De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic

Introduction

It wasn’t that long ago that coffee machines could simply make standard espresso-based drinks, and that was it. Now, the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic pushes what a machine can do, with a wider range of drinks including filter-style, cold brew and even drinks that use cold, frothed milk.

It’s a large and expensive coffee machine, but if you fancy more than just standard drinks and want it all at the touch of a button you won’t find anything better.

Design and Features

• App controlled
• Bean adapt system
• Up to four profiles

De’Longhi has been on something of a roll recently, with a brilliant range of coffee machines that do more than the basic, such as with the excellent De’Longhi La Specialista Touch manual machine.

As with recent bean-to-cup machines from the company, such as the De’Longhi Magnifica Plus, the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic is thoughtfully designed and easy to use.

While the coffee machine itself is quite tall and bulky, De’Longhi has thought carefully about its design. An issue with many coffee machines is that the water tank is located at the back, where it’s hard to lift out. Here, the water tank is accessed from the front, pulled out forwards. It’s a small change, but an important and thoughtful one.

This water tank can hold 2.2-litres, so I could get through a decent number of drinks before having to refill it. This tank holds a water filter, and one is provided in the box: I just had to follow the simple instructions to install it.

Control of the machine is via a vibrant 5-inch touchscreen. It’s designed well and took me through the initial setup of the machine, so the manual’s not particularly needed. Up to four user profiles can be created, allowing each user to customise the available drinks to their preferences.

This coffee machine has a standard hopper at the top, which will take a standard bag of beans. Unusually, there’s no grind control dial in the hopper, which practically every other bean-to-cup machine has had before.

The ‘missing’ grind control is because the setting is a software one. I could adjust the software manually, picking a grind level, but the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic also has Bean Adapt technology, which I first saw in the La Specialista Touch.

Follow the simple on-screen questions about the beans that you’re using and the coffee machine picks and adapts the grind and brewing settings automatically. Beans can be saved in a profile that can be recalled. That makes it easy to come back to a favourite type of coffee.

The only thing the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic doesn’t have is a swappable bean hopper, which the De’Longhi Rivelia has.

This coffee machine makes a huge range of drinks, both hot and cold, and with and without milk. For milk, there are two carafes in the box, one for hot drinks and one for cold drinks.

As well as the usual coffee recipes, such as espresso and americano, the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic can also make, amongst others, latté, cappuccino and flat white milk drinks; filter-style, long black and lungo black coffee; it can use its cold extraction system for cold brew, cold espresso and cold Americano; and it can make cold milk drinks including cold brew cappuccino, cold flat whie and cold brew latte.

There are even more drinks to choose from, and each can be customised on the touchscreen for the volume and coffee intensity, and you can add an extra shot of ristretto if you need a perk up.

While the touchscreen makes everything easy, you can also use the My Coffee Lounge app to remotely control the coffee machine. It’s a handy app, even if for just using it to see the current maintenance status, as you can see how long it will be before you have to descale, and how many drinks you’ve made.

There’s also remote control over drinks, and you can customise each drink and create your own.

Maintenance is pretty easy with this coffee machine, as it will tell you when anything needs doing, with guidance on the touchscreen.

Day-to-day, you’ll need to empty the used coffee puck container and empty out the drip tray. These both pull out from the front of the machine, so they are easy to get to.

Access to the brew unit is via the side, with the unit accessible once the water tank has been removed. Cleaning the brew unit does mean turning the machine around, but as it’s a less regular job, that’s not really an issue.

The coffee machine automatically rinses itself when it turns off, and will tell you to turn the milk carafes to the clean position after making a drink, to clean out the milk system automatically.

Coffee Quality

• Excellent espresso
• Quality cold brew
• Filter-style still ends up with a bit of crema

I roasted some Fairtrade Peruvian coffee beans, taking them to a mid-dark roast, to preserve the single-origin notes. Pouring a shot of espresso, I found that the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic managed to dispense the drink with the right colour, pouring slowly like molten honey.

In the glass, the espresso looked spot on, with a nice, dark, oily crema that maintained its consistency for a few minutes. Temperature was also right at 63°C, so the coffee was almost immediately drinkable.

Texture and taste were excellent, with the coffee’s bold acidity and strong earthy flavours preserved without being overly bitter. It’s spot-on, and you can only really get better (and marginally so) with a more expensive manual machine and grinder.

I tried the filter-style coffee. Generally, a more melow way of extracting coffee, filter coffee also has more caffeine. To pour this coffee, the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic starts and stops pouring. At the end, the coffee had a noticeable crema on top. While the overall drink was smoother and more mellow than the espresso, I don’t think it’s quite as good as filter coffee from a drip machine or the Ninja Luxe Café Premier Espresso Machine ES601UK, which uses a larger filter basket for the extraction.

Still, it’s nice to have the choice of something a bit different, and the drink is clearly different to a café crema, which is more like a continuous espresso, poured through at pressure.

Cold-brew is very impressive. I added ice to a glass and then used the De’Longhi PrimaDonna Aromatic’s cold extraction system to pour the coffee. True cold brew is more intense, but then it requires hours of extraction; what you get here is decent cold brew that lacks the bitterness of regular coffee, poured in minutes.

Milk Quality

• Neat microfoam
• Smooth cold drinks

I poured a flat white using the automatic setting and fresh full fat milk. This was steamed and poured brilliantly, with a nice velvety texture to the milk and compact microbubbles.

Taste-wise, the coffee was excellent. The only thing you don’t get from a coffee machine like this is the option to free-pour to get a nicer-looking finish. That’s true of all bean-to-cup machines with milk carafes.

I then tried a cold flat white, switching milk carafe. This produced slightly more bubbly milk, with the resulting drink taking on more of a milkshake appearance at the top. I was very impressed with how the drink tasted: smooth and refreshing, with a happy lack of bitterness. This is the kind of drink that I could lap up on a hot day, and is superior to pouring hot coffee over ice and then adding milk.

Should you buy it?

FAQs