De'Longhi Bean to Cup Coffee Machine Review
- Jul 14, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Jul 20, 2024
If there's one thing I genuinely can't live without, it's coffee!
Having progressed over the past 30 years from instant to cafetiere, to aeropress, to receiving an espresso machine with separate grinder for my 40th birthday, I finally invested in my first built-in bean-to-cup machine about 18 months ago.
Having had a De'Longhi model in the office before lockdown, I knew they were a well-renowned manufacturer and that their machines were very easy to use and relatively easy to maintain. They were therefore my first port of call when I first started browsing for my first bean-to-cup.
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Declaration of interest: I am not associated with De'Longhi in any way and am not being paid, nor offered any form or inducement to write this review. Unless otherwise stated, all prices are correct as at July 2024.
How does the Dinamica compare to other De'Longhi machines?
Even within the De'Longhi product catalogue, the choice is vast, ranging in price and complexity from the "basic" Magnifica, at £300-£680, to the sophisticated La Specialista range, from £450-£870, designed with the more advanced budding Barista in mind, to the fully automated Primadona models from £946-£1,300, complete with touchscreen menu for the discerning home or office user.
The Dinamica series sat happily in the middle and the model I chose was on offer for £373 when I purchased it in December 2022 (currently available on AO.com for £554), making it ideal for me, a novice user, with a finite budget.
It appears that the Dinamica range is no longer featured on the De'Longhi website and has been replaced by 2 new series: the Rivelia, which offers a wider selection of up to 16 preset, customisable drinks from £649-£749 and the more expensive Eletta Explorer, from £869-£899, with cold-brew technology. See my iced coffee recipe linked to at the bottom of this review if you don't want to spend that much just to have your coffee served cold!
If you're looking for something similar to the Dinamica described in this review, I would suggest the Magnifica Evo, currently very comparably priced at £429, given that I bought mine on sale for £373 in December 2022.
Ease of use
As I expected, the machine is very easy to use. The preset buttons are programmable, so you just have to follow the simple instructions to specify your desired quantity of coffee and/or milk for your espresso, short black, americano or latte macchiato once and it will remember your settings next time you select it. You can also set your preferred coffee temperature to low, medium or high and the degree of aroma (strength) on a scale from 1-5.
You then just have to put your cup or mug under the nozzle, press the button and it grinds the beans and presents you with your drink. It really couldn't be any easier. There's even a "2x" option to turn your single espresso into a double without having to press it twice and wait for a 2nd shot.
The only downside I do feel the need to highlight is that the coffee can be a little lukewarm, even when the temperature is set to "high". It isn't a huge problem for me, as I usually drink my coffee straightaway, but it could be a deal breaker if you like yours extra hot. I do find warming the mug with boiling water beforehand does help keep it hotter for longer, which is thankfully quite easy for me, since we have a hot tap, but who wants to boil the kettle and use a coffee machine?
Milk tank
Being a latte drinker, I was keen to get a model with a milk tank and it is without doubt my favourite feature of the machine. Although it deprives me of the opportunity to create impressive latte art (which I can't do anyway!), I find they're much safer and easier to use than the steam wand we had in the office, which squirted out boiling hot water if accidentally left on the wrong setting and had to be taken apart and cleaned manually after every use to avoid a build-up of encrusted milk.
When I saw that the tank on the Dinamica was self-cleaning, I was therefore immediately sold! You literally just place an empty mug under the nozzle, switch it to "clean", then back again when it's finished and you're done! You don't even need to empty it first because a valve prevents the water used to rinse the mechanism from getting into the tank. I also like the fact the tank can be removed and put in the fridge, so there's no wastage if I happen to put more milk in than needed. I then just pop the tank, clear milk feeder tube and black plastic connector on the top shelf of the dishwasher on a 50c cycle every couple of days to give them a thorough wash.
According to the manual, the other milk tank components are also dishwasher safe at 50c but I prefer to just rinse the head section under the tap, as per the instructions in the manual. One thing to avoid when cleaning the milk tank is removing the rubber insert from the metal spout because it can be very difficult to replace and there is no real need to remove it anyway, since it doesn't come into direct contact with any milk, as it only covers the black plastic tube to make for a more accurate aim. Again, I prefer to just wipe or rinse this under the tap to keep it clean.
The milk tank has 3 settings, so you can choose if you want your milk steamed (flat white style), foamed (for a latte), or frothed (for a cappuccino). One thing it did take me a year or so to realise (even though it does say it in the manual!) was that what I thought was the "latte" button in fact dispenses a latte macchiato. A latte should be a double shot of espresso, followed by steamed or lightly foamed milk; whereas, even on the light foam setting, the Dinamica emits very frothy milk, followed by a double shot of espresso (see pictures below), which is indeed a latte macchiato.
Despite the ingredients and proportions being the same, the look and texture are very different if you first manually select a double shot of espresso and then add the milk. I found that using "flat" steamed milk and then switching to light foam for the last 5-10ml creates a much more aesthetically pleasing drink, closer to what I'm used to seeing and drinking in coffee shops. The preset latte macchiato unfortunately reminds me of the vending machine at uni, which used to use horribly sweet, powdered milk and instant Nescafe! The bean-to-cup, fresh milk version obviously tastes far better than that, but I do now prefer to make my own lattes, even though it requires slightly more manual intervention and you have to keep your finger over the milk dispenser to stop it running dry and creating a lot of noise and steam!
