Customer Reviews

Jura-Capresso 13215 Impressa S9 Avantgarde Automatic Coffee Center

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

For a little information about me, I'm not a connoisseur of coffee. I like sweet coffee's (Carmel lattes) and never drink my coffee black. I like a nice sweet coffee in the morning as something smooth in the morning to get the day started, and occasionally at night when it's cold and if we are just relaxing I like to have a nice warm something or other. My wife will drink her coffee black and with almost no sweetener, she's a cappuccino person.

We've gone to Starbucks on and off for years and recently a little coffee house opened up down the street. We have been going there every morning for the last month. We always get small coffees and at $6 a visit it was a shocker when we realized we had spent about $120 in a month on coffee... that's when we started looking around.

Luckily a friend of mine had gotten the Jura-Capresso Z5 last year and couldn't stop talking about it, so I started my search there. After a lot of research on the web, and seeing the $1k difference between this machine and the Z5 which essentially only adds the One-touch cappuccino we decided to go with this machine.

So far we've had the machine a few days and within the first few hours I was making sweet/frothy/creamy drinks that were on par with any coffee shop I had ever been to. It's really easy.

The pre-sets are pretty good if you aren't too picky, but I'm *really* picky about my coffee even though I'm not a fancy burista or anything. The S9 comes with the frothXpress attachment so if you are into just hitting buttons and drinking coffee with no effort, you can totally do that. But I use the default manual frothing attachment and like to froth my coffee a certain way and my wife likes it another way.

We also use the hot water spout to make tea at night sometimes.

I'll admit that looking at this for $2500 then looking at some of the other machines that *seem* to have the same attachments for $400 is hard to swallow. The real magic of this machine is a combination of all the automation (push a button, drink coffee) as well as the fine-tuned control over everything and lastly over how exactly the items are heated, pressed and filtered. If you are curious, search for the S9 review on CoffeeGeek, the guy knows more about coffee than an entire country. He reviewed this machine after having it for over a year and loaning it out to people and restaurants. He got into the detail of how much pressure is used to brew the coffee (apparently very important) and also how hot and how fast the milk is heated (which is important I guess as well so you don't kill the naturally sweet proteins in the milk)... it's a ton of detail but at the end of the entire thing he gave the S9 his rank of favorite super automatic and I agree.

If you go to Starbucks or a local coffee shop that is run by relatively normal/educated people and you are someone that doesn't mind spending some time or take pride in making a good drink, I don't think you would have any problem recreating that quality of drink with this machine, it's fantastically easy.

If you are lazy and just want drinks handed to you so you can drink them and have a fairly wide range of acceptable tastes for your coffee, you can probably just spend the $2500 at Starbucks and let someone else do it.

Overall the machine is fantastic. The finish is plated plastic which I thought was cheap feeling, but it looks fine because it's sort of brushed and not super shiney. That only bothered me for about 5mins, then I just forgot about it and drank the coffee.

Another thing I like is that the machine is really intelligent about keeping itself clean. It tells you when it needs to rinse and does it once or twice a day, keeping everything in tip top shape. It also monitors the levels of everything in the machine (grounds, beans, water, filter, etc.) and tells you exactly what to do on the screen. Also, I didn't mention this in much detail, but you can control and adjust the values of everything in the setup menu. How strong you want your coffee or espresso to be, how much water is in it, how much steam in the milk, the temperature, how finely ground the beans are, how hard your water is and just about everything else that can effect coffee.

The only cleanup after making coffee to speak of are the parts that touch the milk. For me that's just the wand that steams the milk. I just pop it off, rinse it and let it air dry for the next time. So that is something to consider if you think that you can just get this machine and push a button every morning and never need to think about it again. There are little things you need to do (like empty the grounds and the drip tray) every other day if you are making around 4-6 coffees a day. If it's just you or you are only making around 2 coffees a day, you can probably let it go 4-6 days between just rinsing it out, maybe 30 seconds worth of work.

So my take-away advice for anyone reading this is:
A) If you like coffee from anywhere (Starbucks, McDonalds, your house, etc.) this is totally overkill. Just stick to a normal brewing coffee maker and call it a day. This is like not being able to tell the difference between a Honda Civic and a Lexus GS400... if you can't tell the difference, then save all that money and get the Civic. Some people just can't tell.

B) If you like good coffee, and get frustrated when you get the same coffee every single morning from a store like Starbucks and some mornings it's good, and other mornings it's not and you are paying good money for it (like I was) and you feel cheated on the mornings it stinks, then you'll love this machine. It will give you the chance to perfect your cup of coffee and make it whenever you want with perfect accuracy. It's also handy to make simple things like hot chocolate and tea with, so it has more functions than just the espresso or cappuccino.

