This is our new ride, (pictured on the left) the La Marzocco FB-80. It replaces our almost new, but still out-dated La Marzocco FB-70, which looks almost the same (pictured above). Most of our customers didn't notice when we switched them out.

Basically, the FB-80 has the same internals, with a few twists which make is ridiculously temperature stable. The resulting espresso taste, once you get the temperature dialed in correctly, is ridicuously wonderful every single time. The old machine took a bunch of tweaking to get it temperature stable, and it never gave the same taste twice. That was a bit fun, but not really a desirable trait.

The old machine was klunky and noisy--in a very endearing way. The new machine is earily quiet: I can't tell if it's on or off, except that the "on" button blinks. Never had that "trouble" with the old one. I miss the noise.

The steam wand is a bit improved--it takes less wrist movement to turn it on and off, just 1/4 turn. Yet it feels so familiar that there was no break-in time needed: perfect foam from the get-go. Another nice improvement is that the wand dial moves away from the machine as it closes, and towards the machine as you twist it open. This seems to solve the problem on the old machine where the dial would sometimes get stuck in the off position.