Jura ENA 9 One Touch

Let me first state that I have only had this for two days and that this is my first espresso machine. I say this so readers will understand that this quick "review" is to point out a couple of details that may be overlooked when researching this machine, not as an indication of the quality of drink produced.I began doing research on home espresso machines several years ago after drinking coffee prepared by my dad on his Jura Cappresso E8. It was a revelation to drink such good quality coffee outside of a coffee shop. At the time my wife didn't care for coffee so it was only me drinking a single cup in the morning with breakfast so I was put off by the high prices and ended up buying a grind and brew automatic drip coffee maker by Cuisinart. I bought it "open box" at a kitchen store for a hundred bucks and I was pleased enough with it. Fast forward a few years and now my wife enjoys cappuccinos and lattes and drinks coffee with me daily, albeit with a lot of cream and sweetener. She also stops at the local coffee bar for a flavored cappuccino with some regularity. So I started looking into a quality espresso machine for the home again.I spent a lot of time educating myself on the various makers, such as Jura, DeLonghi, Gaggia, Saeco, etc. I knew that I wanted to get a superautomatic as we aren't purists, nor do we have the time usually to pull our own shots, froth our own milk, etc. At the end of the day, it came down to the various Jura Onetouch models, the Gaggia Accademia Espresso Machine, and the DeLonghi ESAM5500M Perfecta Digital Super-Automatic Espresso Machine, Metallic Blue. My research led me to have a little less confidence in the DeLonghi's reliability, although I liked their milking system. The Gaggia was just too much for me to spend on my first machine (or last for that matter more than likely). My dad has never had the first problem with his Jura and it's more than 5 years old and likely has not had much maintenance or cleaning I suspect so I feel it will hold up to the reasonably light use we will give a machine. The Jura-Capresso 13422 Impressa C9 One Touch Automatic Coffee-and-Espresso Center, Black and Jura-Capresso 13423 Impressa S9 One Touch Automatic Coffee-and-Espresso Center, Platinum are older models, larger and more expensive than the ENA series. So due to the features, the quality, and the fact that it was the least expensive, I decided to purchase this machine.Now, to the machine. The first thing I should point out is that it is a unique design for Jura. The other one touch machines work differently, which I didn't realize when I made my decision. The key point to this is that THERE IS NO EXTERNAL FROTHER. If you want to froth milk manually you can't do it. And it is not equipped with their Connect System either, which would allow you to change out the external wand with a frothing wand. The wand on the ENA9 is only a hot water spout. I would have preferred to have the option for manual frothing, both for experience and as a backup. The other nice thing about manual frothers as they are easier to clean. I mention this in case you, like me, didn't notice the lack of a frothing steam wand. The internal frother does microfroth, which is a pleasure. You can purchase a Capresso frothPRO for less than steam wand would cost if you really want to froth manually (but it's a different method of frothing.This machine is really designed to optimize the one touch functionality. It works best when you set your preferences and store them. The preferences you can store are water volume (up to 12 oz), strength of espresso, duration of milk froth and temperature. You set these for espresso, cappuccino and coffee individually. If you want more or less of any of these parameters I think you have to go in and change the preferences. I may be wrong about this as I'm still getting my preferences set but I haven't found a way of pulling a one off variety yet. Honestly, I pretty much want the same thing every time anyway so it's not that much of an issue.The one touch feature is nice. All you have to do is put the sialastic hose into your milk source, slip your cup under the nozzle and push the cappuccino button on top of the machine. A few minutes later, depending on your chosen froth duration, there is your cappuccino. Of course don't bother with the milk for coffee or espresso.There have been criticisms of the ENA series regarding the small capacity of the water tank and bean hopper. One of the compromises of having a smaller machine on your counter is that the capacities are smaller. My dad loves his large capacity water tank because he can drink coffee all day without refilling it. I personally like to have fresh water and beans so having to fill them up frequently doesn't bother me in the least, but as I stated, we are not high volume drinkers either.The last point I would make is that there is a fair amount of maintenance with this machine, IF YOU USE MILK. I don't think it is unique to this machine but is typical of the superautomatics in general. My dad only drinks espresso or coffee which is probably why he can get by without cleaning his often. You are supposed to rinse or preferably clean the cappuccino portion after each brewing session. It is very simple to do but may get to be a pain on a daily basis. You just run the machine through it's cappuccino cleaning cycle, using water or Jura's proprietary cappuccino cleaning liquid Jura-Capresso 63801 Auto Cappuccino Concentrate, 250 ml and manually rinse the frothing tube and a few rubber pieces inside. It's a small hassle but likely necessary as milk will cake on the internals and I'm sure halt the function of the frother if neglected like any other milk frother. Another reason for an external frothing option. Using filtered water, or the in tank Jura filter will cut down if not eliminate the need to descale the machine supposedly.The ENA series boasts an energy efficient option of auto shut down, the timing of which you can customize. So, if you like to save energy, the machine will automatically turn off after a set period of time. This would not be an attractive feature if you are like my dad and enjoy walking up to the machine any time of day and pulling a cup of coffee. You would have to turn it on each time. It doesn't take long to heat up again but it does prompt you to rinse on each start up. You don't have to use the auto shut off but it's there if you want.All in all I believe this will be an excellent purchase. I got what I wanted but wish it had an optional external frother like the C9 and S9. The frothXpress system added to an ENA5 might be a little cheaper and a little more versatile but not as convenient and the frothing may not be as high quality. I hope this has helped you in your research of this high quality machine.UPDATE 11/2015Our ENA 9 is now four and one half years old and is going strong! One caveat, we don"t use the milk functions anymore, we use the Jura Capresso frothPRO rather than the ENA 9's built in unit because it is much easier to maintain. I felt that if we were going to have problems it would likely be with the frothing unit so perhaps we've simply avoided any issues. We make at least 6 espressos each morning and often more later in the day. The only maintenance has been cleaning using the Jura tablets, an occasional descaling tablet and water filter. We've used both filtered water without the in tank filter and tap water with and both taste great. Each time we empty the grounds I wipe the inside of the unit out with a paper towel, specifically the small mesh grill outlet up inside on top. I don't know why, but keeping that screen clean prevents the espresso from tasting bitter.Praises: 1. Great tasting espresso drinks2. One touch convenience3. Low maintenance and easy cleaning for espresso maker4. Perfect reliability recordCriticisms: 1. We have to empty the grounds every other to every third day2. We have to fill the small tank every other day3. One touch frother too much trouble4. My wife and I have talked about trying our hands at manual pulling of shots when this unit dies but the ENA 9 won't quit!Update April, 2018Since this has been a popular review I thought I would go ahead and update again. The unit is now almost 7 years old and is still going strong. We have had zero issues with it whatsoever and it has been like the energizer bunny for us, using it daily as described above. There are very few luxury purchases I have made that have been a "good investment" but I have not doubt saved a significant amount using this machine over the local coffee shop. When it does fail, I'm not so sure we won't just replace it with another Jura instead of a traditional esspresso maker/steamer like I thought. The simplicity, convenience and reliability have just been so remarkable.

