Looking for an upgrade from that ageing Nespresso machine, currently taking up a small corner of your kitchen? Swiss manufacturer Jura makes proper bean-to-cup coffee machines, where you simply press a button and sweet tasting coffee is ground automatically and ends up in your favourite mug. However with this new one, it's really excelled itself.
Coffee is the world's favourite hot drink, and in recent years it's become one of the world's favourite cold drinks as well. That's thanks to the rise in popularity of cold-pressed coffee amidst the artisan barista community, and iced coffee, amongst the shopping-for-bargains-at-Argos community.
There's nothing wrong with Nespresso machines – or the various rival capsule systems in our best pod coffee machine top 10 – but for those who like barista quality brews from home, there really is only one route to go down and that’s investing in one of the best bean-to-cup coffee machines.
Being an enterprising fellow, I decided to get in touch with Swiss brand Jura – as used and endorsed by Ultimate Swiss Man, Roger Federer – to see if they had anything I could review. And luckily for me, it turned out they did: the Jura Z10.
- And to prove it, here is my full Jura Z10 review
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The Z10 boasts a world's first: a bean to cup coffee maker that also includes a cold extraction process. This turns out sweeter – and, obviously, colder – espressos than your traditional espresso machine. What comes out is cold but not icy cold. However, I found that by throwing in some cold milk and ice, I ended up with a perfectly agreeable iced coffee. Certainly a hell of a lot better than the watery muck you get from pouring hot coffee directly over ice.
There are a total of 30 speciality drinks that can be made using this cold brew method, which would be enough to last me a lifetime, if I decided to make the consumption of cold coffee a serious hobby.
Paying over 2 grand just to get cold coffee could seem like a bit of a waste of money, so I was pleased to find that the Jura Z10 also makes really excellent non-cold coffee. Its potent espressos look inviting and taste great. It's also a dab hand at the more camp-looking milk-based drinks. Milk foam and espresso shots are layered into a very attractive latte machiatto, and the Z10 can also do a mean cappuccino, but if you want something a little more artisan, such as a café au lait or flat white, the Z10 might not be your best choice for milk texturing.
It's hard to complain though. I for one would not want to spend 10 years learning how to texture milk the old fashioned way, with a whooshing steam gun. Particularly not when the Z10 can do it perfectly well at the press of a button.
In fact, I found that the Jura Z10 does most things well at the press of a button. When you consider the mixture of science, art and sweat that goes into making seriously good coffee via the traditional methods, you realise what an extremely accomplished bit of kit the Z10 is.
It grinds the beans, tamps them down, heats the water to just the right temperature and extracts just the right flavour every time, without the need for any skill whatsoever on your part. The results are not always perfect, but the core drinks – espresso, Americano, latte and cappuccino – are consistently excellent.
I found my mornings made that small but significant bit more pleasant, thanks to a rapid start-up time, humungous water reservoir and – by bean to cup standards – relatively minimal cleaning and maintenance requirements. All that it's missing is a few big buttons marked with things like 'DOUBLE ESPRESSO'; the touchscreen where you select from the umpteen beverages on offer is a bit too fiddly for bleary eyes.
With coffee bought from shops becoming an expensive habit, I can see myself reviewing more machines like this in the future…
Jura Z10: price and availability
The Jura Z10 is available in a number of on and offline outlets in the UK, with prices ranging from £2,145 to £2,245 depending on the colour and finish of the machine. It's currently not available to buy in the US but we found a few in Australia priced around AU$4,500.
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