Not sure if at supermarket, but I like Lavazza in my 1200. I get on Amazon for around $22 for 2.2lbs.

Illy is good and can usually be bought at grocery store. Just more expensive and is a lighter roast if you like that. I like dark roast and find Lavazza to be the best for me.

From what i understood you can control individually how much coffee and then how much water to brew. So if you select more volume but not more coffee grinds then you will run more water through the same ammount of coffe grinds resulting in more watered down cup of esspresso. If you choose more coffee grounds and less volume then you will get a stronger cup. If you like more volume without watering down select the x2 feature that way you will get proportionally double the coffee ground and double the water. Hope i explained it well. If you search "philips 3200 vs delonghi" Gail does a great job explaining this feature there

@Chuck so what bean do you use??

@Chuck any suggetions from Starbucks or Peet?

Yes, try Lavazza. It is roasted in Italy. It is also a great price. I get a 2.2 lb bag for around $22 and I use it on my Phillips 1200 machine. Makes a great cup of bold rich coffee without any oil on the beans. How? I don’t know. It is Italian magic I suppose. I too love dark roast and despise this light roast 3rd wave coffee trend.

What happened to her?

There is a hole in the top part make sure that's not obstructed and its clean. Make sure you don't immerse the wand in all the way either cause that is how you get the foam through that hole

Tip for better frothing (more micro foam) - There is a tiny hole on the wand. I line it up directly with the black handle part and face it towards me while steaming. I’ll periodically place my finger over the hole for about 1/3 of the steaming time. When the hole is covered less air is getting in and thus reduces the foam creation. It will still heat the milk while covered, just with less foam creation. I don’t have it down to a science, but sometimes I will get perfect micro foam that has that “paint” look. I’m not good at doing art, so can’t say with certainty, but I do know what perfect micro foam to do latte art looks like. At the very least I almost always manage getting delicious latte foam that’s not too foamy.

how much was the sale price since it's normally 399?

228 in the Netherlands on black Friday