This is the pinnacle of automatic coffee centers made by Europe's foremost manufacturer of fully automatic coffee machines. Commercial quality for the home or office. The extra large water tank makes this a suitable machine for a shop or office environment. Outstanding performer for home entertainment. At home dinner parties we can take orders for several varieties of hot drinks using this handy beverage center. Tea, decaf coffee (using the pre-ground coffee chute), hot chocolate, espresso, cappuccino, Americano, caffe latte or just a good, strong American mug of joe. Bar drinks such as Irish Coffee are also easier with this. With seperate heating elements for brewing and frothing there is no delay between operations.
It is the convenience and results that make this a most impressive machine. While the cost may seem high, it pays for itself in less than a year of just one person's coffee drinks at a high-end coffee bar.
Great service from Capresso's toll-free customer service center, but that's rarely needed since the machine comes with both an excellent easy-start instruction book and a dvd with step-by-step instructions. The microchip technology tells you when to clean the works, when to empty the discarded coffee grounds and when to run a maintenance cycle. It is practically foolproof.
A friend of ours bought one for his mobile home and one for his permanent home, now wants one for the office. It makes sense to own a Jura-Capresso automatic coffee center if you enjoy any kind of hot beverage and want instant gratification.

This machine is a coffee lover's dream, and allows you to customize and brew coffee exactly the way you like it. The brewed coffee and steamed milk are always nice and hot too! The machine is top quality, and also keeps your cups warm on top. Its elegance will grace any home or office, and make any owner proud.
Richard Vaughan, Jacksonville, FL

The Jura-Capresso makes excellent espresso, latte, capuccino - whatever you want. Easy to handle. Elegant.
The family has got two smaller Jura machines at other locations. Also very reliable and good.
We trust the brand.

3710 espresso's to date - 3 years old! Based on the cost of espressos at a coffee house, or a Nespresso machine (at $.50/cents a shot), I think it's paid for itself, while making a wonderful cup of coffee. (I know it's not recommended, but I buy Starbucks whole beans from Costco, 40 ounce bag for $19.99; which is much much cheaper than Nespresso!)

I have had to send to repair twice: went to repair after 9 months, still under warranty, so shipping and repair was covered, got it back immediately, in perfect running condition. Just sent it to be repaired again, because I didn't change the water filter when instructed and the machine backed up. $265 for repair, included UPS ground shipping (which was almost $50 each way from CA to PA), was gone total of 2 weeks and got it back yesterday! Used it today and it worked like a dream! Keeping my fingers crossed that it keeps going strong. I have found Jura's customer service to be wonderful! Love my Jura and would definitely recommend to anyone that drinks espresso daily!!!

I think is very good deal.when I receved the machine.not only dirty.is not working.after call the saler.I got very bad word! what you pay is what you got!
this not way Amazon supplyer should be.
till now over 3 weeks.I was call the saler over 10 time.they nover return my call!

Makes excellent Espresso and Cappuccino. The frothier is very good but very delicate. I used to take it apart for cleaning, but now only use the cleaning liquid in the cleaning process once in a while. Had to replace it under warranty.They respond immediately and the unit was returned within 3 days (I live in NJ). Overall, I like it very much.

My husband and I have owned the Jura for over a year now and absolutely love it! Each and every morning we are able to make excellent, smooth lattes. What I love about this machine is that it is very user friendly and consistent in the quality product it puts forth.
The only minor problem we had towards the start of our using the Jura was with the steam wand... we didn't take it apart all the way to clean it (we weren't aware that the tip unscrews), well, milk residue built up and started making steaming an exciting experience with the wand sometimes popping off. We called customer service (we got through right away and they were VERY friendly and helpful) and they explained how to properly clean the device, and then said that if the problem continued they would send us another wand at no charge. We did end up needing another wand and they did send it. I thought that as especially nice, seeing that is was our error that caused the issue to begin with.
Anyway, all in all, this is a fantastic espresso maker. Our friends and family love to come over just to get a cup of the good stuff! We have even had some friends who went out and bought their own after using ours.
We highly recommend the Jura S9.

We've had our machine for a little over a year when it began to go kaput. It began to display an "Error 8" message and has refused to respond or make coffee. We have to plug it out the wall for about 15 minutes and when we plug it back in, it can make at least two cups of coffee before the "Error 8" takes over again and shuts it down. When we first purchased this machine, it was the answer to all our prayers! It makes excellent coffee and everyone in our office loved it! However, you can only get one solid year out of it. I think it's too expensive to only be able to last one year. The machine is wonderful when it works, but for the price, it really doesn't last very long.

What a beautiful machine. We were very excited to taste the first freshly brewed cup of coffee, on demand, but it never dispensed. The brewing process came to an abrupt halt and the display said "Empty Tray." Alas, the tray was already empty. Despite repeated attempts to brew another cup, it kept freezing at the same point with the same "Empty Tray" message. We called the manufacturer. They were were very kind and responsive, but told us to return the machine as it was defective. We are exchanging it for a new one with the hopes that this one will work. Hopefully, a better review will follow.