Today I performed a simple test. I made an espresso which I turned into a caffe latte from the ground coffee that was in the chamber of the machine from last night. We usually clean the chamber at the end of each day so that we can use fresh coffee the next morning when we come into work. Someone however had failed to do this (I could blame myself but that wouldn't be fair).

Anyhow, the coffee came out in 15 seconds. The crema was only a few shades darker than white, and the espresso watery. Obviously the caffe latte was horrible and weak and not worth finishing but the interesting thing was that after I discarded the stale coffee in the grinder and ground fresh coffee from fresh coffee beans (the same beans as were used the day before), the extraction was much slower at around 25 seconds and the espresso fantastic.

Finally my day could begin.....