Cafelat Robot - a manual espresso maker (despite the name "robot", it's not electronic at all, it just uses pressure). It makes awesome shots, it's super easy to clean, and it's just really fun to feel the tactile feedback you can get when you're brewing a shot manually, because you can re-adjust your pressure on the fly to make the shot come out how you want it.

My husband must have watched every James Hoffman video on youtube before picking it out, but it's been an awesome tool for getting into the world of espresso. We've probably been using it every day for the past 6 months, and it's probably the main reason we were able to break our former addiction to sugary, expensive espresso drinks. Turns out that well-made espresso is actually amazing on it's own, with tons of variance between different beans - but a lot of coffee shops ruin it.

It did take a month or two to get consistently good at pouring shots (again James Hoffman videos were a huge help), and having a good grinder and beans is supposedly another a important factor. We used a LIDO hand grinder at first, which was awesome because it was relatively cheap, but it takes a bit to grind - so we did recently invest in a nice electric grinder. Now that we're able to have friends come over again, that makes it a lot easier to pour a bunch of shots back to back. If you're just making one at a time, a manual grinder is not so bad.