In this video, we look at the highly anticipated Luxe Cafe Premier home espresso machine by Ninja. This is a sweet machine, that …
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Transcript
- 0:00 | [Music] This right here is the Ninja
Luxe Cafe Espresso Machine. Now, - 0:04 | when I first heard about the Luxe Cafe,
the first question in my mind was, - 0:09 | “Can it make real espresso?” And I can say it
right away, at the beginning of the video—yes, - 0:13 | it can. Ninja was not screwing around when it
came to the design of this machine, and they’ve - 0:19 | included a couple of really cool, interesting
features. It’s got some tricks up its sleeves, - 0:23 | and I will show those, along with a couple
of caveats, as I introduce the machine. - 0:30 | So, it can do espresso. It can also do a normal
brew coffee. It’s got an extra basket for that, - 0:39 | which is hidden away in a little
cubby hole. It’s this one right here, - 0:42 | and what you’ll notice is it’s an
actual real basket—it’s got holes in it, - 0:45 | it is not the pressurized type. That is the first
thing I wanted to mention right away—this machine - 0:53 | has real baskets. If we just take a look
here at the portafilter, the portafilter is - 1:01 | metal. There, as you can see, I do believe that
it is chrome-plated, probably brass underneath, - 1:06 | would be my best guess. The handle itself is
plastic, but otherwise, it’s a nice, heavy-duty - 1:12 | portafilter, and it weighs 450g, so that’s a
whole pound in your hands. Here’s the double - 1:18 | basket right there, so you can see the double
basket that it comes with is non-pressurized—a - 1:25 | nice traditional basket. It is also keyed, so
you can only put it in a certain way, like this, - 1:31 | and that is so the machine can determine which
basket you have in there—the large basket or this - 1:39 | double espresso basket. Oh, and another thing I
should mention right away—this is a 53mm basket. - 1:46 | It’s got a couple of interesting features. We’ll
make an espresso, and I’ll show those on the fly. - 1:51 | Right now, I’ve got espresso selected. It shows me
my current grind setting, and it also shows me a - 1:57 | recommended grind setting. So, when you initialize
the machine, go through a couple of iterations of - 2:03 | espressos, and it will realize if that was too
fast or too slow, and it will recommend that you - 2:08 | either grind finer or grind more coarse. So, we’re
going to go ahead and make an espresso. I want to - 2:13 | show you what I think is the coolest feature so
far on this machine. The workflow is actually kind - 2:20 | of fun. Take the portafilter out like that.
On the side here, you have got stuff stuck, - 2:26 | so we’ve got this funnel. Just stick that on
top like that, and when you put the funnel in - 2:31 | the machine like this, you’ll see it’s actually
taring out a scale. Is that not awesome? This - 2:39 | comes with an integrated scale built into
the grinder—that is the best thing yet. - 2:44 | So, let’s just do some grinding. Start grind,
and you’ll notice that the grinder is pretty - 2:52 | quiet. Okay, so it’s done. That’s what the
grinds look like in there, and just kind of - 3:03 | tap it to even it out. Then, we’re going to use
the included tamper. Now, this tamper is kind of - 3:10 | interesting—the bottom part is solid; I believe
this part here is hollow, with a spring inside, - 3:19 | so it’s pretty fun to use also. All you’ve
got to do is just put that on there like so, - 3:24 | press down on it, and you’re good to go. You
could polish a little bit, press down once - 3:29 | more if you want, and that is your finished puck
right there. Alright, then just remove the funnel, - 3:35 | put that back in its spot, and we’re going to put
the tamper back in its spot—easy as pie. Then, - 3:40 | put this into the machine, lock it in, and
let’s go ahead and make ourselves an espresso. - 3:49 | This machine does include pre-infusion. It is a
really slow pre-infusion, so the shot is going to - 3:55 | take a fair amount of time. You’ll also see that
we can put this cup holder in different spots—you - 3:59 | can put it all the way up for an espresso,
or you can put it a bit lower if you’ve got - 4:05 | a larger drink, just like that. This is also
pretty heavy-duty metal right there. You can - 4:12 | see right now we’ve got espresso selected and
we’ve got a double. We’re going to start the brew, - 4:17 | and we’ll see what it looks like. [Music] Oh,
there it comes! That is looking pretty tasty, - 4:26 | full of crema. These are nice fresh beans. Oh
yeah, that is looking delicious, and we’ll see - 4:33 | where the machine stops. Alright, it stops at 42g.
