My husband is a big coffee drinker so last year I decided to get him an espresso machine for his birthday! Luckily for us, I received the De’Longhi La Specialista Arte Evo Espresso Machine (currently on sale for less than $500!) thanks to a collaboration. We’ve had our machine for 6 months now so I wanted to share my thoughts on it so you can see if its the right machine for you!
DISCLAIMER: I received this product as part of a collaboration with the brand but all thoughts are my own. Some links in the article may be affiliate links. If you purchase a product with the links below, I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for your support!
Let me preface this by saying I don’t know anything about coffee and knew even less before getting our espresso machine so I had to learn everything from scratch. It’s semi automatic so it does have a lot of manual aspects you can control when making your shots of espresso. I had never made an espresso in my life and I was able to figure it out after only a couple of tries so I do think it’s a good beginner friendly machine.
Because it is manual, you do have to play around with the grind settings every time you swap out your coffee beans since each coffee will be slightly different. If you’re the type to stick to one coffee, this isn’t a big issue but my husband loves trying new coffees so we have to frequently tweak our settings to get the espresso shot just right. This may seem annoying but I think this is fun and makes you feel like a real barista!
Now on to my favorite features:
The built-in burr grinder - nothing beats the smell of freshly ground coffee every morning. Before we got this machine, we would manually grind coffee beans which was so much work and the coffee didn't stay as fresh. Now it’s easy to get the perfect amount of ground coffee for each shot in just a couple of seconds. I don’t have a comparison, but I’ve heard that this machine's grinder is one of the more quiet grinders on the market though it still sounds pretty loud to me. The only downside to this built-in grinder is that there isn’t an easy way to clean it.
The steam wand - we mostly use the steam wand for lattes but I also love to use it to make some fancy hot chocolates at home. It heats up very fast and gives a smooth finish to your milk. Getting the milk right for latte art is definitely a learning curve but this wand definitely makes it as simple as possible to learn.
The hot water feature - another feature a lot of people rarely mention that I love is the hot water feature. You can dispense hot water with just the click of a button so I use it to make teas without having to get my electric kettle out and waiting for the water to boil.
Other cool features:
The light indicator for the water tank - the water tank is on the back of the machine so there’s an indicator light on the front that lights up when you’re running low on water. That way you know exactly when to fill up without having to constantly check your water tank. To refill, I just lift up the tank’s lid and use a pitcher to pour in water so I don’t have to carry the tank back and forth from the sink.
The cold brew function - this machine has a function to make cold brew coffee in less than 5 minutes! We especially like using this feature in the summer time. If you can live without the cold brew function though, there is a model without it that can save you over $100!
SHOP OUR COFFEE MACHINE + FAVE TOOLS!
As for maintenance, we wipe down our machine regularly and hand wash the portafilter and other tools. And keep in mind you do have to descale your machine! This is the descaler we use and while it depends on your water how often you have to do it, we do it about every 3 months. It's a very simple process though so we don't mind doing it to make sure our machine is in good condition and lasts us a long time!
In the end, the De’Longhi La Specialista Arte Evo Espresso Machine is helping me live out my barista dreams. I love that I can play around with the settings and I love the manual aspects of the machine. Grinding the coffee fresh, tamping the coffee and watching the shot brew forces me to slow down and has really become a part of my morning routine I look forward to. I think this is a great machine for coffee lovers that want to have more control over how their coffee is brewed but it’s also a good beginner espresso machine for someone that’s wanting to learn to make their own coffee.
I hope this review helped but feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram if you have any specific questions!
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