Jura E6

Verdict

The Jura E6 bean-to-cup coffee machine delivers the sort of coffee quality you’d expect from a high-end machine without the high price. Plus, it’s as stylish as its pricier siblings, such as the Jura J8, and uses a similar system for warm foamy milk on demand.

However, there are some trade-offs: it’s not fully automatic for milk-based drinks, the menu is compact, and while its sleek screen looks like a touchscreen, it’s controlled by buttons. Stacked up against similarly priced bean-to-cup machines it’s harder to see the points of difference that would make you choose the E6 over one with a wider menu or fully automatic operation.

Introduction

Premium coffee quality usually means a price to match. Not so for the Jura E6 bean-to-cup coffee machine.

It incorporates many of the same features as Jura’s all-singing, all-dancing machines like the Jura J8, but is comparatively affordable.

That means that you can still enjoy aromatic, full-flavoured espressos, barista-style lungos or cappuccinos on tap, but by foregoing some of the finer features, you’ll make a substantial saving.

Design and Features

• Milk system cleaning
• 8 drink options
• Button controls

On the outside, the E6 bears a striking resemblance to the more expensive Jura machines.

You’ll find the same chrome-effect details blended with a matt metallic and glossy black plastic finish. It’s also a similar size as some Jura bean-to-cups, although a little lighter at 9kg. And there’s the same generously long 1.1m-power cable that allows you to place it almost anywhere in your kitchen.

This is combined with a large 1.9-litre water tank with a rotating handle, so you can brew coffee all day without refilling. A water filter takes up some of the capacity but it’s still a bigger tank than many bean-to-cups provide.

There’s both a hopper for beans, with the grind adjustable from fine to coarse and a chute for ground coffee at the back.

Controls are where you’re likely to notice the most difference. While the E6 can connect to Jura’s app, it requires an optional part to be added to the machine to connect to Wi-Fi.

And while the coffee machine has a colour screen on the front showing the different drinks and settings, this isn’t a touchscreen. Instead, it’s controlled by the buttons that surround it.

The menu itself is limited to just eight choices: good for those who dislike wading through lots of drinks to find their preference but more frustrating for those keen to go beyond a cappuccino. Each can be adapted and saved. The drip tray and grounds container are dishwasher safe.

Performance

• Brews excellent espresso
• Controls can be tricky
• Consistent performance

Where many bean-to-cups are fully automatic wonders, what quickly becomes apparent when using the E6 is that, unless you’re exclusively a black coffee drinker, you’ll need to be more hands-on.

Milk-based drinks are semi-automatic: after popping the milk pipe into a container of milk (there’s no carafe supplied) and connecting to the spout, you’ll need to turn a switch for foamed milk and turn it back again before the espresso dispenses.

Choose a milky drink, forget, and walk away, and the E6 won’t start brewing at all. The same applies when rinsing the milk system after each cappuccino – you’ll need to be there to turn the switch and back again.

Milk and coffee are dispensed from separate spouts, which are both located in the centre of the machine.

Hot water also dispense from the milk nozzle. There’s a removable attachment that can be swapped in for a better water flow, but I found that splashes tended not to be an issue when making Americanos.

Much like with the Jura J8, as hot water wasn’t run through coffee grounds to top up the drink, the result was smooth and sweet, with no bitterness.

The same was true for espressos: each one was dispensed with an aromatic, thick crema that was consistently good.

While the coffee is faultless, the E6’s controls are less so. Having a colour screen consistently misled me into thinking it was a touchscreen to be scrolled through with a swipe. Having to press or hold buttons to move from one screen to another, see what volumes constituted a macchiato, or go into the cleaning settings felt clunky.

Other functions aren’t immediately obvious. For example, if you want to use ground coffee or add an extra shot, you’ll have to enter the settings menu to find them. On the plus side, once you’ve selected ground coffee, it keeps the option while the machine is on, so you don’t have to keep reselecting it if you’re brewing a round of drinks pre-ground coffee.

While making a cappuccino involved multiple steps, the E6’s milky drinks were especially good: light, foamy milk combined with a rich shot of espresso every time.

Cleaning the milk system daily was less enjoyable though, and involved filling a container with water and specialist tablets, while turning the knob repeatedly. This is one aspect that would be better as an automatic function.

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