Alright, so there’s our espresso right there. You - 4:41 | can see, full of crema. This is a Robusta blend,
so I expect a lot of crema. It’s also a nice, - 4:47 | fresh bean, so I expect crema for that reason
as well. And because this is a Robusta, - 4:52 | I do expect some earthy flavors, maybe a bit
of chocolate. Let’s see what it tastes like. - 5:00 | That is a pretty nice, balanced espresso right
there. Nice and hot too, and this is on the - 5:04 | lowest setting. You do have low, medium, and
high. I choose the lowest setting, actually, - 5:09 | for a Robusta, and in particular,
this is kind of a darker roast, - 5:12 | and that is a tasty espresso. I
do get some bitters, chocolate, - 5:16 | and because it is so much on the dark side,
I get some black licorice too. Getting value - 5:21 | from this video? Please take a moment to like and
subscribe. Let’s go ahead and make a cappuccino, - 5:27 | because that’s my favorite drink. This machine
does something much differently than all the - 5:32 | others that I have experienced so far. Let me
show you. The automatic steaming does work well, - 5:38 | and it works differently than the other machines
because, as you can see, it’s got a spinner - 5:42 | inside. So, you’ve got the injection here of the
steam—you’ve got hot steam coming out of here, - 5:48 | warming up the milk inside here, and you’ve got
the spinner to spin it around, and that’s going - 5:53 | to actually be able to give you that vortex that
you need to make a decent cappuccino milk foam. - 5:59 | Now, what I will say is this: What I find a
little unfortunate about this milk pitcher is - 6:04 | the fact that the lip on it right here is not fine
enough to really practice any latte art—it is too - 6:12 | bulbous there, so you won’t be able to practice
latte art with this machine, at least not with - 6:17 | this milk pitcher. But operation is simple.
Just go ahead and put it in like that. Okay, - 6:23 | so here is the froth side. We’ve got dairy
or plant-based. I’m going to choose dairy, - 6:29 | and I’m going to choose this middle one right
here. You can choose either really thin milk foam, - 6:35 | or the little bit thicker one, or the thickest.
So, you choose it right here, or you can also - 6:40 | choose a cold milk foam. I’m going to go with this
one and just press the start froth button. It also - 6:49 | does have a progress bar that you can see here.
It does show you its current status and how long - 6:55 | it’s going to take. Alright, so there you can see
the milk turning. We’re adding air to the milk, - 7:03 | and it’s turning at the same time with that little
wheel on there. I’m going to stop it right there - 7:14 | because I do find that this heats up the milk
a little bit hotter than I would like, and you - 7:19 | do have, in the settings menu, the possibility to
choose between low, medium, and high as far as the - 7:24 | milk temperature is concerned, but even the low
for me stops a little bit later than I would like. - 7:29 | You’ve got to make sure to wipe off the steam
wand immediately; otherwise, the milk sticks - 7:33 | onto the wand, which is not good. The milk
is actually pretty nice and silky. I mean, - 7:38 | for an automatic milk foam, that’s quite
good. But pouring any kind of latte art, - 7:43 | I find, is not very easy
with the pitcher as it is. - 7:56 | So, we got a little design there,
but certainly, you can do much better - 7:59 | if you take this milk that has been frothed
and pour it into a better pitcher for doing - 8:05 | latte art. Let me show you what I have
been doing. I just take the milk that’s - 8:09 | been frothed and put it in a pitcher like
this—more of a conventional pitcher that’s - 8:13 | got a better lip for doing latte art on it. This
is also easier to handle. It’s smaller and just - 8:19 | more ergonomic to use one of these to do latte
art than such a big honker like this one here. - 8:26 | Of course, the question is: How’s the taste? It’s