I have proudly owned this machine for several years now. It has been trouble free and routine maintenance is a breeze. The controls are laid out very well and are easy to use. The self cleaning cycle works very well. The ability to brew a cup of decafe without having to remove the regular beans is extremely handy when you have guests over. This machine will brew your favorite cup of joe better than star chucks every time.My opinion is this machine is worth every penny I paid for it. When I think of the money I have saved from the big name coffee shops it has already paid for itself.

The coffee was wonderful, flavor was amazing but for $1500 I would expect the machine to work for longer than two months. It began malfunctioning after about 1.5 months and laid down and died within 2 months. It is also very high maintenance and requires a lot of TLC. Perhaps I received a defective machine, but I will look to other brands now. Thankfully amazon accepted the return and will hopefully issue a full refund.

I ordered this item with the hope that I could easily make lattes without a hassle. Unfortunately as I should have known, the more automated these machines get the more complicated and it is often better to keep it simple. My first machine actually arrived broken, it couldn't even get past power up phase. But to Jura's credit they had good customer service and no questions asked they helped me ship back the old and sent me a new one with no charges. But then when started using the new one that did work, I found it could not make a hot drink. After 2 weeks of using it, I found that the drinks were always luke warm. Also, to make a drink with milk requires another special product with plastic tubing etc. and extensive cleaning and I found it did not foam well at all and was honestly annoying to deal with. I ended up returning the second machine for a full refund and instead got the Breville Barista Express, which I have been using for over a year and I love. Save yourself the money and avoid the auto espresso machines. You won't be able to make a great coffee drink, you will spend a lot more $, and you will spend as much time cleaning your "automatic" than it takes to make your drink and clean up compared to a more traditional espresso machine.

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