The Linea Mini is the home version of the Linea Classic, the machine that has been on cafe benches around the world since 1990. La Marzocco did not design a domestic machine, they scaled a commercial one down to a single group and a kitchen-sized footprint. That is why it behaves the way it does, and why it costs what it costs.
What makes it different
Saturated group head. The group is part of the boiler rather than bolted onto it, so it sits at brew temperature permanently. There is no warm up drift between the first shot and the fifth, which is the usual weakness of home machines.
Dual boiler. One boiler for brew, one for steam, each at its own temperature. You can pull a shot and steam milk at the same time without waiting, which is what makes back to back milk drinks possible.
Commercial internals. Standard 58mm portafilter, commercial group parts, and a machine built to be serviced rather than replaced. Parts are available and technicians know it.
Who it suits
- Someone making several milk drinks every morning, where the steam power and the lack of waiting genuinely change the routine.
- Someone who will keep a machine for a decade and wants it serviceable.
- A small office, a studio or a showroom that needs cafe quality without a cafe machine's plumbing and three phase power.
Who it does not suit
If you drink one long black a day, this is a great deal of machine sitting idle and heated. If you are not going to buy a grinder to match, the Linea Mini will not save you: it is precise enough to show every flaw in the grind. And if nobody in the house wants to learn to dial in a shot, a bean to cup machine will make you happier. We cover those in coffee for bean to cup machines.
The Pico package
The Pico package is the Linea Mini with everything needed to start, so nothing arrives half finished: the Pico grinder, portafilter baskets in 7g, 14g, 17g and 21g plus a blind basket for backflushing, a standard European La Marzocco convex tamper, a double spouted portafilter, Purocaf cleaning solution, a 12oz milk pitcher, the installation and user guide, and a 12 month coffee subscription.
Living with one
Two things matter. Water, because a dual boiler machine on unfiltered hard water will scale, and on this class of machine descaling is a service job rather than a bottle you pour in yourself: filter the water going in. And cleaning, because the blind basket in the box is there to be used. The routine is in how to clean and backflush an espresso machine.
If you want the step up
The GS3 adds paddle control and more adjustability for people who want to shape the shot rather than repeat it. For a cafe, the Linea Classic and the Linea PB are the multi group versions of the same engineering.
