Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

WARNING- This review is in depth. If you prefer a short summary, see section marked THE BOTTOM LINE --------------------------------------------------- You have no idea what the advent of this machine meant to this coffee crazed family. Daily from the time it was ordered, someone would check at the door to see if it was here yet. The poor bedraggled UPS guy who was struggling to drag it up to our house was almost scared out of his wits when the door burst open to a shriek of "IT'S HERE" He kind of ran down the driveway while waving in the air. SO THEN WHAT HAPPENED? I could not wait to surprise my husband who was not home yet and set up the espresso machine. I carefully checked everything and ran it through its initial set up procedures so it would be ready to serve us when he came home. After all, I had studied all of the videos and online manuals until it got here. I was stoked. My husband walked in the door and I proudly pointed to the machine like Vanna White from Wheel of Fortune. His face lit up and over we went to the coffee machine to try our first cup. I went first. I held out my cup after selecting Americano. To my shock, the cup was filled with- WATER. i checked everything to be sure it was just so. All of the intro stuff had already been done. I did not understand. Then my husband held out his cup for Americano. He got beautiful thick rich coffee. Very irritated, I dumped my cup out and tried again. This time espresso. It came out- colored water. My husband tried again. Thick rich beautiful espresso. This scenario repeated itself and I even tried FIVE TIMES IN A ROW TO FILL UP A HUGE CUP and gave it to him to taste. His comment? "Tastes like water" "OH SHUT UP" I shouted. I was trying not to cry. My coffee machine hated me. Only me. Everyone else it gave great coffee to. Me? I got WATER. WHAT IS THIS BRATTY MACHINE LIKE? HOW MUCH SPACE DOES IT TAKE? This machine has a large footprint. It is much larger than the dimensions that I had found online. To house this machine, you will need to have a depth into the counter or table top of 16 and a half inches- NOTHING LESS. For the height, you need to have at least 17 inches because you will have to remove the top of the bean hopper. The unit itself is 14 1/2 inches high. This coffee machine needs at least 9 inches of width but I would go with 11 inches so you have room on each side of it. FRONT PANEL The front panel of this machine has little lights for each choice of drink that you make. The settings you see are for BEANS IN THE MACHINE THAT WILL BE GROUND BY THE MACHINE ESPRESSO 1 or 2X AMERICANO 1 or 2X (Espresso first with 3x water added to it or so) COFFEE 1 or 2x ESPRESSO LUNGO 1 or 2X (double the water, more caffeine extracted, less flavor notes tasted) If you want 2x the size, then you press the button twice and the light will go to 2x. The machine will do the cycle 2 times- grind, push coffee through, empty coffee, grind more coffee, make one more load, etc. till you get a double. BEAN CONCENTRATION If you like your coffee richer, press this until there are three dots. If you like it weaker, then press til you only see one dot. CUP LEVEL For a slightly fuller cup, press this to three, and for the least go down to one. Two, of course is just right - sorry, I am getting punchy with that Goldilocks/Mama Bear quote there. TEMPERATURE The temperature of this can be put down or up slightly. We have found that the beans are least bitter when on the lowest setting which is 1 light vs 2 or 3. WHAT ABOUT IF YOU USE PRE-GROUND COFFEE? Here is where it gets a bit tricky. You are supposed to be able to bypass the beans in the machine to use a different bean of your choice, pre-ground. There is a hatch on the top which allows you to fill up the measuring cup that comes with the coffee maker and then put it in the chute. The key is that you can only use the 1x setting and you will not have any choice over the bean quantity either. The key to using this feature is that you press down the grounds into the cup you measure with just like you would with an expresso hand machine that is not automatic. THEN you put it in the chute. You can still set the temperature and the cup level too. HOT WATER/STEAM WAND There is a hot water spout which is also used for steam. This means you can use it for steaming coffee, cream, etc, or you can use it if you prefer instant coffee or a tea bag and need hot water. It points a bit out from the machine and you have to constantly make sure it is not pointing too far forward or you will be wearing the water. Ask me how I know.. remember, this machine was determined I need water and shot water at me first few times I tried to have tea too. Also, this is pretty easy to tilt to the side for foaming up cream. It works BEAUTIFULLY, well when you are not me, anyway. WATER RESERVOIR HERE is where we get a bit frustrating. This is a really small water reservoir compared to the almost 2 liter quantity of the last one we had. This is only about a liter or so once you have the filter in there which displaces the water further. You can use your own tap water with this. We have set it for