I tried De'Longhi's Primadonna bean-to-cup machine - it's so clever, it's like having a live-in barista who learns your favourite drinks and even suggests tweaks for you

Clever wouldn't usually be the first adjective that springs to mind when you think of a coffee machine but that's exactly what the De'Longhi Primadonna Aromatic is, with a flurry of features to make your at-home barista experience completely seamless.

I got to try out this seriously kitted out coffee machine at the Ideal Home test centre to explore its huge drinks menu and see if its worthy of joining the ranks of the best bean-to-cup coffee machines out there. Here's how I got on.

In a nutshell

The price tag of this machine takes it beyond what you might call an investment level purchase and more into wishlist terrority. At over £1000, it's a seriously pricey appliance.

What you get for that exorbitant sum is a very impressive machine. Highlights include De'Longhi's integrated BeanAdapt technology, which runs a program of automatic calibration to get the best from your chosen beans, as well as an interface that responds to your everyday coffee choices by prioritising your favourite drinks at certain times of the day.

For black coffee lovers or for latte obsessives there's a lot to love. The drinks menu is equipped with all manner of drinks in a variety of lengths and strengths as well as milk frothing like I've never experienced. It textures milk in a deliciously silky way for cappuccinos and caffe lattes that are as good as you'll get in an expensive coffee shop. The separate milk carafe for cold milk frothing would be just exquisite for the warmer months too.

Product specs

• Coffee machine type: Automatic bean-to-cup
• Dimensions: 26.2 cm (width), 40.7 cm (height), 46.3 cm (depth)
• Coffee options: 38 pre-set recipes (iced and hot)
• Water tank capacity: 2.2L
• Pressure: 19 Bar
• Weight: 12.6 kg
• Colourways: Stainless steel finish
• RRP: £1,549

Who tested this coffee machine?

Molly Cleary

I have the lucky job of reviewing kitchen appliances and cookware for Ideal Home which means I got to enjoy many lovely coffees from the De'Longhi Primadonna when I tried it at our test centre. My everyday machine is the Sage Barista Express Impress but as a latte lover, I was sold on how easy it is to replicate coffee-shop style drinks with the Primadonna Aromatic. And I was totally wowed by the interactive touch screen which picks up on your coffee habits.

Getting started & first impressions

There's no learning curve with a machine this kitted out as the process is made so painlessly simple for you. Once you've unboxed it and set it up, you just need to follow the instructions on the screen to calibrate its settings.

You'll waste a small amount of beans and get through at least 4 espressos in the process of tweaking the machine's settings but this only needs to be done once and is very much worth it.

Getting to grips with the Bean Adapt technology is the most important step for me. Usually with an espresso machine you'll need to turn a dial to get the grind size for your beans just right. With the Primadonna, in-built software takes this manual step out of your hands with the process beginning by creating a profile for the coffee beans you pop into the hopper.

From here, you answer different questions on the machine's touchscreen on the bean type and roast level which the program then uses to adjust various settings including the grind size and brewing temperature.

This isn't where the feedback ends. Once your coffee has been made, the machine will ask you for your opinion on how it dispensed as well as how it tasted. If you answer these, the machine will go even further to make the necessary changes to make the coffee more suitable the next time around. You can run this program as many times as you like to get your perfect brew.

As for first impressions, there's no getting around it: this machine is big and bulky. But its still stylishly done somehow, with its gleaming stainless steel exterior and large, engaging touch screen. One of the things I really like about this machine is that the water tank pulls out from the front, so that if you put it underneath a cupboard you don't have to grapple with it every time you need to refill. It's all programmed from the front, which is excellent for everyday use.

What is it like to use?

Unless you're a black coffee drinker, the next thing you'll want to know about in terms of use is how to pick drinks and froth milk. For me, this is the best element of this machine.

The touchscreen is genuinely a pleasure to use. It displays the machine's menu in full colour, with engaging illustrations and visualisations of any steps you need to take.

It pools the types of drinks into two categories: iced and hot. You can then browse your options by swiping across the screen.

