DeLonghi Eletta Plus Fully Automatic Bean to Cup Coffee Machine, Cappuccino, Espresso Coffee Maker, ECAM 44.620.S, Stainless Steel & Black

This review is for the De'Longhi ECAM44.660.B Eletta Bean to Cup Coffee Machine, 1450 W - BlackBenefits of this machine- very easy to use and saves a lot of time with one touch for most popular drinks- ability to customise drinks to suit your taste- automatic frother works very well and has several settings for the different drinks- felt uneasy using pods environmentally and this machine grinds beans fresh- we use the milk from this machine to make hot chocolate for our toddler as we feel safe it will not be too hot for her- we do use this to make tea. Saves boiling the kettle and you can have hot milk too- love seeing the different layers of the drink through the coffee mugPoints to note- check the dimensions- we have not yet had the joy of performing maintenance on this. But these machines will require regular filters, decalc and cleaning- grinders are never going to be silentTips- Lavazza coffee beans can be had relatively cheaper from Costco if you are a member- Branded coffee cups can be very expensive. We have found the IKEA 365+ clear mugs a very suitable alternative. They do 2 sizes and we have found the smaller ones are a good size for the Cappucino and the larger ones for Lattes and the flat white coffees.- Using a small tub under the "taps" when running a clean on the milk caraffe and when powering off the machine, means the drip tray has to be pulled out much less frequently- Placing your coffee cup under the machine when it's turned on means it can get hot with the rinse.- We always run a clean on the caraffe if it's come fresh out of the fridge just to help pre-warm it- I have attached an image we have printed and laminated showing the different drinks that can be made. This is much easier to show to guests when they are deciding which drink they would like.- The image also includes the different froth settings for the different drinks so will save you having to pull out the manualWe are relatively newbies to the world of coffee coming from a cultural background of tea drinkers. However we had recently been frequenting more and more Costa and then used the Aeropress with a separate frother at home. We have now moved onto this splendid device and now on average I will have at least 2 coffees a day from this machine (Cappucino in the morning and Flat White later in the day) and then the family have adhoc lattes throughout the day.As always, if you find this review helpful please make sure to let me know. Knowing you've found it helpful motivates me to do more such reviews.

The good:Looks futuristic. Works well. No trouble encountered yet. Good milk-base coffee options.Cleaning and maintenance is easy as the swiss brand but the advantage with De'longHi is the removable brewing group and it's cleaver (common feature of other brands).The taste: for french roast whole beans (starbucks)To be honest I haven't tinker the other settings but temperature I set is Level 1 out of 4. For the whole bean coffee at grinding coarse level at 7 out of 7 (most coarse). The 2 cup extra mild, extra long coffee setting has a bitter after taste (most diluted I guess). (ALL coffee-only settings have a bitter after taste characteristics). To reduce the bitter after taste, I stop the process before 70% by tapping any button/touch pad or removing the cup and or add milk later.The Bad:Too sensitive touch panel that I frequently cancel the intended drinks.I have a second hand Jü2@, a Swiss made B2C and since I already clean inside of it, I am fairly familiar with some of the materials.For me the 1st thing I notice is that the plastic from the brew group of Jü2@ is made from POM. While I haven't notice any indication of what kind of plastic that was use in the De'longHi Eletta, the bad for me is that the moldings of the plastic is not that good as the swiss brand looks like, and I do not know the plastic that was use in it but i hope its food safe, heat stable, my main concern is that I hope it doesn't leach any plastic chemicals to the coffee. This is my only limit and my view.FYIThe Swiss brand I use doesn't have that bitter after taste, I do not know but my theory is that the italians and the swiss have different taste for coffee. Maybe? But I am confident that there are differences in the process of the both machines, for example De'longhi process grinds the coffee then, extracts the coffee all the way to the cup for a certain time, and done, compared to Jü2@, it grinds the coffee, extracts the coffee for a certain time, diverts the final water to another valve to its catch basin.This Jü2@ unit is capresso E7 is set to strong aroma, grinding coarse level at 4 of 6. High Temperature. The coffee cup and aroma is Espresso Strong. I hope that someone notice it too or maybe my olfactory and gustatory memory is at fault.Lets go back to Eletta, its a great buy for us, the design appears well constructed and functions very smoothly, cleaning and maintenance is a breeze. Hoping that it will last like the Jü2@ at 17 years or almost 20,000 cups. Just remove the cup before 70% for a swiss coffee taste if you prefer.Again 5-star for me our 1st new machine. I rate flawless despite