Crem Coffee Machines Explained: Who They Are, What They Make

Crem is an espresso machine manufacturer whose ONE range sits between prosumer kit and full commercial hardware: PID temperature control as standard, dual boiler builds, and a price that starts around 1554.00 pounds ex VAT. It suits small cafés, offices with someone who cares about coffee, and serious home users who have outgrown a domestic machine. Below is what the range covers, what the model codes mean, and how to work out which one fits your site.

What is Crem, and what do they actually make

Crem build traditional espresso machines. Not capsule machines, not bean-to-cup: manual, portafilter-based machines where a barista grinds, doses, tamps and pulls the shot.

The engineering focus is on what affects the cup rather than on gadgetry: stable brew temperature, a boiler system that recovers quickly, and group heads built to work hard all day. That puts them in the traditional espresso machine category, alongside the other manual brands we supply.

The short answer

Crem coffee machines are traditional espresso machines with PID temperature control built in as standard. The current ONE range runs from a single machine at 1554.00 pounds ex VAT up to the R-LFPP variant at 2394.00 pounds ex VAT, with the difference coming down to boiler configuration and the group and portafilter setup fitted. They take ground coffee via a portafilter, so you will also need a grinder.

The Crem ONE range, model by model

Four models make up the range we stock. The naming looks cryptic until you realise it describes two things: the boiler arrangement, and which group and portafilter configuration the machine leaves the factory with.

The gap between the 1B and the 2B is 240.00 pounds ex VAT. The gap between the standard 2B and the R-LFPP is 600.00 pounds ex VAT, which tells you most of what you need to know: the R models are the specialist end of the range, and you are paying for the group and portafilter configuration rather than extra capacity. If you are buying for a business, work out your drinks-per-hour requirement first and pick the boiler configuration to match. Buying more control than your team will use is money spent on a feature nobody touches.

PID control, and why Crem builds it in as standard

PID stands for proportional-integral-derivative, a controller that holds brew water at a set temperature instead of letting it swing above and below a target. Older machines used a simple pressurestat, and the temperature drifted through a cycle, so two shots pulled ninety seconds apart could taste noticeably different.

A two-degree swing in brew temperature is enough to move a shot from balanced to sour, or from sweet to bitter and dry. That matters more with lighter roasts and single origins, where the window is narrower. In practice, PID gives you shots that taste the same at 8am and 2pm, a brew temperature you can set deliberately for a given coffee, faster recovery between back-to-back shots, and a shorter training curve for new staff because one fewer variable is moving.

GSP and LFPP portafilters, what the letters mean

GSP and LFPP are Crem’s designations for the group and portafilter configuration fitted to the machine, with the R prefix marking the specialist builds within the ONE range. The base 2B gives a conventional group and a standard portafilter, which is what most cafés want. The R-GSP and R-LFPP variants change how water is delivered into the puck, which is of interest if you are working with light roasts, competition-style recipes or a rotating single origin.

Rather than guess from initials, tell us what you are brewing and we will confirm the exact specification of each variant against it before you commit. Getting a 600 pound ex VAT upgrade wrong is an expensive way to learn the difference.

Who a Crem machine suits

A single group machine suits sites doing modest volume with one person on bar: a small independent, a deli counter, a hotel breakfast service, or an office kitchen where twenty people want proper coffee. One group means one barista working one portafilter, so throughput is capped by the person, not the machine.

Two group machines earn their place when you have a queue. A second group lets one barista run a shot while extracting another, or lets two people work the bar during a rush. As a rough guide: under about 50 drinks a day, steady across the day, one group is usually plenty. Peaks with five or more people waiting at once, or a table service restaurant with a concentrated after-dinner rush, call for two groups. Office kitchens usually manage fine with one, unless everyone breaks at 11am.

Whichever you choose, budget for a grinder. A good machine paired with a poor grinder is a waste of a good machine, and our commercial grinder range covers most bar layouts.

Water quality and keeping a Crem machine running well

Scale is what kills espresso machines in this country. Hard water lays limescale down on boiler elements and inside the heat path, and once it is there, thermal performance drops and repairs get expensive.

Fit filtration from day one. It is not optional in most of the South East, and skipping it can affect your warranty position with any manufacturer. Test your incoming water hardness before choosing a cartridge specification, size the filter to your volume rather than changing it every six weeks, log change dates somewhere visible, and backflush the groups daily rather than descaling only when the machine complains. Our machine filtration range covers the common cartridge and head systems.

Buying a Crem machine through ADS

All four ONE models are in stock and priced ex VAT on the product pages. Orders over 69 pounds ex VAT ship free to mainland UK on a next working day service, and anything placed before 4:30pm Monday to Friday is dispatched the same day via DPD.

For machines, we would rather have a conversation first. Water supply, bench depth, power, drainage and what grinder you are pairing it with all change the recommendation, and five minutes on the phone saves a return.

We have been supplying and installing coffee equipment since 1993 from our base in Eastbourne, and we still answer the phone ourselves. If you are choosing between the 1B and a 2B, or wondering whether the R variants justify the step up, tell us what you serve and how much of it.

Not sure which Crem model fits your site? Send us your volumes, your water supply and your bench space, and we will tell you which machine to buy and which one to skip. Make an enquiry