15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Automated Coffee Too Good - Like a Dream
Date of Review: Sep 6, 2002
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this machine for anyone in the market for super-automatic espresso. We love our machine and have had no problems with it at all. Worth every penny!
Remember the days as a kid watching the Jetsons and wishing you had a house or robot maid which could do anything for you? Yeah, it's something like that for coffee.
I won't go on about the merits of this machine...others have done that before me and you can find plenty of accolades about it. Suffice it to say that with a little practice we're making lattes better than Starbucks and with only a couple of button pushes. Saves us lots of time (no more lines!) and lots of money.
The reason I am prompted to write this review is because I read another review titled "Automated Coffee Too Good To Be True." Bummer his experience was ruined! Ours has been terrific...we've owned the machine 1.5 years, even taken it with us on vacation and had NO problems whatsoever.
It asks us to run it through it's cleaning cycle about once every 2-3 months...and we brew at least 2-4 espressos per day; a pair in the morning and a pair in the afternoon is very common. During parties, we brew espressos like crazy and the thing does just fine. We've gone through 2 pounds of coffee in a week when on vacation with family (how many lattes is that?!? Scary.)
The cleaning cycle is not that difficult (keep that manual handy though!) and only runs once. The amount of coffee beans it uses is what you would expect - a normal espresso tamp of grinds. We have used every sort of coffee bean, from Starbucks beans to Millstone to Trader Joes to specially web-ordered import fancy beans, all with no problem. The oilier beans in the hopper sometimes need a little nudge towards the grinder once in a while, but other than that it seems quite happy with anything :-)
I don't argue that the fellow had problems, but it's the first complaint I've seen about these machines and maybe there is a good reason it happened, perhaps hard water? I highly recommend buying their water filters for the water reservoir - they work just like Britta filters do, just change it every couple of months. If you read the manual close, you find out that minerals and hard water can really hurt the machine, and can require a cleaning cycle which is quite intense and difficult if you choose not to use the filter. But with the filter in place, the cleaning cycle is simply a single tablet dropped in the machine and a 15 minute cycle and you're done. We've had to do this only about 6 times since we've owned it. Since the whole point is simplicity, spending a couple of extra dollars for the filter is worth it. As for a manual cleaning cycle, who wants it? The whole point is that it's *automatic*.
Not only that, the customer service seems like it's terrific...what appliance puts an 800 number on the front of the machine and says call anytime with any questions? They claim they can help you figure out anything (wonder if he called them?) and also can provide replacement parts if something breaks. However I can't speak too authoritatively about their customer service, as we've never had reason to call ;-)
I can't say enough about these machines...so I'll stop before you're bored to tears. If you love espresso and coffee, if you go to Starbucks every day, if you're busy like us and want a coffee as you run out the door...this is the machine to own.