quite good. It does a nice job with the espresso, - 8:35 | and it does a pretty nice job with the milk
foam. If you want a little bit thicker, - 8:38 | for a little bit more texture, you can just go
up to the next setting and have a little bit - 8:42 | thicker texture. This is more like something
kind of like a flat white, you could say. - 8:47 | Cleanup is pretty easy. I
just rinse it out like that, - 8:52 | and then you’re good to go. If you want
to clean it out a little bit better, - 8:56 | all you have to do is put it inside there
like that. You can choose the lowest foam - 9:02 | amount and start that—just put a drop of
detergent in there, and you’re good to go. - 9:10 | Okay, so what else I mentioned is that this
can do normal coffee. Let’s make one of those. - 9:17 | Another thing is the puck knockouts are pretty
good—you see, just like that, the puck just - 9:22 | knocked right out. So, those puck knockouts have
been nice for me. Let’s pop out this basket here - 9:29 | and put in the Luxe basket. We’re going to pop
this guy in there—you see it says Luxe right - 9:36 | there, and it is keyed, so now the machine knows
which basket we’ve got installed. Pretty neat. - 9:44 | Now, if we want to go to coffee, all we have
to do is select coffee. Alright, so if we move - 9:49 | from the espresso side over to the coffee side,
you’ve got Classic and Rich. Rich just gives you - 9:56 | a slightly higher ratio of coffee to water—it
makes it a little bit stronger. We’re going to - 10:01 | stick with Classic, and we’re going to do 10 oz.
There, you can choose the size here. Let’s start - 10:07 | from the beginning: 6 oz, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and
18 oz. So, you can make some really big coffees. - 10:13 | Let’s just do 10 oz for us, and it’s telling me,
“Oh, look at this—the current grind setting is 7, - 10:18 | and we have to go up to 25.” So, what we’re going
to do is go on the side here and just adjust this. - 10:23 | We’re going to make it coarser, so I’m going
to adjust this towards the back, and you’ll - 10:29 | see that it has an encoder on there—it knows
that we are getting larger. That is pretty cool. - 10:36 | Let’s grind into our portafilter. Start
grind. Alright, so what do we have here? That - 10:46 | is how coarse the grind is. Considering that the
basket is not full, we do not have to tamp that, - 10:52 | but we’ll just kind of level it out like that,
and we’re going to put it inside like so, - 10:56 | put our cup on there, and press the
button to start the brew. [Music] - 11:12 | Alright, so the coffee is all
done. There’s our 10 oz coffee, - 11:16 | and let’s just see what that tastes like.
Yeah, that is actually a pretty nice, - 11:24 | intense, strong coffee—hot too, 73°C.
So, if you have guests who don’t like - 11:33 | espresso or cappuccino, you can make
them a nice brew coffee just like that. - 11:40 | One more thought before I
go further: as I mentioned, - 11:42 | there is a scale in here. For the double
espresso basket, it’s giving me consistently - 11:48 | 17.5g—anywhere between 17.3 up to 17.9g
consistently, regardless of the bean. I - 11:54 | have tried three different beans with this
machine, and also regardless of the grind, - 11:58 | it’s able to measure out the dose that you’re
using, and that is one really important - 12:03 | thing when you are dialing in an espresso
machine. It does the same for brew as well. - 12:08 | So, let’s see how many grams we get for 10
oz. It’s taring out—that’s really cool—and - 12:15 | grind. Okay, so for 10 oz of coffee, we get
20.5g. This machine can also do cold brew, - 12:29 | so we’re going to do that next. As you can
see, it wants me to go from 25 down to 23, - 12:35 | so we’re going to tighten the grind
a little bit for the cold brew. - 12:40 | Let’s do a 10 oz cold brew. Before we can grind,
- 12:47 | we have to rinse because the
boiler is too hot for a cold brew. - 12:51 | We’ve got to rinse, so let’s do that. Rinse…
- 13:00 | okay, alright, here we go with our cold brew.
