen was covered with a lot of extra grease, blocking about 15% of the surface area. Clean it out immediately upon receiving the machine. There was also a lot of unnecessary grease inside the group itself (I opened it up to inspect it), and cleaned out all the extra grease.

Anyway, super happy with my machine thus far.

I love this machine. I replaced a several years old Breville Dual Boiler and was looking for the next step. Though I generally tend towards high tech devices, I found the manual aspect of the lever and the mechanical simplicity to be very appealing. It took me a few bags of coffee and a visit to Clive for some tips to get things perfect; now I am making some amazing coffee with minimal daily effort. Grind, weigh, distribute with BT wedge (no tamp!), then pull lever and that's it. Delicious shots every morning. I even put it on a smart plug to automate the warm up. If you have the space, I cannot recommend this machine highly enough.

As espresso shops in town began to step up their skills, my trusty old Isomac was no longer measuring up. The Profitec Pro 800 has me back to pulling some of the best shots around.

The support at Clive is amazing. Everybody I chatted with was patient, helpful, and encouraging in my quest to find a machine that matched my needs. I highly recommend the Pro 800 and encourage anybody looking for the perfect espresso maker to purchase it from Clive.

Truth be told, it's more fun and way less finicky. I've had the Pro800 for over a month and got it plumbed it finally. (An aside, the Clive kit makes it easy in one package but..the first rule of DIY plumbing is "If you plumb it. it's gonna leak'. Second rule; "If you fix that leak it will leak somewhere else".) But once you get it done - and it's really not that hard - it's a joy.

I have an '84 Cremina, '65 and '58 Faeminas, La Pavoni Pro pre-millennial and an early 2000s Elektra MCaL. All make great espresso but they are all like a British roadster. You either are willing to get under the bonnet and get your hands dirty or you keep a mechanic and his family on retainer.

Not the Pro 800. It's the perfect lever for newbies because if you just pay attention pulling shots you are proud of is a piece of cake. But it's also fun for old vets like me. Experimentation is easy. Keep a few baskets of different size around to play with and enjoy.

It's a bit spendy but if you love levers and want to have the coffee time of your life, it's worth it.

I had some pretty heavy gear lust for this machine since Profitec released it. I like simple designs that last, and this machine is that, plus it's just plain beautiful. No picture or video I have seen does it justice!

There is not much to learning the machine that has not already been covered by reviews or posts, but I will say that I have not had a "sink shot" yet on it. It just always seems to produce coffee that is beautiful...not just "good"...

Great folks to talk to at Clive; I spoke to Victoria, Tim, and Ben. All were enthusiastic, patient, and genuinely seemed to want to welcome me into the club of the home enthusiast. This continues even months after the sale. If I lived in Portland, this group would make me want to be a "store rat"...probably would be cool to yap with even if coffee were not the topic.

Ben had challenged me with dose, timing, and output variables on the machine by grinding to the point that it would take a full minute to extract a 30 gram shot! Previous experience had told me that this would be awful, but...the following are some notes that I sent to Ben on my findings...

As a recap, you had suggested that I test out my shot timing to take a minute to pull on my Pro 800, down to 30 seconds to see the differences in flavor profiles that this would bring. I am brewing with a 1:1.5 ratio; 20 grams in, 30 grams out. I stir each shot ten times with a spoon before I taste.

- The longest shot I pulled was 75 seconds; this included a 5 second pre-infusion. It was hilarious to watch the shot pour; the coffee sort of "wimpered" out of the bottomless PF drop by drop, and finished as though it was glad that it was finished. That said, it tasted amazing. The coffee blend I am using is a lightish medium roast that is intended for espresso, with Apple, Molasses, and Dark Chocolate notes. This pull had a sharp acid hit on the front end, with the emphasis of the taste being a very dark chocolate finish that lingered pleasantly for quite a while. Though great as espresso, I found that I like a little more acidic body for a milk drink. The shot was a little linear, although delicious, with not much complexity in the shot.

- A slightly coarser grind produced a 50 second pull with the 5 second pre-infusion. This pull reigned in a bit of the dark chocolate base, but seemed to add some of the complexity that I was missing in the previously mentioned marathon shot. The acidic front end lasted longer as well. If this shot were a guitar amp, it was as if I turned the Bass from 10 to 7, the Treble from 6 to 8, and the Mid from 0 to 5. I have yet to make a milk drink with this, as I'm just kind of riding the wave of delicious 'spro on this jam...I'm sure I'll hit it before too long.

- I'll continue to coarsen my grind a bit for the timing, but again, I'm kind of enjoying the 50 second pull pretty good for now.

Some notes on the machine:

- Man, I love love love love love pulling shots on my Pro 800! The similarities between manual versus automatic cars and spring lever versus vibe or rotary pump machines cannot be overstated. It is truly fun to pull shots on this machine. And it's so beautiful.

- The weight of the shot seems very directly affected by the pre-infusion time. Further, I would guess that there is some water that remains in the detent chamber for some time after you pull a shot or flush the group. In other words, with the same grind and same dose, I will get more output on the second shot than on the first shot with the same pre-infusion time. I typically do not flush prior to my first shot of the day, as the machine is on for at least an hour before I will pull my first shot. My reasoning was that an hour is enough time for the group to be thermally stable and so therefore does not need a flush. Probably bad practice for consistency's sake, but it is certainly a point of interest.

- I turned the PID up to 258 to increase the steam pressure to 1.4 bar. Don't know how much this affects the water temperature at the group, but that little .3 bar increase from 252 degrees is tremendous for steaming power.

- You had talked about allowing the lever to fully extend and to allow the whole shot to finish in order to enjoy the benefits of the declining profile of the lever, and boy, you were not kidding. That last little bit of coffee that comes out, maybe 5 seconds or so, really levels out the shot; kind of rounds it out, if you will.

Bottom line is this: I can't think of a machine I'd rather have than the Profitec Pro 800. And I can't think of a company I'd rather have bought it from than Clive Coffee. To me, it does no good to have a great commodity such as this machine, without having a great product to back it up, such as the welcoming Customer Service from Clive.

Cheers!

...is the customer service I received from Ben before, during, and after the purchase.