Melitta Caffeo Barista Coffee Machine Review

One of the most impressive bean to cup coffee machines on the market today, the Melitta Caffeo Barista!

When it comes to bean to cup coffee machines for your home there are several brands and options.Three of the most important considerations for most people is the quality of the coffee, price and aesthetics of the machine. The Melitta Caffeo Barista coffee machine is a premium bean to cup coffee machine and attracts a premium price tag. It is, however, feature rich and you can see why it can attract the price tag it does. It is a beautiful piece of kit that takes centre stage in your kitchen. Not only does the coffee it produces taste incredible, it gives you the option to create 21 different types of coffee straight from the box! All of which are fully customisable.

Features

So, what makes the Melitta Caffeo Barista so great? First of all, it’s touchscreen interface! Whilst this can initially seem like a gimmick, it allows for so many features and customisable options that through buttons would require a keyboard to control!

It has a simple to use easy interface which makes not only making your perfect coffee a breeze but also has the capacity to remember how your perfect coffee is made ready for next time. You can save different pre-sets for different people in your house so that they can approach the machine and have their perfect coffee in no time!

Whilst this isn’t unique to the Melitta Caffeo Barista one of the features we love is the ability to make more than one cup of coffee at once. This coupled with the speed of delivery of a cup of coffee mean that if you are making after-dinner coffee for your guests, you can all enjoy a hot cup together. This feature can also be used to make a double shot in coffee like espressos.

Customisation

The simple to use sliders allow you to choose the strength of your coffee and the size of your cup. You can set up the pre-select buttons on the front to allow you to have a more customised coffee than the pre-built in options.

Some of the cheaper bean to cup coffee machines whilst feature packed and great machines in their own right don’t have some of the higher end features. For example, with the Melitta Caffeo Barista, there is a twin bean store. The idea of this is you can store a darker bean for your espressos and a lighter bean for your latte.

You can select which bean you wish to use when you choose a coffee selection or set these as pre-determined options. If you don’t have more than one sort of bean you can make use of the two bean stores to double up on the amount of coffee available before you run out.

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Cleaning

When it comes to cleaning your Melitta Caffeo Barista it comes with cleaning programmes which are offered when you have dispensed a cup of coffee. This puts hot water and steam through the coffee machine to clean all of its pipes. We would recommend that once a week you do some manual cleaning of your Melitta Caffeo Barista coffee machine also. The drip tray has a grate on top that can be removed for cleaning, then the drip tray itself slides forward. There are two sections to the drip tray, the front visible part and the rear hidden part, next to the rear section there is the area for the use coffee grounds. This can be emptied and then cleaned.

The Melitta Caffeo Barista features a separate container for your milk, this can be attached to the left or right-hand side of the machine, dependant on your preference. The beauty of this separate milk dispenser is that it makes detaching and cleaning easy and simple. Along with the fact it can be kept in the fridge when not in use to keep your milk nice and cold and fresh.

Specifications

• 8 Litre water tank
• 1450w
• 15 bars of pressure
• Suitable for cups up to 5.5 inches
• Saves preferences for up to 8 people
• Up to 21 pre-set coffee options
• 5 intensities
• 3 temperatures
• LxDxH 10 x 18.7 x 14.7 inches.

Pressure

When looking at how many bars of pressure a coffee machine has, we are often led to believe that more is better. We say some of the budget machines offering 19 bars of pressure, etc. A coffee machine needs 9 bars of pressure to brew the perfect coffee. In order to achieve 9 bar of pressure, it needs 15 bars of pressure to get it up to pressure. Anything above 15 bars is just marketing hype.

Top features

• Adjustable cup height
• Removable left and right-sided milk dispenser
• LED cup illumination
• 21 pre-set coffee options
• Two bean stores

Positives

This Melitta Caffeo Barista is a fantastic bean to cup coffee machine that really looks the part in your kitchen. Not only will you be the envy of your friends, but also be able to offer them a coffee experience like no other. With a completely customisable beverage, they are in for a real treat. It even comes with water test strips so that you can test how hard your water is and then counter that with the coffee machine.

Negatives

There are a few negatives with the Melitta Caffeo Barista. First of all being that there is no steam arm. I’m quite a traditionalist and like steaming the jug of milk to pour into my coffee myself. Whilst the Melitta Caffeo Barista takes care of adding steamed milk itself I just like the manual feel to that.

The other negative that bugs me slightly is there is no integrated mug warmer. Whilst you can buy separate mug warmers, it would have been nice to integrate one into the top of the machine.

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Melitta Caffeo Barista Summary

All in all, the Melitta Caffeo Barista is a very impressive piece of kit. Sitting a few hundred pounds less than one thousand pounds is about right in my opinion. At its launch, it sat just over one thousand pounds. I think where it sits now, with its stunning aesthetics and amazing feature set, for the coffee lover this is the perfect kitchen accessory.

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If you like this review, why not check out the review of the Bosch Tassimo Vivy

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