Despite the truth of the title, I’m not going to spend any time bashing this product, for two, make that three, reasons. First, the myPressi company was kind enough to send a test version where the competing company (Handpresso) was not. Second, when I had problems with the unit, the PR firm picked up the phone right away and answered all my questions and thanked me for my input. And third…well, if you can get it to work, this is probably just the thing you’re looking for.

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The myPressi TWIST (http://mypressi.com/) is a hand-held portable espresso maker. It uses CO2 cartridges (included) to generate pressure, and hot water (not included) to

The TWIST in action.

steam the espresso. Screw the back off the handle and that’s where the CO2 goes, unscrew the upper hemisphere of the body, that’s where the espresso goes, unscrew the lid on the top, that’s where the water goes. Pull the trigger. That’s it. When you get it to work.

I’m going to suppose the TWIST (caps theirs) requires a good deal of practice to get working. Assuming you haven’t used it as a murder weapon–it’s actually quite heavy for its size, speaking to a good quality, well-made product–it takes some time to get everything set up right, despite the general lack of moving parts. Basically, you’d think things were obvious, but they were not.

I wanted an espresso maker for my home that wouldn’t take up any space, so I had great hopes for the TWIST. In fact, my hopes were so great, I asked the owner of a local store to try the unit, as well. This is what she wrote:

“The quality of the equipment looks good but I found it hard to use because it was hard to grip when trying to screw the various components in their appropriate position.

In following the directions, everything seemed to be fairly easy to follow. We tried the product twice because the first time didn’t seem to produce enough espresso and the second time we actually got nothing (not a drop) even though we did everything the same as the first time. Literally…nothing came out. The espresso that came out of the hand held machine from our first try was awful tasting. I mean…disgusting.

Therefore, maybe the advantage would be for a camping trip situation but not for everyday use. But I am not sure if this product can provide quality results since we weren’t able to make that happen.”

When I tried it, I worked with a barista, and we needed a few tries to get it working, too, though our results were not disgusting.

So, what can I tell you? If you’re going camping and want espresso-y goodness near at hand, the TWIST is probably just the thing. As soon as they make the directions more clear.

Thanks to the good people at http://atworkdesign.com/ for testing the unit.

PS Is it just me, or does the TWIST look like the Discovery from 2001?