Whilst I detest the phrase ‘scratch your own itch’ as coined in ‘Rework‘, one of the most useful business books I have ever read, it is a sound principle to adopt when developing new products.
It simply means that Londinium I is the result of our internal strivings to come up with a better lever espresso machine; to take the best elements from other machines already in the market and try to eliminate some of the weaknesses.
Assuming our high expectations are fulfilled when Londinium I is deployed into the hum-drum of every day life at the factory we will offer it to you too, confident that it will take your espresso to the next level as we will have already experienced it for ourselves.
Lets be quite clear, if for any reason it doesn’t meet our exacting expectations we will have no hesitation in scraping the project.
At no point has the goal ever been to simply get a product out into the market place that is much the same as everything else but the with Londinium brand stamped on it. If we had wanted to do this we could have gone to any number of European espresso machine manufacturers and as long as we placed an order for 20-25 units they will stamp any marking you like on the machine.
The marketplace is full of mediocre products with planned obsolesce designed into them, often from the same companies that claim they are carbon neutral, saving polar bears, and everything else besides. We’ve no interest in contributing to the melee.
Londinium I will move the game forward and last as long as you do, providing you don’t subject it to abuse, e.g. lime scaling it to the gunnels on a regular basis, rather than ensuring a water of the appropriate hardness is used. As regular readers of this blog will know, we use & recommend Volvic for this purpose. In Europe at least it is affordable, widely available and has the chemical composition to perform in an espresso machine without ruining your machine.