While I have been able to achieve the dosage of dry ground coffee and coffee to water ratio for brewing what I believed at the time to be the best espresso-based cafe latte I ever had using my Casabrews espresso coffee machine, I must admit it had taken more practise runs than I care to remember having to rely on a measuring tbsp and programming the machine's 1-cup, 2-cup volume water control buttons in an effort to determine the best coffee to water ratio to serve my needs for making a cafe latte without the use of a coffee scale. While this methodology may have worked for a time, it eventually became a PITA given a tbsp of dry ground coffee can vary in size—think level vs a heaping tbsp—in which case the preset water volume controls may end up dispensing too little/much water given a variation in amount of dry ground coffee added using a tbsp. This being the case, I elected to purchase a coffee scale to weigh the dry ground coffee and liquid espresso allowing me to achieve/verify the exact coffee to water ratio used in brewing an espresso for my cafe latte. In short, using a coffee scale provided consistency each and every time I brewed an espresso for my needs since once I was able to determine the correct amount of dry ground coffee in grams beforehand using the scale, I was then able to maintain a consistent coffee to water ratio using the scale in conjunction with the volume water controls. For example, if the amount of dry ground coffee added to the portafilter basket using the scale was 9 grams and I wanted to brew an espresso using a 1:2.5 coffee to water ratio, I would simply stop the brewing process once the liquid espresso weight reached 18 grams. This in turn would allow the resultant liquid espresso to achieve a weight of approximately 22-23 grams once the portafilter basket stopped dripping liquid espresso.