A new year…
Long COVID essentially rendered me useless from June of 2022 through September of 2023, and everything suffered — even the proper care and maintenance of my beloved espresso machine. To launch the new year, I performed a full cleaning and maintenance on my Rocket Cinquantotto. I had religiously cleaned and polished it bi-weekly from its arrival here in August of 2021 through May of 2022, but it — as with so much else in my life — languished over the ensuing months. Since September (and my low-dose Naltrexone prescription) I’ve been slowly catching up on my to-do lists, and today seemed the perfect day to finally give the Cinquantotto its long overdue deep-cleaning.
It was challenging: the O‑ring really didn’t want to come out of the machine, and once it was out, it proved almost impossible to return it (lubricated) to its rightful place. Turned out I was mis-remembering its proper orientation; flipping it over helped a lot!
The machine now is gleaming. It’s continued to make excellent espresso over the months — but it should be nicely improved tomorrow morning! And Jake brought me an excellent medium-dark blend from a coffee roaster in San Diego for Christmas. I’m sure the freshened machine will do it justice!