I’ve tried a few of Melitta’s machines before, especially the bean-to-cup ones and getting this out of the box for the first time, it’s certainly one of their larger machines in the range. Size-wise, it’s 259mm wide, 372 mm high and 467 mm deep, so it will still sit on your kitchen worktop with ease.
Working around the machine and starting at the front, we have a control panel at the top, various buttons and a small display to the left. Below that is the height-adjustable outlet, where the coffee & milk come out, and where you also plug the milk into, then the drip tray below that. The drip tray can be removed for easy cleaning, plus a small container sits within it to collect the coffee pucks that drop out after each coffee.
To the left-hand side, at the front is the power on/off button, then to the rear is the water tank, which can hold upto 1.8Litres of water. To the right-hand side is an access panel, which, once removed, shows the internal brewing unit for the machine, where part of the magic happens. There is also a setting behind the access panel for grind adjustment. The brewing unit can be removed, so you can clean inside the machine and the unit itself.
To the top, a cup tray to the front, for storing little espresso cups, then behind that a chute, behind a flap. Now this chute is for pre-ground coffee, so while this is a bean-to-cup machine, you can also use pre-ground coffee if you want to, and you can insert it down this chute. Behind that is the two-chamber coffee container, where you pour your beans into.
In terms of features and specs, this is a bean-to-cup machine, so it has a built-in grinder that will grind whatever beans you wish, ready to pull a shot, or make the coffee of your choosing. Melitta state the machine offers a pre-infusion, so the ground coffee is dampened briefly before the shot is pulled, helping with the flavour and extraction. There is a total of 21 coffee options, the classics we all expect, being espresso, cafe creme, cappuccino and latte macchiato, all available from their own touch buttons, but you can also select 17 other types from the menus. These include flat white, ristretto, americano and many more. If you want to dial in and get the perfect coffee, there are settings for brewing strength and grind fineness, as well as adjustments to temperature, quantity of liquid, coffee and milk and brewing profile.
Inside the machine, it has a conical steel burr grinder with 5 levels of settings, and the machine is advertised as quiet, but it’s not really that quiet in my opinion. Pump pressure at 15bar max. It can use upto 1500watts of power and retails at a cool £999 here in the UK.
I mentioned earlier about the two-compartment bean hopper, well, with this specific model, it can auto-select the beans to suit the coffee. For example, the left-hand side could be bean A, used for espresso, cappuccino and lattes, while the right-hand side could be for bean B, used for cafe creme. I guess it’s a handy feature if you feel you’d like two different types of beans for different coffees. For me, one tasty bean is good enough, but at least there are options for you.
There is app support, yes, you can download the Melitta connect app for free onto your phone and then use your phone to control the machine. Within the app, you can place your coffee order, and the machine will begin to dispense it, but make sure your milk and cup are already in place; otherwise, you’ll end up with a coffee in your drip tray. You can select one of the default coffees, then adjust it if you want. For example, with a cappuccino, adjust the coffee quantity and milk, as you can on the machine itself via the control panel. You can also go through the recipes, gaining access to the less common coffees, select them and adjust as well. There is a freestyle option, where you can create your own recipe, selecting either coffee, milk froth, hot milk or hot water. Do what you want, try things out, save something you like and then go back to that whenever you want. You can also adjust the machine settings via the app, water hardness, auto power off, time, temperature and bean selection.
The app works well, and I do find it easier to use the app, rather than the touch buttons on the machine sometimes, unless I’m just whipping up some default cappuccinos and then it’s just a touch of a button, but for everything else, especially settings, the app makes it so much easier. My only negative is that it’s Bluetooth, so you need to be nearby and you need to connect to it. I would have loved the machine to be network compatible, connect it to my home network via wifi, link with Alexa perhaps, control it via other devices, preset coffee orders for when I wake up for work etc. Maybe I’m lazy, but I could set the machine up the night before, in the morning, I jump out of the shower, get the machine to make a coffee, and once I’m dressed, it’s there downstairs waiting for me.
Set up is generally very simple; it’s pretty much plug and play. They recommend you throw away the first couple of drinks you make to get rid of the new machine’s plasticky taste. You can also set the hardness of your water, which is quite important in my opinion. Depending on the quality of water you get to your home, set either soft, medium, hard or very hard, then the machine will prompt you to descale it after a set number of uses i.e. very hard water will need to be descaled quite often to keep the machine well maintained. I’ve gone through too many coffee machines now with my hard water, so I use bottled water. You can use a water filter and which is provided in the box. This will help filter the water, but you’ll need to routinely change that filter out for a new one.
As mentioned before, there are various options and settings to fiddle with, with each recipe, and over time, you’ll get to know what suits you best. The coffee quantity dial outputs at 25ml, i.e espresso and goes upto 220ml, a cappuccino. This is the total quantity of drink, so coffee and milk. You can brew two beverages at the same time, or one big one, by pressing the times 2 button. Coffee or brewing strength, in 4 stages, say low, medium and high strength, which determines how strong your coffee comes ou,t and I generally stick in the middle with two beans. You can also select aroma strength as standard or intense, and brewing temp as low, normal or high, as noted in the manual, low being 85degrees Celsius, high being 95 degrees. Grind settings are available; the machine has been set up for an optimum grind, but you can fine-tune this if you want. However, they recommend not doing this until you’ve dispensed 100 coffees or more, assuming to give the grinder time to settle. If you want to change the grind settings, take the side panel off and you’ll find a slider to adjust.
Moving on to milk, you get a separate plastic container to keep your milk in. It has a lid with a straw at the bottom, and then the lid connects to the outlet at the front. For me, I’d fill it up with milk, keep it in the fridge and get it out as and when needed. This method is used often across Melitta machines, and I’ve had it before. It works a treat, the cold milk gets sucked up, passes through the machine and comes out hot and frothy. Frothy is the correct term; it’s hot, thick and airy. It is not silky and textured like you would get when steaming milk yourself.
In terms of performance, it pulls a very nice shot, nice crema and makes some hot frothy milk too. Taste is personal, and that depends on the beans you’re using, but with my favourite beans, I’m able to dial in a nice espresso and then if I want, top that up with frothy milk. The grind seems good, the pucks that come out are clean and not too soggy or too dry, so they extract well. The temperature on medium is more than warm enough for me. Quantity, you’ll have to fine-tune with the mugs or cups you use, but you’ll get used to that quickly. I cannot fit my travel mug under the outlet, so I’d have to make the drink in a jug or cup, and transfer, plus doubling up on quantity too, to fill my cup.
Cleaning the machine is somewhat automatic, and most of the time, it will do it itself. It will rinse through the machine, discharging water through the outlet into the drip tray. The machine will prompt you to descale and do a bit of a deeper clean, and when it does, head over to the instructions and follow those to keep the machine in tip-top condition.
Overall, it’s a very nice, easy-to-use coffee machine that anyone can use, and it makes good coffee. It’s tidy, looks good in my kitchen, I like the black finish, but it is a tad big and bigger than other machines from Melitta. The price of £999, is steep in my opinion, and although I did enjoy using the app, the CI Touch from Melitta is £300 cheaper. It doesn’t have app support, but the coffee delivered was pretty much the same. There are a few other perks to,o but if you’re looking for espressos and cappuccinos, maybe check out some of Melitta’s other machines and save a few quid.
For more info and to purchase, head over to the official Melitta webpage.
