Jura ENA Micro 1 Coffee Machine review: consistent quality and effortless convenience
May 7th, 2015
While I wouldn’t say that I’m addicted to coffee, I’ll admit that I’ve developed a bit of a habit over the years. While once I just needed a couple of spoonfuls of Instant to get me going in the morning, these days it takes a shot or two of espresso to properly kickstart my brain.
source: Wikipedia
Unfortunately, preparing well-made espresso coffee not only requires special equipment, but a thorough grounding (pun semi-intended) in the ancient and mystical art of the barista.
If you’re not ready to master an entirely new skillset, but also don’t want to live a bleak, coffeeless existence at home, there is a third option… and it comes from Switzerland.
Precise Swiss quality
Jura is a Swiss coffee machine manufacturer, renowned for its high-quality products and innovative technology. Jura produces a variety of fully automatic coffee machines, capable of instantly preparing espresso and other café-style coffee drinks without any special equipment or training.
The Jura ENA Micro 1 is Jura’s entry-level machine, giving you all the basics you need and nothing you don’t. It makes coffee and coffee alone – this is NOT the machine for you if you want to press a button and have a perfect cappuccino ready to drink within moments (though Jura DOES have other machines available that can do this – more on these later).
The appliance’s design is fairly simple – an adjustable coffee spout, a drip tray where you place your mug, and touch controls on the top. The whole appliance has a narrow but fairly deep design, and while it may take up a bit more bench space than you expect, it’s still not an overly large machine.
At the rear is the water tank, which you can easily remove for refilling, as well as the bean chamber just above the grinder. You can also make coffee using grounds by dropping them into their own chute.
Fast and simple to use
The machine is controlled using the touch control panel, and I do mean a TOUCH-control panel – you barely need to apply any pressure at all. I’ve started my machine by accident, simply by swiping my finger across the surface.
Using these controls, you can choose from regular or strong coffee, and ristretto, espresso or coffee-sized drinks. It is possible to adjust these dosage sizes to suit your preferences, such as filling a favourite coffee mug right up to the brim rather than just delivering a few mouthfuls.
The machine is FAST. Seriously. It may take a few moments to start itself up and run its automatic self-cleaning before its ready to use, but otherwise you just need to press a button and you coffee will be ready within seconds. SECONDS, people.
How does the coffee taste? Good – though it partially depends on the beans or grounds, obviously. While the fully automatic action may lose some of the “soul” that comes with making espresso yourself, its pre-programmed settings help ensure that your coffee remains consistent, so you can be confident that every shot you prepare will always taste as good as the last one.
Stress-free maintenance
Maintaining the ENA Micro 1 is pretty simple – in fact, the machine handles most of the work itself! Every time you run the appliance, it flushes out its system with hot water and steam to help keep it functioning perfectly.
The control panel will light up to tell you when you need to refill the water tank, empty the drip tray and grounds bin, replace the water filter, or give the machine a clean.
Jura produces its own cleaning tablets specifically for this purpose – just drop a couple in the grounds slot and follow the instructions, and your machine will clean itself – no disassembly or fiddling about with pipe cleaners required!
Expanding your repertoire
As mentioned, this machine just makes basic espresso-style coffee, and doesn’t include a steam wand or other built-in attachments for preparing milk drinks such as lattes, cappuccinos or flat whites.
However, it does come with an entirely separate milk frother included, allowing you to manually prepare milk for specialty coffees or hot chocolates.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had much of a chance to properly experiment with my Jura milk frother, as I tend to prefer my morning coffee black (like my soul). The few times I’ve given it a go were more on the “error” side of trial and error, as I misjudged the milk measurements to get the best results (guidelines are included inside the cup – I missed them the first time around). I’d also recommend preparing your milk BEFORE you prepare the espresso, as the frother will likely take a fair bit longer to finish than the super-quick coffee machine.
Because your coffee is worth it
While the Jura ENA Micro 1 is a realtively basic design, it’s still a premium quality machine. It will likely set your bank account back a bit more than some other fully automatic coffee machines, but it’s worth it if you value consistently high quality and fast, effortless convenience.
Jura have several more high quality coffee machines available, including designs with built-in milk frothers and intuitive digital touchscreen displays that make preparing one-touch cappuccinos, flat whites and more, utterly effortless.
Jura GIGA 5 Coffee Machine 13629
However, these higher-end machines have correspondingly higher pricetags, making them substantial investments for serious coffee lovers.
But if all you need are the basics, and you’re happy to invest in quality and convenience, then the Jura ENA Micro 1 Coffee Machine provides excellent performance and incredible ease of use.
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