Lelit Victoria Espresso Machine at Sweet Maria’s

Victoria is a “Single Boiler Dual Use” home espresso machine.

There are 3 general classes of home espresso machines:
– Single Boiler Dual Use (SBDU): With a SBDU machine, the same boiler is used for for both brewing and steaming. Meaning you can either brew espresso OR steam milk – not both at the same time, and the machine will need to switch between the two.

– Heat Exchanger (HX): With a HX machine, the single boiler is compartmentalized, which allows for concurrent steaming and brewing, and a downside of having to choose one temperature for both. We offer the Mara X in this class.

– Dual Boiler (DB): With a DB machine, two separate boilers allow for concurrent steaming and brewing with independent temperature settings. Lelit offers the $3000 Bianca in this class. Check it out at our friends, Kanen Coffee‘s, website.

We think this espresso machine is a great match for a beginner or intermediate barista who mainly drinks espresso. It’s fine for weekend milk drinks, but on a daily basis that seems a bit much. Switching between espresso and steam temperatures has some delay, and this is not a powerhouse for steam pressure, and requires a lot of bleeding to get water out and produce drier steam. But we feel that if espresso shots alone are your thing, it’s great!

It’s a really approachable, user-friendly machine, but also a manual espresso machine that doesn’t do anything for you. We feel we get the best of both worlds. We get the assist of the OLED screen to easily set temperatures, time our shots, let us know when the machine is ready, which mode we are in … etc. But also we get manual control of the shot.

Paired with a grinder like the Fellow Opus or Baratza Vario, we think the machine works great for espresso. In fact, some here like it better for straight shots than the HX machine, just for ease of use. We have baristas here at all levels, some very experienced, some not so much, and all have been impressed with the performance and the shots from the Victoria.

It feels like the right machine for someone who likes espresso, likes the process of making it, but doesn’t want to go stir crazy and take over half the kitchen with a dual boiler + Mahlkonig + accessories + … well, you get the picture. In that way, we feel it’s in the spirit of the Silvia, without needing to be a Silvia in all its drawbacks.

It’s good to do your own research, but one of the things that led us to carry the Victoria is how favorably it compares to other compact machines around $1000. We carried the classic single boiler Rancilio Silvia for years, which is now in the $900 range. The PID temperature control the Victoria has makes it more valuable.
No need to “temperature surf” either. The Victoria has really good temperature stability, and we really like the OLED display that allows for easy set temperature adjustments, functions as a shot timer, and shows a timed status bar when switching modes.

We like the preinfusion, and once the shot is dialed in with a grinder, it produces consistent results. The compact size and especially shallow footprint is great. It allows more room for workspace. It’s not the best for daily milk drinks though, and the short steam wand means you need a pretty small pitcher to match it. If you think the Victoria might not be enough machine for you, you might be surprised how competent it is.
If you want more bulk and steam function, our HX pick is the Mara X. If you want to go all-out on a dual boiler and have $3000 to spend, Lelit’s Bianca is a great choice.

– Pump noise: The vibratory pump is not very quiet, especially next to the Mara X. It is typical for this type of pump and for single boiler machines in general.

– Workflow around milk drinks: The Victoria is much better for pulling straight shots than doing milk drinks. It’s totally workable, but takes some planning. A shortcut to switching from Steam mode to Coffee mode is to open up the wand and release pressure… turning your kitchen into a spa of sorts, I guess. It works and doing so means going from milk steaming to pulling the accompanying shot in under 2 minutes. (Ask Jarrett – he got good at it). But let’s say you want to prepare 3 milk drinks? Not great, especially dealing with the relatively short steam wand and placement of the steam control knob on the side of the machine. It’s a cheesyA coffee that has a kitchy quality, or literally cheese-like flavors in the cup. The second is actually a trade term, when their is a dairy-like sourness in... ...more little knob too, whereas everything else on the Victoria has a nice feel and finishSimilar to aftertaste, but it refers to the impression as the coffee leaves the palate. Aftertaste is the sensations gathered after the coffee has left the mouth. We... ...more.

– Lighter-weight machine: Literally, it’s not super heavy at 24 lb, so people used to a bulkier dual boiler feel that if it moves when you’re putting the coffee handle in the group head, that’s a bad thing. We don’t… and the small size feels so much friendlier in the kitchen, since the machine doesn’t occupy a huge amount of space.

– Silly plastic tamperA handheld tool for compacting ("tamping") ground coffee for espresso into a portafilter basket. Tampers should match the size of a machine's basket, with common sizes including 53mm... ...more: It comes with a comical tamper… but we include our 58 mm stainless steel tamper at no extra charge. Just put the Lelit one in the recycle bin.

– Heat-up time: It’s pretty fast, but not the 6-10 minutes people say, or that the OLED will say. Water temperature on ours is ready at 6 minutes from powering on, but the group head takes 20-24 minutes to truly heat up. This is true with all machines, really. That said, when “waking up” the machine after it goes into standby, it does come online quickly which is great.

They have a great reputation over their 40 years of producing machines in northern Italy. We aren’t saying all their machines are great; there are ones even less than Victoria, but they don’t have full size 58mm group heads and have other issues. We feel Victoria (and upward) in the Lelit line is the point where the machines really earn their reputation in daily use.

First off, you have us at Sweet Maria’s. We have these machines here and are using them, and we have experienced baristas (and experienced home baristas) on staff.

Secondly, we have deeper level support from the wonderful Kanen Coffee, who are local to us, for trickier issues, part problems, and the internals. They repair Lelit, and all kinds of home and pro machines daily and will support us (and you!) on solving all bigger issues.

Lastly, Lelit has a one year warranty. With those three levels, we feel we can sort out all types of issues, from the very small to very large.