Jura J8 Twin review: an exceptional coffee maker for the most demanding caffeine aficionados

The Jura J8 Twin is a fully automatic bean to cup coffee machine, and as its name suggests, it's two coffee machines in one. It has two independent conical grinders, enabling you to make two kinds of coffee without having to clean out and refill the hopper first, and you can use the grinders separately or combine them to create your own custom blends.

The Jura J8 Twin is beautifully made, very easy to use and creates consistently wonderful coffee, and the addition of a sweet foam feature expands its portfolio, albeit by adding a bit of fiddliness. It's quick to warm up, quiet in operation and easy to clean, and it'll make you smile every time you use it.

The downside to all of this is the price tag. The J8 Twin isn't Jura's most expensive coffee maker, but it's still a lot of money. If you're able to afford it, then it'll delight you daily. But if you have a more modest budget, Jura makes some excellent coffee machines that are considerably more affordable. 

Jura J8 Twin review: price and availability

The Jura J8 Twin is £2,100 in the UK and went on sale in April 2024. It's not currently available in the US (although some importers are offering it with a hefty mark-up on the price) but according to Redditors, as of May 2024 the company was advising would-be US buyers that it will be available in the fall of 2024.

Jura J8 Twin review: features

What the J8 Twin offers most of all is flexibility: it offers 31 different kinds of coffee to begin with, and you can then customise and save everything from the temperature to the blends from those two grinders. Each grinder has its own adjustable grinding settings and you can use them independently or mix them together in whatever proportion you prefer.

In addition to twin grinders, the USP here is the sweet foam attachment. This enables you to add flavoured syrup such as vanilla, caramel or peppermint to the milk frother, which the J8 Twin then blends with the frothed milk to produce a shot of sweet foam for an even more luxurious drink.

Everything is controlled via the wide, full colour touchscreen display, which is completely beginner-friendly but which also has plenty of customization for power users. Moving between the different menu screens is fast and responsive, and you can store specific coffees as favorites for even quicker access. There’s also a smartphone app (and Apple Watch app) that you can use to adjust settings and monitor the status of your drinks, although it does seem rather unnecessary when the touchscreen control is so good.

There are luxury touches throughout such as automatic aroma monitoring to optimise each brew, progress reports on the display, subtle but attractive and useful cup illumination and the clever Coffee Eye, which can detect where your cup is to ensure it's in the right place for the coffee you're making and prevent misplaced mug messes.

Jura J8 Twin review: design

The Jura J8 Twin was the recipient of an IF Design Award in 2024, awarded by the international design organisation iF International Forum Design GmbH. It's a good-looking thing that looks smaller than it actually is. Its very reflective high gloss finish makes it a bit of a fingerprint magnet, however, so this isn't a device you'll want to place near anything that sprays or splatters. 

Everything you touch feels reassuringly solid and precise. The water tank has a satisfyingly solid hinge that reveals a hidden handle for easy lifting, and the power button feels like the starter button on a performance car. On top there are the twin bean hoppers, together with their accompanying grinding setting dials; they're deceptively small-looking despite their twin 180g capacities. On the front there's the triple-panel, full colour 6.7-inch touchscreen, the coffee spouts and the milk frother spout above a spacious chromed drip tray. Both the coffee spout and milk spout are adjustable between 65 and 111mm, and they move together. 

For milky coffees there's no built-in or plug-in milk reservoir. Instead you run the supplied thin pipe into a separate milk container or jug. The milk outlet is also a coffee outlet, so you can make your frothed and sweet drinks from a single spout.

The sweet foam attachment is also separate. That adds an inevitable fiddliness to the process: in order to use syrup you need to remove a small cylinder from the lower part of the milk frother and clip the filled syrup container in its place, putting the bit you've removed somewhere safe so you won't lose it. The results are worth the slight extra effort.

Like other Jura coffee makers the J8 Twin is easy to assemble and very easy to clean. In addition to its own self-cleaning system for the milk frother its ground coffee bin, surrounding parts and drip tray are simple to remove and don’t have any awkward places for gunk to build up. The discs of used-up ground coffee are less densely packed than with some other machines, which means they’re less likely to cling tenaciously to their container when you’re emptying it. 

