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Primadonna Soul by De'Longhi: a coffee goddess with an application to be desired

3.12.2020

Translation: machine translated

When you invest well over CHF 1,000 in a machine, good coffee is no longer enough. De'Longhi, a manufacturer of fully automatic machines, has added an invention to its Primadonna Soul: the 'Bean Adapt' function. I tested this machine.

Our editorial team includes Simon Balissat, an experienced cafécionado. A tame machine tamer, he is our coordinator in the world of coffee beans, the man in whose veins caffeine flows. It's not a good idea to put an automatic coffee machine in his hands. So we decided against it. So it was I who got to test the new Primadonna Soul from De'Longhi. While our barista Simon Balissat talks shop, I receive the parcel from Northern Italy.

Guide
All cold coffee? Trend drink cold brew
by Simon Balissat

I'm one of those people who have to endure scorn tinged with pity and resentment from the Olympus of friend-bearers. I don't have the time - or don't want to take the time - to turn the beans into powder in the grinder, squeeze them into a tote, preferably to the gram, and burn my fingers on the boiling controls until the coffee flows into the cup.

In my case, De'Longhi has delivered its marketing message to the right person. "The 4.3-inch TFT touchscreen displays drinks according to your consumption. I love that. Personalised and simple. And it doesn't stop there: the thermobloc electronic system guarantees the optimum brewing temperature for your coffees and manages steam production for milk-based drinks. "That's exactly it! We'll let the others burn their hands. And the icing on the cake? "It includes a cleaning function for maximum hygiene. After each preparation, all the parts that come into contact with the milk are automatically cleaned: "More precisely, the steam flushes all the milk drops out of the system. Take that in the teeth you milk jug washers!

The Primadonna Soul: replacement

So, now you know which school I belong to. I'm one of those people who drinks coffee made by automatic machines. Perhaps deep inside me lurks the desire to be a virtuoso. But my morning cappuccino has to find its place between the preparation of breakfast and the first video call. And after lunch, the espresso has to go fast.

That's why, for the past few years, a Primadonna has taken up residence in our kitchen. This is the XS model, a machine that has never let me down, but which, like any good ageing model that respects itself, is no longer really up to scratch. The final espresso contains a little too much water. For a few weeks, the new machine had to show what it was made of. Meanwhile, the XS was consigned to the basement, not because the Soul model stole its space - after all, it impressed us with its quality - but its slightly protruding proportions were such that we opted for a more compact De'Longhi model.

Automatic coffee makers

CHF939.–

De'Longhi PrimaDonna Soul

Let's start at the beginning, which means unpacking and installation. I don't know about you, but I always dread this moment. We've got a system that works well, a machine we know. And then you have to let it go? And that takes some getting used to. One lunchtime, my wife and I decided to take the machine out, all wrapped up in its polystyrene. There you go! We plugged in the power cable, inserted the water tank and the bean container. Switch on the machine, select the menu language and off you go. But first without the assistance of the dedicated application. We wanted to try our first espresso.

Old and new sit side by side: the Primadonna XS compared to the Primadonna Soul.

So far, everything has worked perfectly. Ten minutes after opening the box, the machine was up and running. The one and a half pound pack of instructions in all sorts of languages proved useless. OK, you're probably going to tell me that a chimpanzee could operate such a machine. But De'Longhi has done a good job in terms of operation and hardware in my eyes.

Compared to the four-year-old Primadonna XS, some improvements are noticeable:

water tank inserted at the front;
grain level more visible;
milk trap for replenishment without removing the container from its base, useful when a lot is needed;
cover allowing the machine to be used without the milk carafe.

Congratulations here to the product designers who had this aesthetic in mind.

Practical solution for milk lovers: topping up is done without extracting the milk jug during operation.

Large choice of drinks and carafe pourer

Cappuccino drinkers will be over the moon. And so will everyone else, for that matter. The selection menu includes no fewer than 19 pre-programmed drinks, so you can have everything you want, including the not-so-different beverages known as "cappuccinos".hot water' and 'tea function', which ultimately achieve the same thing. The machine gets rave reviews from me for the coffee in the 'pour-over carafe' that the in-laws are so fond of. When they visit, you have to count in litres. A matching pour-over carafe is not included, but can of course be purchased separately.