Taring out the scale, and here we go. We’re - 13:12 | doing this with 20g of coffee. Let’s start
our brew. I’ve got to add water, so let’s just - 13:19 | fill the sucker up—that’s 37 oz, by the way, in
total. It is nice that it’s got a water sensor, - 13:24 | and now we can start our brew. This is supposed
to be a rapid cold brew, so let’s see how long - 13:32 | it takes. It’s brewing at 38°C, which is pretty
much par for the course for doing a cold brew. - 13:50 | Alrighty, and there is our
cold brew coffee. Cheers! Mhm, - 13:59 | pretty tasty. Add some milk to that,
and you’ve got a nice iced drink. - 14:03 | As far as the build quality is concerned, I
think this build is pretty good. It is made - 14:09 | out of a mixture of materials—you’ve got some
pretty heavy-duty metals like this one. The - 14:14 | drip tray is made out of a mixture of stainless
steel on the top and plastic otherwise. Of course, - 14:23 | the reservoir has a fair capacity. It’s
got the little button that pops up when - 14:28 | it’s full of water and needs to be emptied.
You know, the chassis itself is a bit nicer, - 14:36 | honestly. The molding of the—I’m guessing it’s
ABS plastic—feels a little bit nicer than what I - 14:41 | was expecting, to be honest. It does have
some jacketing here in stainless steel, - 14:47 | so you get that nice stainless steel look on the
machine, mixed together with the gray plastic. - 14:54 | As far as the dimensions are concerned, it’s
almost like a cube. It is just over 12 inches - 15:00 | wide, about 15 inches tall, and about 13
inches deep. It is kind of heavy. Also, - 15:08 | with that being the case, I wish there
were handles here on the bottom. There - 15:12 | are no handles—I find that unfortunate because
I don’t want to grab here since this actually - 15:16 | has an integrated scale in it. So, I’ve got to
tip it up and grab it from the bottom like that. - 15:22 | While we’re doing that, let’s just have a
look. This is what it looks like from the side: - 15:26 | you’ve got this really cool area where you can
put the funnel, and this sweet area where you can - 15:32 | put the tamper in. It’s nice and satisfying
to insert that here into this hole. Then, - 15:38 | on this side, you’ve got this really
neat cubby hole where you can put your - 15:42 | things. You can fit your large filter
in there, put the small filter in there, - 15:48 | and you’ve got a little back-flushing
disc—look at that. The back-flushing - 15:51 | disc is included so that you can back-flush the
machine. It even comes with back-flush tablets, - 15:56 | so that’s a good sign. It also comes with some
descaler solution, which is important to keep - 16:03 | up with the maintenance of your machine. It comes
with a little brush as well, and all this stuff - 16:09 | fits in this nice little cubby hole right here. I
do quite like that—I think that’s a nice feature. - 16:16 | This is the water tank here—fits 37 oz.
One more thing I should mention is that - 16:22 | the top part actually has a cup warmer
on there, and it gets decently warm. - 16:27 | Now, as far as the pros and cons go on this
machine, I think it has a lot to offer. It can - 16:32 | make real espresso, comes with a non-pressurized
basket, and has a pretty heavy-duty portafilter. - 16:37 | What I really love is the fact that it has
a weight-based dosing system—it’s great. The - 16:43 | automatic milk steaming also does quite a good
job because it has the spinner inside, so you - 16:49 | actually get a vortex going. And yeah, you can do
three things: you can do espresso, brew coffee, - 16:56 | and make a cold brew. It’s got quite a bit
going for it, particularly in that price range. - 17:01 | What’s a little unfortunate is if you ever
start a drink and then decide you want to do - 17:06 | something else—like if you just grind but then
decide you want to do a different type of drink - 17:10 | instead—there’s no way to just abort. You have
to actually turn the machine off and then turn - 17:14 | it back on—that’s a little unfortunate. And
finally, the ratios are a little bit long. If - 17:20 | you are grinding for espresso, you almost
always get 17.5g, but it usually gives me - 17:26 | around 40g out, so that’s a little over a
2:1 ratio. I wouldn’t mind reducing that, - 17:31 | particularly for darker roast beans,
down to maybe 30 to 35g. In that case, - 17:37 | you just have to stop it on your own. But
all in all, it’s a very interesting machine. - 17:41 | Now it’s up to you guys. What do you think
about this machine? Is it interesting? How - 17:44 | does it compare to other machines that
you’ve been considering? No matter what, - 17:48 | thanks very much for watching the video. If you
made it this far, write #Lux in the comments - 17:54 | below. Until next time, I say happy coffee
drinking and happy cappuccino drinking. Bye now! - 18:04 | [Music]