WPM Primus espresso machine: Smart, powerful, ridiculously good!

Singapore’s appetite for specialty coffee has become somewhat insatiable. Self-proclaimed home baristas (guilty!) are on the rise, a new home-based cafe seems to pop up every week, and in just 3 years since I reviewed the Delonghi La Specialista Prestigio, consumer espresso machines have become almost unrecognisable.

I see an industry mirroring the automobile scene where fast-evolving Chinese brands introduce newer technologies at a lower cost to push the boundaries of features and performance, while traditional European heavyweights seem to be slow or reluctant to respond.

Hong Kong-based WPM is actually no stranger to the scene; their milk pitchers are prized by champion baristas worldwide. In fact, walk into any specialty cafe in the world, and you’d likely find at least one barista that swears by their WPM pitcher. Lesser-known outside of Hong Kong are their espresso machines.

Their latest model, the WPM Primus redefines what home espresso is capable of with a clean, minimalist design and prosumer-class features such as an advanced gear pump, real-time pressure profiling, hybrid heating design, simultaneous brew and steam, plus the ability to be plumbed - a combination previously unheard of in this price range. The asking price? S$2,299. That’s insanely good value.

In fact, the pre-order promo still seems to be ongoing at the time of writing. You can still put up a S$200 (non-refundable) pre-order deposit to secure a special price of just S$1,850.

To put this in context, a popular espresso machine capable of digital pressure profiling, the Decent DE1 has a starting price of US$3,699, and the only consumer-purchasable espresso machine I know of that used to come with a gear pump (“used to”, because I believe the newer models no longer do) is Slayer Espresso. You won’t even get a price on their website; it just leads you to a “contact us” page, but I can tell you to ballpark around S$15,000.