I've used Ninja AutoBarista to create about a dozen different coffee drinks, but I have no idea what grind size, tamping pressure, water temperature, or extraction time are required to produce an Italian espresso for these drinks. AutoBarista will handle all these issues for you, allowing you to make 13 different drinks with just one button press.
AutoBarista tries to bring the coffee shop into your home, but it doesn’t require you to master those complex and time-consuming details of making perfect Italian espresso. It can make both drip coffee as well as Italian milk-based drinks like cappuccinos and frappes. This fully automatic Italian coffee machine can even make cold brew or cold press espresso relatively quickly – but don’t forget to add ice, otherwise it’ll taste more like warm coffee.
The versatility of AutoBarista comes from its “Grind iQ” functions. This technology can identify the size, roast type, and freshness of coffee beans, and automatically calibrate the grinding coarseness, amount of powder, and dosage required for each brew to create the beverage you desire. As you customize the number of espresso shots, concentration, and temperature in your beverage, Grind iQ will also adjust accordingly.
If you use features like Grind and iQ, it might feel to you like having the bumpers turned on while playing bowling, or like using assisted steering in Mario Kart. In that case, this machine might not be suitable for you – you'd be better off continuing to brew coffee by hand and enjoying your delicate electric kettle. This machine is not designed for coffee enthusiasts who want to control every detail of the brewing process. On the contrary, it's more suitable for those who enjoy drinking coffee but have never bothered to study their own Italian espresso powder.
To clarify one thing first, I am not particularly enthusiastic about the coffee brewing process itself. With that in mind, I would say that I think the drinks made by AutoBarista are quite good.
On one side of the machine, you can extract Italian espresso or make drip coffee, while on the other side, there is an automatic frother and a stainless-steel milk tank. You can adjust the settings according to the temperature and thickness of the froth you prefer. It also comes with a plant-based milk frothing mode.
In order to keep the coffee tasting good, AutoBarista automatically rinses itself before and after making each drink. This is a very practical feature – I often manually rinse my own Nespresso machine, as I don’t use it every day. However, the water that accumulates in the drip tray can fill up after making just a few drinks. So if you share a residence with someone else, emptying the drip tray might become a daily hassle. Although the design of this machine makes it easy to remove the drip tray, I have more than once accidentally let it fill too much, causing coffee-colored water to spill on the kitchen floor. For me, that is an unacceptable issue.
When removing the water collection tray, you will also see the grounds collection box, which collects the used Italian coffee powder cakes. A reminder: if you even forget to empty the grounds collection box for a few days, you might be startled by the blue mold inside the next time you go to dispose of the powder cakes. Perhaps I should have anticipated this, but as I scrubbed that moldy box, I felt ready to return to my beloved OXO cold brew coffee maker—whose price is only 6% of that of the AutoBarista.
However, from the perspective of AutoBarista, most people might not find this machine so difficult to maintain. It just so happens that I belong to the category of people who make a large number of cold brews every week and try to keep the morning routine as simple as possible. If you are more patient than I am before 8 a.m., then you are likely to enjoy this machine and find it not difficult to maintain at all.
Ninja is very adept at making multi-purpose kitchen products, and AutoBarista is no exception. It integrates a drip coffee maker, an Italian espresso machine, a frother, a coffee grinder, and a food scale into one device. However, if you don't intend to make full use of the versatility of AutoBarista, then spending $999.99 on it is not worth it.
