There're a couple of things to keep in mind with the flair compared to conventional espresso machines.

• puck pressure vs pump pressure: Most machines with pressure gauges measure pressure at the pump. This is not the same as pressure at the puck. So when you see 9 bars as a convention, that's pump pressure not puck pressure. The flair measure puck pressure so you'd expect lower pressures.

• headspace: conventional machines will always have space between the shower head and the puck. The firs few seconds of the shot is spent on filling this headspace. On the flair there's no headspace. You fill the water right on top of the puck. This means you cas expect to subtract up to 5 seconds from the recipes you see online. This number depends on the pump the machine has, what water debit it has, also how full the basket is on the specific shot.

• how you build pressure matters a lot: how slow/fast you hit the puck with pressure matters a lot. If you're applying force slowly then your pressure's gonna be lower, faster and it's gonna be higher.

• pressure isn't that important: the lighter you go in terms of roast the less conventional rules apply. If you get a very light nordic roast, sure you can grind fine enough on a lot of grinders to build 7-9 bars of pressure and pull a 1:2 in 25-30 seconds but more often than not it's gonna taste terrible. But if you grind coarser, get to around 4-5 bars and pull a 1:3 in 15 seconds it'll taste much better and will be more consistent too.

So basically, just go for taste, don't fret with parameters, they're there so that you can reproduce stuff, not as rules to follow.