Mine does too, so after use, I remove it and leave the portafilter resting on the machine base. After a while, so typically before the next brew, it has dried enough to make the old coffee removal from the portafilter easier.
Glad to see your extract is better timed. It’s all very tricky on timing to suit the machines, certainly not a plug and play!!!
I guess cafes need to run dozens, if not hundreds, of shots a day. Once they establish their process, and that’s typically biased to saving money, that’s when you find your home coffee tastes a million miles better than that from the local cafe.
Yeah, also the personal taste thing. Plus they probably do it much quicker because they already have their machines and grinders set to the beans.
Definitely a lot of variance in cafes. My wife laughs at me for swapping my order between long black and flat whites depending on the cafe. Often based on a snap judgement of a place I've never been before.
Time to get into the only "drink at home" principle. I have to admit, we have several friends and locals who often visit us, seemingly primarily for our coffee. Got a visitor coming tomorrow, they’ll get a taste of our new Deadly Sin blend. Won’t say anything, just ask about how they like our "new" coffee.
The same reason I go to the pub instead of drinking at home! Because that's where everyone else is drinking 😆
I guess for a cafe there's also the benefit of not having to cook. I don't often find anything in a cafe that I couldn't make better myself. And by better I mean more in line with my own tastes, which aren't necessarily objectively better.
I fully understand the social aspects of your comments. That said, your coffee made from your own machine will be a bit more personal and need to be as best as possible aligned to your personal taste.