A definite time saver if you must make a number of coffees. great for capucinno/latte's, forget about it if you are an expresso afficaiando !
Positive Product Points
easy to use easy to clean nice crema and taste
Negative Product Points
water resevoir a bit small not hot enough round metal brew unit filter flimsy
Detailed Commentary
I have made about 100 coffees so far. In general i would say a good buy. my neighbour has a more expensive Jura e80. only 1 boiler on that one !.. not good if you like capucinno's. if you are an espresso professional drinker, stay away from an automatics, but its great for cappucinos. the double boiler is great. as soon at you draw the coffee, you can use the streamer. one reviewer says too long to get the steam.... baloney ! the water resevoir is small but i made about at least a dozen capucinno's before refilling the tank. many reviewer take offense of this.. ok.. in an office i understand, but at home you are probably making less than 12 cups a day anyway.. and you don't water sitting there in the machine for a long time anyway... keep a jug of distilled h20 near the machine... the main issue is temperature.. since the brew group is plastic , the coffee has alot of time to cool as it flows into your cup. you must pre-warm the cups for an espresso or for a capucinno, make sure you froth the milk to 160 degrees (or too hot to hold the milk jug) i am a cappucino lover and for this kind of drink, the machine does really well. to really apreciate this machine you must -->
use non-oily beans
use a strong coffee.
steam your milk till it gets hot.
for expresso's... heat your cups. it makes a big difference.
set a fine (3 or 4) grind
set doser to one notch under maximum.
if you use it for capuccino's ... use DISTILLED WATER... your machine will never need de-scaling. since you are diluting the coffee, the distilled water will probably not impact the taste. as everyone says, you pay for the convenience.. it ain't as good as my manual La Pavoni.. but i don't have to grind, tamp, clean...etc when i am making 4 cups for friends.
Buying Experience
excellent. dealer tweaked all the controls for the best draw.
Three Month Followup
Still going strong .... except.... The manual instructs you to remove the metal filter (on top of the brew unit) using the provided key to wash it on a weekly basis. I had done this about 10 times at which point the filter no longer screwed back tightly. Soon after .. in the process of working.. the filter popped out and it;s plastic connector broke. it was fixed and i decided to only partially unscrewed it.. well.. it again stopped being screwing in tightly and back to the shop.... LESSON.... do not remove the metal filter. just soak the entire unit in a container filled with a solution of coffee cleaning liguid, for a few hours... so much plastic for this price is nuts but this is the 21st century....
One Year Followup
Once i learned that you must not remove the metal filter to clean it ( removing it too often strains the plastic parts and poof !.. it breaks), the machine has been running flawlessly. Still makes a great cup of coffee for an automatic. I am up to 900 cups and the coffee is as good as the first day.
