How to get cafe quality coffee at home is a very real problem facing caffeine fiends with discerning taste buds. Allow us to introduce The Little Guy. Aesthetically, the machine resembles a piece of functional art. Its clever little casing pays homage to Giordano Robiattki’s classic design that was originally patented in Milan in 1947 while internally, it houses no moving parts or electronics so there’s nothing that can break or malfunction. Down to the business end, The Little Guy has an internal brewing system that accurately controls pressure and temperature, extracting two full-bodied espresso shots and allowing you to texture milk to perfection.

The process is so simple it makes you wonder why you’ve endured average coffee at home for so long. Simply fill the boiler with water, power up the induction top, dose ground coffee, tamp and eight minutes later, steamy, espresso will extract. If you’re a milk-in-your-coffee kind of person, The Little Guy can accommodate that, too. At the end of the extraction process, back pressure through the system is released through the steam nozzle for milk texturing. The steam nozzle is calibrated to a precise diameter ensuring ample and consistent steam pressure. As with all manual espresso machines, you can control the output with the density of the ground coffee and there are two espresso shots extracted per cycle. You can find The Little Guy at Merlo Coffee at Ferry Road Markets and David Jones at Robina.