De'Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic Espresso Machine

The De'Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic makes 38 drinks, reads your beans and adjusts the grind, dose and temperature to suit them, and saves settings for six different coffees. A 5 inch touchscreen, hot and cold milk systems, cold brew in under three minutes, and a 500 g hopper.

This is the top of the De'Longhi range and it behaves like it. Bean Adapt recognises what you have loaded and sets the machine up for it, then Adaptive Grinding keeps fine-tuning as it goes, so a bag of light Ethiopian and a dark Italian blend both come out the way they should without you touching a dial. Six bean profiles means the machine remembers each coffee you use, not just each person who drinks it. The menu runs from espresso and drip coffee through cortado, galão and café con leche to cold brew latte and a tea function, which is a wider range than most cafés actually offer.

Highlights

• 38 one-touch drinks, hot and cold, including espresso, drip coffee, a full coffee pot, cortado, flat white, galão, café con leche, cold brew latte and a tea function
• Bean Adapt and Adaptive Grinding, which read the beans and set grind, dose and temperature, then keep adjusting rather than setting once and drifting
• Six bean profiles alongside four user profiles, so the machine remembers your coffees as well as your people
• LatteCrema Hot and LatteCrema Cool, both 450 ml carafes included, for hot microfoam and proper cold foam
• Cold Extraction Technology, brewing cold brew cold in under three minutes rather than overnight
• 5 inch full-colour touchscreen with guided brewing, plus app connectivity for control and customisation from your phone
• 500 g bean hopper and a 2.2 L hidden tank, the largest in the range, so it goes a long way between refills

Who it's for

• People who buy interesting beans and want the machine to get the best out of each one without a week of adjusting
• Households where four people want four different things, and the drinks list needs to go well past cappuccino
• Anyone who entertains, and wants a full hot and cold menu without standing over it

Two things to be clear about. This is a fully automatic machine, so there is no portafilter and no tamping and the milk is textured for you. That is the point at this level, but if making the coffee yourself is the appeal, we will show you the machines that are. And it is a substantial machine at 26 cm wide and 46 cm deep, so measure your counter depth before it arrives, particularly if it is going under a wall cabinet.

Living with it

Day to day, say yes when it offers the milk clean after a milk drink, and empty the grounds container and drip tray. Both carafes lift off and go in the fridge between uses, and both are dishwasher safe.

Then periodically, the touchscreen tells you when a descale is due and walks you through it, and the brewing components come out to be rinsed. Fit the carbon filter and run the hardness test on day one, because that is what sets the descaling interval on a machine that will otherwise ask more often than it needs to.

FAQs

• What does Bean Adapt actually do?
  It identifies the coffee you have loaded and sets the grind size, the dose and the brew temperature to suit it, then Adaptive Grinding keeps correcting as it runs. In practice it means changing beans stops being a project. You can also save six bean profiles, so switching back to a coffee you used last month brings its settings back with it.
• Is the cold brew genuine?
  Yes. Cold Extraction Technology brews the coffee cold rather than brewing it hot and chilling it, and it takes under three minutes rather than a night. That is what keeps it smooth instead of bitter, and it is also what makes a cold brew latte worth ordering from your own kitchen.
• Can it make tea?
  Yes, there is a dedicated tea function alongside the hot water, so you are not running tea water through a coffee spout.
• How many people can save their own drinks?
  Four user profiles, plus six separate bean profiles. Those are different things and it is worth understanding why: the user profile is how you take your coffee, the bean profile is how the machine should treat what is in the hopper.
• What does the app add?
  Control and customisation from your phone rather than only at the machine, including building and saving recipes. It is genuinely useful if you like tweaking, and entirely ignorable if you do not.
• Do I get cold foam as well as hot?
  Yes, and both carafes are in the box at 450 ml each. LatteCrema Hot makes the dense warm foam a cappuccino needs; LatteCrema Cool makes cold foam at the right temperature for iced drinks. Both take dairy and plant-based milk.
• What is the warranty, and who services it in Canada?
  De'Longhi covers this machine for 2 years, extended to 3 when you register it, which is worth doing the day it arrives. Warranty service is handled by De'Longhi Canada at 1-888-335-6644. We are here for setup, bean choice and any question about using it, before you buy and long after.

Specifications

• Type: Fully automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine
• Drinks: 38 one-touch recipes, hot and cold, including drip coffee, coffee pot and a tea function
• Grinder: Integrated burr with Bean Adapt and Adaptive Grinding Technology
• Bean profiles: 6
• User profiles: 4
• Milk systems: LatteCrema Hot and LatteCrema Cool, 450 ml each, dairy and plant milk
• Cold drinks: Cold Extraction Technology, cold brew in under 3 minutes
• Display: 5 inch TFT colour touchscreen
• Connectivity: App control and customisation
• Bean hopper: 500 g
• Water tank: 2.2 L, concealed
• Dimensions (W × D × H): 26 × 46 × 40.5 cm, or 10.3 × 18.2 × 16 in
• Weight: 12.6 kg, 27.7 lb
• Origin: Designed and made in Italy
• Warranty: 2 years, plus 1 additional year with product registration
• In the box: LatteCrema Hot carafe, LatteCrema Cool carafe, carbon active filter, measuring scoop, total hardness test, cleaning brush, removable water spout

Why buy from Coffee Warehouse?

• Two Ontario showrooms, Markham and Richmond Hill, where we will run Bean Adapt on two different roasts so you can taste what it is doing, plus live virtual demos if you are not nearby
• Bean advice worth having on a machine that will genuinely reward better coffee, and profiles set up before you take it home
• We will remind you to register it, because that is the difference between a 2 year warranty and a 3 year one
• Free shipping and financing available
• Toll-free support at 1-888-742-1777, before you buy and long after