the LONDINIUM I is shipped with one double spout portafilter, a 14-16g tapered basket and a solid (not veneer) wenge wooden handle on it
it does not include a naked/bottomless portafilter. why?
the cost of the bottomless portafilters are considerably more than the stock twin spout as you make a naked PF by taking a perfectly good twin spout PF and modifying it which necessitates quite a lot of labour – it needs to be milled, stripped, and then re-chromed
some people say just raise the price and give me a naked instead, but others will be deterred if we raise the base price. it is tricky to strike the right balance. when you cross the GBP2,000 mark for the basic machine i think a lot of people think a lot harder about the purchase, and if they dont their significant other certainly will 😉
the LONDINIUM I gives you the same quality of extraction that you will get from the absolute pinnacle of commerical machines including Slayer, Synesso, La Marzocco. thats not mere puffery: it is what L1 owners who also own such exotica are feeding back to us. the difference is we are making that taste experience accessible to a much wider audience
it does not include silicone grease. why?
if i could buy say 6g tubes of Dow Corning’s Molykote, like you can in the States, i would include a free tube or two with every machine in a heartbeat
the 6g tubes arent available in the UK every time i have asked the distributors, and to add in a 100g tube for free would again push the price up
i also think we have now found a superior lubricant to Dow Corning’s Molykote with the Loxeal’s No.4 grease
the incremental increases aren’t much when taken individually, just GBP15 for the naked PF and another GBP20 for silicone, but thats GBP35, plus the VAT takes us to GBP42
and then you could extend the argument and say a tamper should be included, and equally, why isnt the plumb in kit included?
its the same answer – if we ship a machine that contains all the options anyone might conceivably have a need for it pushes the price of the machine up, and also the cost of freight
so our philosophy is to build and ship a standard machine without the extras and keep the price down, and then allow you to order any extras you deem necessary
i appreciate that this will suit some people but not all, but i think it is the best we can do
we might, for example, decide that almost all buyers buy the naked portafilter as an extra so why not put it in instead of the twin spout and adjust the price upward, but it wont be a decision we come to quickly
i would encourage any customer that does not already have food grade silicone grease to order some either from us, or from someone else, as this is essential for the continued smooth running of any lever espesso machine, and it is entirely possible that your machine will arrive and some of the grease will have transferred from the seals to the packaging in transit and the spirng will creak a bit – the result of the seals grabbing in places on the bore of the group