De'Longhi EC155M

The EC155M has been discontinued, with De'Longhi's Stilosa now occupying its place in the range, but an enormous number of these machines are still in kitchens and still being asked about — and the community's advice to their owners is refreshingly consistent: do not replace it, upgrade it. At its original $130 it was one of the cheapest ways to own a real pump espresso machine, with a compact body and a dual filter holder. What it ships with, and what defines the experience for most owners, is a pressurised basket — the kind with a single small hole underneath, designed around pre-ground coffee that is far coarser than espresso.

Understanding that basket resolves nearly every problem posted about this machine. Because a pressurised basket creates back-pressure artificially, it wants a coarse grind, and the symptoms of getting that wrong run opposite to what most advice online assumes. A soggy puck and a slow, dripping extraction on a pressurised basket mean the grind is too fine, not too coarse — which is exactly backwards from the standard guidance, and catches out anyone who has read about espresso before buying. Sour shots may also simply be the beans rather than the extraction, and raising brew temperature is worth trying before assuming something is broken. One more piece of perspective from experienced owners: a soggy puck on its own does not mean much, and puck appearance is a poor guide to what is actually in your cup. Puck preparation still matters though — uneven tamping that leaves raised edges causes real problems, so a level tamp is worth getting right. The genuine upgrade, and the one owners recommend rather than buying a new machine, is switching to unpressurised brewing with a bottomless portafilter, which comes with a proper filter basket. That requires a grinder capable of true espresso fineness — the commonly named options sit in the $100 to $250 range — because pressurised baskets exist precisely to compensate for grinders that cannot get there. Owners who made this change describe it as completely transforming their espresso.

At $130 originally, and less than that used, the EC155M remains a legitimate platform rather than something to discard. The advice to upgrade it instead of replacing it is the same advice that surrounds the Stilosa that replaced it and the Dedica family alongside it — these are cheap machines with capable hearts, limited mainly by the basket they ship with and the grinder you feed them. Buy a bottomless portafilter in the correct size for your machine, fit a precision basket, pair it with a grinder that costs more than the machine did, and you have a setup that makes genuinely good espresso. If you would rather not tinker, a Breville Bambino is the usual recommendation for something that simply works with better steam. But spending money on a new budget machine while keeping a grinder that cannot grind fine enough is the one path that reliably disappoints.