Minipresso GR2 Espresso Machine

Eighteen bar is capsule machine pressure, the sort of figure that normally implies a pump, a heating element and a plug. The Minipresso GR2 gets there with your thumbs.

Wacaco's Minipresso GR2 is a hand-pumped espresso maker that reaches 18 bar with no electricity in it anywhere, the pressure coming from a piston you press by hand. Wacaco puts the force needed at 6 to 12 kilograms depending on how fine the grind is, and suggests using two hands. Water sits in an 80 millilitre tank built hard against the coffee chamber, and the closeness is deliberate: the shorter the trip, the less heat the water sheds on the way, and the company measures 67 degrees Celsius in the cup. A double wall does the same job from outside, holding temperature in and keeping your fingers off the metal once boiling water is in there. It heats nothing. You pour the hot water in yourself.

The basket is the new part. It adjusts between 8 and 12 grams of grounds inside the same 43 millimetre ring, so shot strength changes with no extra hardware, and Wacaco holds a patent on the mechanism. The portafilter is pressurised, which is how a thumb pump still raises crema, and one shot runs up to 60 millilitres.

The GR2 stands 5 centimetres shorter than the Minipresso GR it replaces, 30 percent smaller overall, and its outer shell is 20 percent biomass, a wheat-based polymer standing in for some of the plastic. Even the lettering is moulded into the parts rather than printed on, which is the kind of decision a company makes once it owns the tooling: Wacaco was founded in Hong Kong in 2013 by Jessie Wang and Hugo Cailleton, and opened its own factory in China in 2021.