No pump. No program. No automation of any kind. You pull the lever, and the pressure in the group is the pressure your own arm puts there.
La Pavoni has been building these in Italy for decades, and the specification reads like a list of things the industry has since decided customers should not have to think about: sixteen cups of capacity, a thirty-eight-ounce solid brass boiler under a chrome shell, wood handles, a dual frothing system, and a piston lever standing as the only mechanism between ground coffee and the cup. It is an espresso machine in the sense that a violin is an instrument — which is to say that for the first month the results are your fault.
Mises opened Human Action by insisting that economics begins with a person acting purposefully toward a chosen end, and a lever machine will not let you forget it for a second. Every judgement that a pump and a PID controller exist to make on your behalf, you make instead: when to pull, how fast, how hard, and when to stop. The feedback arrives about twenty-five seconds later and it is unambiguous.
On the other hand, an automatic machine will give you a more consistent shot next Tuesday with no thought at all, and there is no shame in wanting that. This is simply the other choice, made on purpose.
Chrome and wood on a marble counter also happens to look precisely like the kind of café this shop is named for.
