Great upgrade to 25 year old Silvia!
I’m coming from a 25+ year old Silvia that served me well until the boiler connection fried. Boiler plus updated bits were pushing $400, which is only slightly less than I paid in 1999, so I decided to take the plunge with the Victoria. The prices for the updated Silvia are outrageous for the lack of PID and adjustability, I should note. The wife used to joke about Silvia being my mistress, and now I’ve upgraded to a Victoria! The Victoria’s feature set makes it a bargain in my opinion, PID, adjustable temps, and solid build. Inside I wish it had braided power lines, given how long I plan on using it (‘til I croak or win the lottery). The portafilter is solid, although the cheapo tamper is an insult. I have a well worn Vivace Ergo that works fine, however. I did upgrade to a VST 18g basket, since I don’t care for tapering baskets. The included IMS baskets are good, although I have never used a single basket and don’t see the need for one. The science and pseudoscience for espresso is mind bogglingnow, especially with YouTube. Regardless, the Victoria was easy to set up, although I would have loved a simple cheat sheet spelling out in english what the icons mean. They are intuitive after a point. I’m just set in my ways, needing to having things spelled (IKEA instructions are the worst). I expected there would be a sample of cleaning product and water test strip(s) based on earlier reviews, but not a biggie, especially since I have plenty of cleaning powder. The test strip would have been nice, however. I can access my municipal values. At least the softener filter was still included, and easy to install (with written instructions!). The manual is impressive, save for my nitpicking on the icons, with a nice fold out section for setting it up. As for espresso, it tastes the same as my old Silvia. I home roast, which is what led me to the Silvia when I moved away from big city good Italian (American) espresso (and pignoli cookies…). Still working on my technique since I wimped out to Nespresso for a few years and forgot a few things, roasting and brewing wise. Anyway, the preinfusion and built in timer are things I’m really loving with the Victoria. It heats up quickly, and not having to futz with Silvia’s on and off brewing cycles to get to a mystery temp is so, so nice. I don’t drink milk, so I seldom use the steam save for the wife’s rare espresso request (she likes cold brewed vanilla flavored stuff I’d rather not gag on), but it does heat up quickly. Having the display and (intuitive, I admit) icons helps. The pump does kick on every so often when steaming milk, but u have read it is normal. The tank is the only real pain to the Victoria. Wish it was taller and did not have electrical under the metal baffle under the tank. It is cumbersome to remove. I know other reviewers have said they use a funnel but I’m not quite sold on the safety of that, see above. It is big enough to only need filling twice a week with 1-2 shots per day. The tank has a float sensor, although I have yet to run it down that low, an icon I’ll probably be muttering about. I have yet to run a clean cycle on it, but it looks to be a relatively simple and somewhat automated process, definitely a step up from Silvia. In all, I’m loving Victoria, nod to my wife and all!
