After trolling the waters and being jealous of my brother's single
group commercial La Pavoni, I decided that I wanted a small machine
for home. I spend lots of time making food from scratch (ie. curing my
own salamis) and restoring old items (30's optometrist's chair) and,
therefore, am very aware of how things work and how they are made.
After browsing around the web and visiting restaurant equipment
places, I realize that if I get a semi-automatic machine it has to be
commercial because the home use ones are twinkies. But I then
discovered the lever machines and fell in love as they satisfied my
interest in being part of the process. I considered the La Pavoni
professional, but decided that while it was nicely built, it just was
not a substantial enough machine and that it didn't really compare to
the kind of pulls that you can get in a cafe on a lever machine.

Then I discovered the olympia machines which seem to be as close as
one can get to having a monster without taking over the house with a
three lever, three-hundred pound beast. While they only still make the
Cremina 2002, I am more than willing to restore an old machine. Was
the Club version really any different? Or did it simply have an extra
wand that could dispense hot water instead of steam? Should I assume
that the technical and mechanical finesse of these machines was locked
in long ago and that they are all awesome? (for example, I know that
it has only been in the last two years that pavoni finally dealt with
the problem of overheating on the grouphead of their levermachines by
adding a heat-dispersion sleeve). I am almost willing to buy a new
one, but should I assume that they are still as well made?

Does anyone know where I can find one?

Hi Nikolas,

I've inherited an Olympia Cremina from my folks, who are great foodies and coffee lovers. The machine is about 10-15 years old, but my parents (the original owners) were put off by the lever and used it only a dozen times at most--so it's in very good condition. I have the original instructions and tamper too. If you're still looking for a machine, please reply. I know the most recent Creminas are selling for $2200-2500. But I'd like to buy a nice automatic machine--since I'm not a pro like you--so I'm just looking for the best, reasonable offer...

Cheers,
Aaron

Hello,
Are you still offering this machine for sale?
Thanks,
BarbaraJO