I purchased this machine last year and we have been very happy with it. We are seriously coffee lovers and didn't mind paying a bit extra for a top quality machine, that was easy to use that would last us a long time - if these are your requirements then this is the machine for you. We have an office based home and often entertain clients and we've found this is a great machine to impress them with! This was our second Saeco purchase, we traded in the old model for an upgrade.
The big selling point is everything can be done with the touch of a button. You also don't get the mess that we've encountered with manual machines.
Here's how the process works: Choose your coffee size (small, medium, large buttons), choose your coffee strength (by a dial) and press a bottom. The machine grinds it's own beans, tamps and extracts the coffee and then dumps the used beans into a waste box. If you want milk touch another button and there's a nifty little gadget on the side that sucks up the milk and heats/froths it for you. For those of you who want to froth your own milk there is also a steamwand.
Most importantly - the product The coffee is fantastic, we experimented a bit to get a blend of beans we loved. You have to be careful with the grinder knob for the coffee beans (course to fine) as it needs to be set just right, but once you've got it you won't need to fiddle again. We found mark 4 is perfect. The automatic milk frother can sometimes create milk that's a bit airy, we often opt for the steam wand (like in the cafes) as again once you've perfected the art it produces a cappuccino just like the cafes. We were able to buy an attachment from our retailer, a little plastic tube/pipe that went over the steal milk wand. It makes it easier to froth and also easier to clean, because if you don't clean the steal wand straight after using it the milk bakes on unfortunately (we learnt the hard way!!)Other features I love
The computer screen - fantastic if anything is wrong a message flashes up telling you what to do. It also lets you know what function you've pressed ie small coffee.
Controllable menu - for those who want to get serious there's a menu that you can go into to fiddle with and change features ie programme machine to turn itself on and off at certain times of the day, temperature of the coffee, power saving function, and a few more we haven't explored yet!
The water tank and coffee bean holder are quite large so you don't have to refill that often
Machine is on a swivel base, great to get behind it and clean
The kids can use it (breakfast in bed on the weekends!)
Cup heater on the top of the machine - heats up to be quite hot so don't accidentally rest against it.
Clean Up As mentioned the machine dumps the ground coffees into a little box, when it's full a message flashes. There's a little tray that catches drips than can also be emptied. There's a tank on the back for water and one for whole coffee beans - a message also flashes to tell you to empty these.On going Maintenance Every few months a message pops up on the screen telling you to 'decalcify'. There's a solution you buy from retailers that you put in the water. You then set the machine up and it rinses it through. Apparently this is to clean out the pipes and ensure there is no limescale build up.
Technical Specs: Dimensions w*h*d 390x395x455mm Weight 15 kg Power Supply 230/120v Water tank 2.4 litre capacity Coffee Container 300g Dumps Box Capacity 30 Grounds Boiler Stainless Steel Pump Pressure 15 Bar Power 2300watts Colour silver/ charcoal
Unfortunately I can't quote a price as I bought my machine overseas, however do a search and you will come up with many options.
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