There are over 38 preset drinks on offer. And if there's something you like hot then you'll also be able to find it in the cold menu, which can lead to lots of fun drinks experimentation. I imagine it's also very fun to show off to guests.

Once you've selected your drink (let's say a cappuccino) then you can customise it even further by tweaking the intensity, size and temperature of your beverage. If you've chosen a milk-based drinks, the next thing you'll need to do is attach your milk carafe to the front of the machine. The gamechanging feature with the Primadonna Aromatic is the two milk carafes – one for iced drinks and one for hot.

On each of the carafes there's a dial which enables you to set your drink up as dictated by the machine. For a cappuccino, for example, you might want to set the dial to level 3 for maximum froth. It's a seamless system which allows for a huge range of different froths for various drinks and the combination of steam, air and milk within the carafes does such a gorgeous job. It's also as good for plant milks as it is for normal milk – and that is no mean feat.

What's the coffee like?

I started simple with my tests, opting for a hot cappuccino. I'd already had a good run through with the black coffees whilst I was tweaking the espressos as part of the BeanAdapt tech and was keen to get onto how the milk frothing was with this machine.

To make a cappucino you need to take the black milk carafe and plug it in to the front of the machine. De'Longhi recommends keeping the carafes with milk in them in the fridge so that they're always ready to go at the right temperature.

The espresso dispenses from the spouts attached to the main body of the machine after the milk has been frothed. The resulting drink had such a pleasing look of many layers and tasted divine. The frothing with this machine and similar De'Longhi's is so impressive.

Next I tried an iced caffe latte, which meant swapping out the milk frother carafe and turning the dial that sits on the top. I also filled a double walled glass with ice, which you'll need to do for all of the cold drinks to have the maximum drinking experience.

With the iced latte the espresso dispenses first followed by the cold milk foam. The hot coffee hitting the ice does melt some of it, which is why it's important to have a full glass. By adding the milk second with this drink, the classic layered look that's usually reserved for coffee shop drinks is easily achieved.

Next I moved onto trying out the cold brew function, which works pretty differently to the iced caffee latte. While the latter dispenses a hot espresso over ice, the cold brew setting uses room temperature water and low pressure. This means it takes a little longer for your coffee to dispense (a couple of minutes as opposed to a few seconds) and it gives it a different taste profile too which is less acidic than normal coffee.

It's a seamless experience to try out a cold brew with this machine and it takes less than 3 minutes from start to finish to replicate a process which usually takes 24 hours (steeping coffee grounds in cold water). The taste is less intense than coffee and more suitable for sipping all day in hot weather and this machine does a great job of it.

Cleaning

Extensive cleaning can put people off bean-to-cup machines in a big way. But with the Primadonna, the process is made as easy as it can be (which adds up given the price tag).

Standout cleaning features include the ease of refreshing the milk carafes after you've used them (you just turn the dial to 'clean' before you put it back into the fridge) as well as the reminders to empty the empty grounds tray (which conveniently pulls out from the front).

The big jobs, like descaling, are also prompted to you by the touch screen complete with in-depth instructions. The machine also self-rinses to keep you from having to perform that separately.

How does it compare to similar models?

The De'Longhi Rivelia is one of the best-loved coffee machines we've ever tried here at Ideal Home as per our expert home economist's five star review. You can find it on sale for under £600 and it boasts many of the things I love about this machine too including BeanAdpat tech and hands-free milk frothing. It also has two interchangable bean hoppers so that you can enjoy decaf coffee in the afternoons. If you're on more of a budget, it's an easy pick.

Should you buy the De'Longhi Primadonna Aromatic?

If you're looking for a best-in-class automatic coffee machine and budget is no object, then what are you waiting for? This machine is unbelievably kitted out and the enjoyment you'll get from using it, as well as the calibre of drinks, will blow you away. It's ultra-capable.

If you're saving up for a De'Longhi or similar, while this machine might be out of your budget there's plenty from the same brand offering phenomenal quality for far less – check out the Rivelia as your first port of call.