This problem has partially been solved by the Magnifica, which has a "My Latte" button that detects the amount of milk in the tank and uses it all up, I believe without having to press the button a second time to stop it. It still doesn't however, to my knowledge, allow you to change the order in which the coffee and milk are dispensed.
Those wanting a one-touch flat white are also out of luck, as I did once try making the preset "macchiato" with only steamed milk but the result was a very pale and watery looking white Americano. If you do it the other way round, however, the result is very similar to the latte pictured above, but without the white foam. You can also use less milk if you want a less milky drink.
The other slight edge the Magnifca has over the Dinamica is that the milk tank bears markers, indicating the appropriate quantity of milk for each drink, which is helpful when making a "manual" coffee but, there again, it seems to only cater for the Latte Macchiato (LM) and Cappuccino (C). This is perhaps because they are more popular in Italy, where the latte and flat white might still be considered "foreign" concepts. It's probably similarly blasphemous to ordering a Hawaiian pizza!
This lack of flexibility is one of the major differences between the "basic" Magnifica / Dinamica ranges and the more expensive models, which have a higher number of preset customised drink options, but I personally don't feel this alone justifies an upgrade, as I now quite like adjusting the milk to create different coffees according to mine and guests' tastes.
In addition to not being able to create latte art, the other slight disadvantage the tank has versus the steam wand is that the milk only reaches a fixed temperature that cannot be adjusted, whereas the steam wand can obviously be left in as long as necessary to reach the desired level of heat. This does compound the aforementioned problem of the coffee dispensed from the Dinamica also not being that hot so, if you do like a steaming hot latte, cappuccino, flat white, or even a latte macchiato, I would definitely suggest opting for the model with the separate steam wand.
Maintenance
The machine performs a self-cleaning cycle whenever you switch it on or off. This involves water being emitted from the main nozzle, so I keep a cup on the draining board, which I place underneath when powering it up or down, or carrying out a self-clean on the milk tank after each use. It can otherwise catch you by surprise if it automatically shuts down due to its (adjustable) "eco-mode" timeout setting and eerily starts spouting water into the drip tray!
A light comes on when the drip tray and/or grounds collector are full and they're both easy to remove and empty. I've found this does need to be done with surprising frequency, approximately every 4-5 coffees, even if you don't actually spill or drip anything into the tray, because the self-cleaning process evidently emits water into the bottom of the drip tray, as well as from the nozzles. This is mildly annoying but you would probably have to empty the grounds collector after a similar period anyway and not having to manually clean the machine so often definitely makes it worth it.
The descaling process is however a bit of a palaver and does have to be done approximately every 6-8 weeks, depending on the hardness of your water. When the machine detects that it needs to be descaled, a light comes on, which you can dismiss by pressing the 'Esc' (milk) button, but the manual says you can only do this so many times before the machine effectively goes on strike. Not wanting to risk this, I usually do it at the earliest available opportunity and no more than 2-3 days after the dreaded light first appears. The whole process takes approximately 1 hour and you have to remain on-hand during the procedure to refill the water tank between cycles. If you leave the machine unattended during descaling and it switches itself off, you have to start all over again! The same is true if you accidentally switch the machine off during the cycle (easy to do if you're used to putting a cup under the machine before switching it off), so I put the small red condensing tray over the power button to prevent me from so doing.
To descale the machine, you have to put 100ml of descaler solution in roughly half a tank of water (there are fill indicators on the tank to show you the correct proportions) and press the "OK" or "rinse" button. It then intermittently spouts water from the hot water and coffee nozzles over a period of about 30-45 minutes, so be sure to put a large bowl underneath. Once the "refill tank" light comes on, you have to refill it completely with plain water for a rinse cycle and run it again, before replacing the filter in the tank and repeating the process. After re-emptying the drip tray and grounds collector, the machine is ready to use. I usually however take this as a handy reminder to clean the infuser, which can be found behind the water tank (after switching the machine off at the socket!) and has to be "squeezed" out by pressing the buttons on either side. You then rinse it under the tap to wash off stray grounds and sit it in plain water (no detergent!), for approximately 10 minutes. It can then be put back in the machine, ready for your next coffee.
The water filters aren't cheap but do last 2 months (as opposed to 1 on the Brita jug I used to fill my old machine) and because the filter is built in, I can fill the tank straight from the tap without having to wait for the water to filter first. I've added the filters to my regular subscribe & save order, so get a 15% discount on a pack of 2 for under £20 that will last 4 months. You can also buy the descaler solution for £5-£6, which lasts 5 descaling cycles, or approximately 30-40 weeks. In total, this works out at a monthly cost of £6; roughly equivalent to what I would pay for just two lattes in a cafe, so definitely good value for money, even if you only have one cup a day.
Summary
The Dinamica and Magnifica ranges are ideal if you're not an expert user but are sufficiently "Into" coffee to appreciate freshly ground beans and don't want the hassle of having to grid them first. The higher priced De'Longhi ranges offer a wider selection of preset drinks and a backlit LED touchscreen menu, but I personally don't think these features justify the significant extra cost.
The mid-range price points of these machines make them excellent value for money compared to visiting a coffee shop on an even semi-regular basis and at less than £6 per month for filters and descaler solution, the ongoing cost is also much lower than less eco-friendly pod-based espresso machines, with the added bonus of being able to choose your own beans.
The only real criticism I have of the machine is the low temperature of both the coffee and steamed milk. If you like your coffee really hot, it might be worth looking at a different make or model.
I hope you found this De'Longhi bean to cup coffee machine review helpful. Please let me know in the comments if you've tried it or any of the other machines in the range and what you think.
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