Day 14. Coffee. Connector with Philips Saeco.

Coffee.

Autumn and coffee.

Cool, brisk mornings. A hot cup of coffee. Or in our home, a small hot cup of espresso.

Sometimes with the one you love – your senses come alive. Before the crush of the day begins, you can actually talk, plan, and dream together.

Warm autumn evenings, and deliciciously consistent espresso with friends before or after dinner.

When I think of coffee or espresso, I think of connecting with one person, or bringing a group together to enjoy one anothers company, like we did last Friday night in our backyard.

We’ve been enjoying a new Philips Saeco Syntia Focus Espresso Machine for the past month in our home. Since we have 4 coffee drinkers, you can only imagine the use that it’s gotten.

Well-used. Well-loved and very, very welcomed. Let me tell you why …

Our new espresso machine, which originates from Italy (dated back to 1901), is a fully automated machine so the espresso and coffee is ready at the touch of a button.

I will admit the whole process of making espresso has become easier, faster, cleaner and all around more enjoyable for me.

The night of this dinner party, these simple benefits made entertaining easy! Thank you Philips Saeco for creating such a small but mighty all-in-one machine.

Here’s a little bit of honesty: The past few years I’ve given up on serving espresso at dinner parties. It was so much work to grind the beans just right, tamp then just right then stand at the machine for such a long time as all the other demands of entertaining kept coming at me and my husband.

So when Philips Saeco asked me to review one of their amazing machines, I said yes! I wanted to bring the missing art of serving coffee and espresso back to entertaining, and I had a strong feeling that their machine could help me get to the heart of simple but more savvy entertaining.

And it also gave me the opportunity to enjoy our favorite coffee in the world, Storyville Coffee Company from Seattle. It’s so fresh and packed with both delicate and robust flavor.

Right away we noticed that this Philips Saeco Syntia Focus Espresso Machine is an attractive workhorse. Compact and quiet, we noticed how much better it was to past machines right away:

1. You can prepare espresso or coffee from the same machine just by pushing a different button This makes it easy to please your guest’s taste.

2. The bean to cup system creates ease in serving your guests all at once (bring all the cups out at one time on a tray instead of serving one guest at a time).

3. You can choose the coffee intensity, the strength of the bean, and the temperature. (In our case, we love to serve it as hot and strong as we can.)

4. The grinder prevents overheating of the beans. The smell of the full-coffee aroma is just out of this world.

5. The simplicity of the machine guides you step by step if something goes wrong (follow the guide sheet when in doubt).

6. Like a cat, it cleans itself quietly and automatically throughout the day.

This machine and its consistent quality, along with Storyville Coffee, helps us fulfill our goal of simple and meaningful entertaining.

Coffee.

It’s a connector.

Do you think serving coffee or espresso at a dinner party is a lost art?

Catch up on my first 13 Days, HERE. :)

This post was sponsored by Philips Saeco, who provided us with an espresso machine.