If the beverage selection isn't enough for you, or if you think your espresso should be less than or more than five millilitres, that's where the dedicated app, which is also handy for keeping the machine's display screen clean. Unless you don't mind.

Let's get back to our app! De'Longhi should make it even better. On my iPhone X, it works. But it sometimes takes an incredible amount of time to load the menu change. Or the machine starts when I 'order' the drink with my finger, a nice animation displays the grind, the screen changes to 'Drink ready', but when I look at the machine I see the espresso pouring from the nozzle. I wish the explanatory texts had been written by people who have learnt how to do it. You read things like:

Your machine optimisation is complete. If you want a different result, Bean Adapt technology allows you to adjust the extraction parameters of your grains.

Art de la formule à la De’Longhi

So, I can pretty much picture what this thing is trying to tell me. But I'm not satisfied with 'just about', especially from a machine that costs well over CHF 1,000. And certainly not when my personalised espresso doesn't appear as 'Espresso forte' on the drinks screen as I typed it in, but as 'Espresso f'. I'm pretty sure the full name of the default drink "Espresso macchiato" has more letters.

Why doesn't the app show the full name I lovingly assigned (bottom right)? My « Espresso forte» is not a « Espresso f».

As I'm in the mood for over-consumption of caffeine at the moment, I'd like to say a few words about the bean adaptation function. The parameters offered by the machine for adjusting the coffee beans are formulated without any marketing blah-blah. For example, you can tell the machine that you have emptied the pack of 100% Arabica coffee beans into the cup holder. The machine translates its 'knowledge' of these types of beans into a specific grind, an appropriate quantity of coffee and the right brewing temperature. There's a trick the machine uses to 'recognise' the beans: as the owner, the first step in the app is for you to specify whether you have a 100% Arabica blend or an Arabica-Robusta blend. In the second step, you determine the degree of roast, from one of the four available, from "light" to "dark", using the "dark roast" function. to "dark", thanks to the "roasting colour kit", i.e. a colour chart.

The colour chart for determining the degree of roast.

Once the settings have been made, all that's left to do is pour the espresso. If you don't like the result in the cup, the app will guide you to adjust the result to your taste. If the crema is too light or too dark, or if the espresso is too watery or too bitter, the machine will adjust the settings. You're the smart one, not the machine.

Overview: good coffee, an app that leaves something to be desired

Enough about the coffee, here's my conclusion after five weeks and a disproportionate number of espressos a day. The Primadonna Soul looks good in the kitchen. While Jura, the Swiss manufacturer of fully automated machines, might come up with slightly more stylish casings, the De'Longhi screen holder machine will spread that scent of Italian dolce vita in your kitchen. Here, De'Longhi splits the difference. That said, at well over CHF1,000, I was expecting more than metallic-looking plastic.

But when it comes to coffee, this De'Longhi meets my expectations. Espresso has a lovely crema, milk drinks are topped with a stable froth, and that's even with oat and soya milk. The Bean Adapt function is a great gadget. Using an application, the result can be improved or at least customised. Grain detection shortens the process of finding the optimum setting. Once you've found it, you probably won't touch it again. On a day-to-day basis, the small practical improvements to the milk jug, water tank and screen are more convincing than the app and Bean Adapt technology, which don't yet seem to be technically up to scratch.

For households with more than two coffee drinkers (or at least one excessive drinker), the Primadonna Soul is a suitable choice. In this case, you won't mind if the milk carafe, for example, only fits across the standard drinks compartment of the fridge and takes up the space there of two bottles of wine.

The milk jug holds a lot of milk. But it takes up a lot of space in the fridge.

Similarly, you'll also have no problem making room in your kitchen for this 26 by 46 centimetre coffee pro. What's more, you'll be looking forward to the release - hopefully soon - of the new version of the app. The pleasure of 'ordering' a coffee with your fingertips from the office upstairs is disconcertingly simple, although you should remember to place a coffee cup under the nozzle beforehand.

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Martin Jungfer

Head of Content

Martin.Jungfer@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist since 1997. Stopovers in Franconia (or the Franken region), Lake Constance, Obwalden, Nidwalden and Zurich. Father since 2014. Expert in editorial organisation and motivation. Focus on sustainability, home office tools, beautiful things for the home, creative toys and sports equipment.

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