title_body: How to make perfect coffee espresso?
upvoted_answer: Your basket has a size that suits a certain amount of coffee. This can range anywhere between 8-10g to 22g. Check if there are any indicators of this. Failing that, overfill the basket and then sweep your finger across the excess over the top and see how much coffee that is, that's a ballpark figure for how much the basket can comfortably take.
  
  You didn't mention if your machine uses a pressurised portafilter (the handle) or not. You can usually tell as it has a single hole at the bottom and is a little deeper than a standard portafilter. These tend to be more forgiving to mistakes in dosing and pressure.
  
  Learn to tamp your coffee evenly and consistently. There are plenty of videos online on how to do this.
  
  Try to figure out a recipe that works, using the weight of the coffee you put in, how much coffee comes out, and how long it takes for that coffee to come out. The standard recipe that is currently in trend is 18g in, 36g out (we use grams instead of ml for simplicity) in about 28 seconds. This is presuming a basket size of 18g though.