very high level calcium which we have, but we also use a percentage of distilled water with the tap water to ease up the load just a bit. HOW TO SET UP FOR TAP WATER There is a testing strip that comes with this. Put your water in a glass, dip it and then leave it for a few minutes to sit out of the water. That will tell you how to set the machine for the degree of hardness your water has. It is a one time setting. FILTER The filter in this is easy to set up. It comes with 1 filter, but my advice is to buy ahead one so you are never without it when it chooses to "go". It sits in the valve for dispensing of water opening to filter the water so that the machine does not have to be de-scaled as often. It does make for nice tasting coffee. Well, if the maker chooses to favor YOU- and you are not ME, anyway. QUALITY OF DRINKS. Well, judging from the cups of coffee and espresso that everyone ELSE got, The espresso is very strong, the Americano is just about right. The Lungo is too buzzy for us, and the coffee tastes like water. Of course, if you are me, they ALL taste like water, but more on that later. FREAKY MACHINE HABIT (OTHER THAN SHOVING WATER AT ME) The first time we turned this on, we kind of freaked out. It sprays water. Then when you turn it off, or it turns off after about 10 or 15 minutes, it sprays water again. My husband is thrilled. He feels that this water warms up his cup so he anxiously awaits his hot water in his cup when first turning on the machine. Well, whoopie for him. He could just pretend he was me and get water any time he wanted. I should make him a ME mask. WHAT IF IT RUNS DRY? Yes, leave it to my husband. Maybe because the machine likes him, he is not trying to placate it, but he ran the maker dry. Yes, I was HORRIFIED. After a lecture which he most certainly blocked out of his hearing, I had to re-water the machine which took some times, but it worked through its process a few times and then was ready to go again. I could hardly wait for my next cup of colored water. WARNINGS You will have to plan to do a few things. DAILY Empty the drain tray- it just isn't worth waiting. With the water cleaning process, it fills up fast Empty the coffee grounds container. This does not use a lot, but it builds up fast MAKE SURE WATER RESERVOIR IS FULL. WEEKLY Pull out the mechanism on the side and rinse out and let air dry before reinserting. EVERY FEW MONTHS Plan on replacing the filter Plan to descale if you have high calcium water content Plan on using coffee oil tablets especially if you use oily coffee beans. OKAY SO DOES THIS MACHINE REALLY HAVE FACIAL RECOGNITION? Of course, only the manufacturer knows for sure, but I had a peace summit with my machine. I told it how left out I was when everyone got coffee but me, and how would that make it feel and suddenly it gave me coffee.. ..And if you believe that one, I have a bridge I can sell you.. I finally figured out a few things.. I was using pre-ground coffee since I use decaf or sometimes want different beans. The coffee for this machine has to be ground a lot finer than it did with my previous espresso machines. That was part of the problem. I have to do it around 3 on our grinder. Usually we had to go 5 or even 6 to get our other espresso maker working well. The other thing is that when putting the coffee in the ground spot, I have to pack the measuring cup full and tamp it with a tiny flat bottomed scoop and then get the level just heaping. That is equivalent to using the 3 bean setting if I had the ability to choose that which with pre-ground coffee you do not. Finely ground coffee is fluffy. It needs to be compacted a bit for better performance. Doing these two things has helped a lot. I find that I actually prefer the coffee which is ground in the machine to pre-ground coffee, but the difference is not that great anymore. DOES THIS MACHINE NEED TO BE BROKEN IN? I have read some places that this machine needs to be "broken in". I will say that is true. As you well know by now, I really was getting water instead of coffee, and my husband and kids (well the older ones) were getting either very strong or mediocre coffee the first few days we used it. The more we have used this, the more that the machine has calibrated itself and made a truly good cup of espresso or Americano. One of my kids- a daughter - loves the Lungo setting, but she would. She loves caffeine. Even I am getting a very good cup of coffee when using the pre-ground flap. When the beans run out, I plan to try my own beans. Maybe then HE will get water. I doubt it. The machine likes him. THE BOTTOM LINE This machine is a bit of a learning curve at first, and you might have some colored coffee experiences, but after it is used a while, it really does make wonderful coffee. As long as you have enough space on your counter or table, it will serve you well as long as you use it as intended. If you have any trouble, print out my review for tips and tricks if you like and know you are not alone. MY RATING I am giving this FIVE STARS. Why? Well, even though the machine was mean to me at first, we have made our peace and I am finding it is getting better and better as we use it.