To clean the brewing unit and internal pipes Jura recommends using its cleaning tablets when prompted by the unit. The tablets are £11.95 for six.

The J8 Twin is designed to work with Jura’s Claris Smart+ water filters, which are optional but highly recommended: the machine automatically detects and rinses them and then enables you to set the water hardness level for best results. This means that descaling, a regular and frequent chore for many coffee makers, is required much less frequently. The water filters are currently £44.95 for a three-pack and each filter should last two months unless you’re making daily coffees for an army.

Jura J8 Twin review: performance

The Jura J8 Twin is exceptionally fast to warm up: from a cold morning start it's good to go after just 45 seconds; a single espresso is ready after 30 seconds. Even more complex coffees are delivered quickly, and the informative screens show you exactly where in the process you are and, in the case of milky coffees, how many more seconds it'll be before your coffee is ready. It'll also recommend the grinder settings for each kind of coffee and warn you if the hoppers are getting low or if the water tank needs topped up.

Of course, it doesn't matter how clever a coffee maker is or how fast it is to start up if the coffee isn't good. But the coffee that the Jura J8 Twin makes is exceptional. We tried a variety of different beans and found that the results were consistently excellent both in terms of taste and temperature: espresso had the perfect rich crema, lattes were suitably luxe and the sweet foam options resulted in a lot of smiling faces. This is as good as coffee gets.

The presence of two distinct grinders opens up lots of useful options, from full-strength coffee in the morning and decaf in the afternoon to having a choice of, or a mix of, two different roasts to explore more coffee options. It's overkill for the average coffee drinker, we’re sure. But if you're the kind of person who likes to experiment on a Sunday morning or delight your dinner guests it's a lot of fun.

Jura J8 Twin review: value

There's no doubt that this is one of the more expensive coffee makers you can buy: our current best buy coffee maker is almost 50% cheaper than the Jura. But throughout my time with the Jura J8 Twin I was reminded of German luxury cars: while it's made from the same basic materials as lesser coffee makers there's a solidity and tactility to it, a level of precision and thoughtfulness that you don't get lower down the price scale. It's going to be beyond the budget of many would-be buyers but for those who can afford it, it's a sensational coffee maker of almost infinite talents.

Jura J8 Twin review: verdict

If you like a bit of sweetness to your drinks, the Jura J8 Twin produces superbly tasty sweet foam that expands its already impressive coffee selection. There are 31 different coffees here, and that's before you start customising the temperatures and grind strength. You can also mix beans from both grinders to create your own blends.

This is the Mercedes S-Class of fully automatic coffee machines, packed with technology, built to very high standards and with a price tag to match. That means it's as much a statement piece as it is an everyday coffee maker.

The big selling point here is the Jura's wide range of options. While that doesn't make the J8 Twin any more complicated to use than other coffee makers – it's very easy to use no matter what you're making – all those options are overkill if you just want morning rocket fuel.

Despite the clever design the presence of not one but two dedicated grinders means this machine is a little bigger than other Juras and many rivals. It's a very good coffee machine. But there are lots of very good coffee machines that'll cost you considerably less cash.

Jura J8 Twin review: alternatives to consider

At £895, the Jura E6 is a considerably more affordable option from the same company. The Jura E6 is particularly good for black coffees, espresso and cappuccino. The display here is smaller at 2.8 inches but it's just as easy to use, and while there's no sweet foam option or second grinder neither of those are likely to be deal-breakers. 

For a different brand, the Sage Barista Touch Impress  at £1,199 is still in premium territory but this is the company's most advanced premium coffee maker to date, delivering great coffee with a footprint that's smaller than its even more premium machines. It's an excellent all-rounder.

If you're looking for a fully automated coffee maker that won't break the bank, we were very impressed by the Dinamica Plus ECAM370 and its £799 price tag. It's a fully automatic bean-to-cup coffee machine that produces barista-style coffees at the touch of a button or via the app, and while it takes a bit of experimenting to get the perfect drinks it's worth the effort.