Coffee Machine Is Your Worst Enemy. 8 Ways To Defeat It
Many are not particularly flexible, the Melitta Caffeo Varianza CSP is designed to dispense a
Wide range of drinks, including automatically frothing milk, with plenty of customisation to help
You adjust the beverages to your taste.
As stylish as Melitta's other machines, the Varianza seems every bit the high-end coffee maker,
With its neat and compact body, and chrome-faced outlet. It is available in silver, stainless steel
And glistening black, so you can find the one which suits your kitchen. It's also quite compact, so you
shouldn't have problems finding a home for it.
Initial set-up is simple, following the clear instructions in the manual. It's just a matter of filling up
The bean hopper on top with fresh beans, inserting the water filter into the 1L reservoir and
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Making coffee
Melitta has made it easy to make drinks quickly, with dedicated buttons on the front of the
Machine to pour the most frequent types of coffee, including espresso, cafe creme cappuccino
and latte macchiato. Just tap the one you want and the machine grinds and pours your coffee
Thus far, so good, and the out-of-the-box settings are pretty good. However, to really get the best
results, we recommend making a few settings.
The grind has a massive
Impact on the final shot of espresso, with a finer grind increasing extraction time and making the
coffee taste stronger. It's worth testing a few settings to get your ideal results.
After that, you can delve into the menus to override the front buttons and change the default
Each button also
Has its own set of recipes, so you can, by way of instance, switch the espresso button so that it pours a
You can also override any of the defaults using the control panel buttons on the front including
type of drink that you're making.
A final trick up is that the Varianza can take a second variety of beans. All you have to do is
remove the measuring spoon from the top and use it to pour in your alternative beans into the
chute; the Varianza will then make your next coffee using the new beans. It's a great way of
Having regular beans for everyone while retaining the ability to use something a bit different
When you would like to.
Once we'd got the Varianza set up the way we wanted, we were deeply impressed with the
results. Our shot of espresso was poured at the right rate (around 20s), delivering a rich shot of
coffee, topped with a thick, oily crema. We found that it was a little cool, even with the Varianza
set to the top temperature, with the espresso coming out at around 58C. It's not terrible, though,
and you can improve things by using the cup warmer on top of the coffee machine and rinsing
your cups using the hot water feature. The taste was excellent, with the full and rich flavours of
our test beans extracted to perfection. We've got to hand it to Melitta, this is as good a shot of
espresso as you can get from a manual machine.
Milk drinks
When you want to add milk into the mix, you have to pour your milk into the provided container
And then run a hose from this into the face of the outlet. After that, it's all automatic, with the
Varianza steaming, frothing and pouring the milk, and then adding it to espresso. The quality of
the milk is fantastic, with our latte arriving with a silky, frothy top to it; you shouldn't
underestimate how difficult this is to get right when you're doing everything automatically.
Brilliantly, the Varianza also provides you flexibility, permitting you to dispense just frothed milk. You
Can either use this to make your own drinks in a more manual way or to top up your latte or
cappuccino if your glass isn't quite full.
Maintenance
Some manual machines can be a pain, with long maintenance cycles, but the Varianza is easy to
look after. When you power it on and off, the machine automatically runs a quick rinse, which
You can let run into the large drip tray. If you don't want to empty the tray often, you can stick a
Mug under the machine instead.
After using the milk hose, the Varianza will prompt you to run a Fast cleaning cycle, showing
You want to do on its clear LCD. All you have to do is pop the end of the milk hose into the hole
In the drip tray and a quick burst of steam and water keeps everything clean.
You'll also get prompted to run a cleaning routine and to descale the Varianza at regular
intervals. Again, the clear LCD and manual will take you through everything, and it's really a
Very easy machine to look after.
It's worth mentioning that you can also pop the side panel off and remove the brewing unit,
letting you clean it (one a month should do the trick), removing spent coffee grounds from inside
the machine.
Conclusion
We found the Caffeo Varianza CSP to be a cracking automatic coffee machine. It's small, easy
to use and incredibly flexible, producing some of the best coffee we've had from an automatic
machine. Its big brother, the Caffeo Barista TS has a lot more recipes and dedicated user profiles,
However, you will need to pay around #400 more for the privilege. At this price, there isn't a bean-to-cup
Coffee machine that can touch the Varianza. If this isn't quite what you're after, our best coffee
machine article will have something suitable for you.
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