Jura C8 automatic coffee machine review

Tom's Guide

a day ago

Automatic coffee machines are ideal gadgets for time-poor coffee lovers. Some of the best espresso machines are a little too finicky for those who just want to press a button and get a fresh, hot cup of coffee.
Luckily, Jura has a whole range of premium automatic coffee machines. The Jura C8 is no different — its £899 price tag surely makes it a premium product. At time of writing, it's not available in the U.S. and there are no concrete plans for it to be released across the pond. Even so, historically, Jura machines have been released in the U.S. around 6 months after the U.K., so we still have hope.
However, the Jura C8 is pretty expensive for what it is — it only makes 4 different coffee drinks. If you're a bit of a coffee purist, though, and only want black coffees or cappuccinos, this may not be a concern. Find out the whole info in this Jura C8 automatic coffee machine review.
Price
£899
Weight
9.5kg
Grinder
Burr
Dimensions
12.8 x 10.2 x 17.2 inches
Heating system
Thermoblock
Pressure
15 bar
Water tank capacity
54 ounces / 1.6 liters
Accessories
Milk pipe
At time of writing (June 2025), the Jura C8 is only available in the U.K. and there are no plans for it to come to the U.S.. For U.S. readers, I'd recommend the brand new De'Longhi Rivelia ($1,499) or the reliable classic KitchenAid KF8 ($1,999).
In the U.K., the C8 is available for its RRP of £899 at John Lewis, £895 at Coffee Direct, and £769 at Robert Dyas. For a coffee machine that only makes 4 drinks, this is an incredibly steep price. The De'Longhi Rivelia (mentioned above) is just £749 in the U.K. and makes 8 different coffee recipes, with endless customization options — and comes with a milk carafe.
I tested the Jura C8 in 'Piano black'. Right now, the machine doesn't seem to come in any other color variations. At a baseline level, the C8 looks great: it has a lovely almost faceted plastic water tank that catches the light beautifully. The ground coffee chute has a magnetic lid that snaps pleasingly into place. The shiny metal drip tray looks modern and attractive. To round it all off, the bean hopper is built into the machine itself so there's no container sticking out of the top.
In terms of design practicality, the water tank is 54 fluid ounces (1.6 liters), which, in real terms, meant I only had to refill it about once every 8 drinks and 2 cleaning cycles. Similarly, the grounds drawer is large enough that I only had to empty it about once every 12 drinks. There's also a little dial next to the water tank that reads 'intense' and 'mild'. You can twist this dial to the flavor profile of your choosing: I kept mine on 'mild', the reason for which will soon become clear.
As you can see, the C8 has some great design features. However, there are a few things that don't justify its £900 price tag.
For starters, the C8 doesn't come with a milk carafe. Jura sells a milk jug for £37 on its website, which is a big ask when the machine itself is £899.
In terms of the machine itself, I'm not overly impressed with the screen. Whereas the De'Longhi Rivelia and KitchenAid K8 have interactive, full color touchscreens, the C8 has a dark, analog-looking screen that reminds me of the scientific calculators I used to use at school. You have to press through the menu with buttons that just look way too old to be a competitive product in 2025.
I'd like to see a full color touchscreen with graphics of various coffees in future. Just something with a little more pizzazz to justify this £900 price.
That's not to say there's no pizzazz, though. The Jura C8 has Wi-Fi connectivity and can link up to your smartphone with the J.O.E app. Yes, my coffee machine has internet. Because why not, right? Sigh. You need to insert the Wi-Fi attachment (it looks like a little white plug) to activate said Wi-Fi.
However, my C8 didn't come with the Wi-Fi attachment, so I was unable to test this. You can buy the Wi-Fi attachment for £45 on Jura's website, which I think is a bit of a rip-off.
The Jura C8 is an automatic coffee machine. If you're thinking 'What is an automatic coffee machine?', it's basically a coffee machine that makes lattes with just a button press.
I'm going to start by saying that automatic coffee machines, by design, cannot make 'technically' perfect espresso. They can't grind, distribute, tap, and tamp like humans, so of course the espresso is going to taste a little different.
Here's a photo of an espresso shot made by the Jura C8. This is 45ml of espresso. Unfortunately, as it's a bean-to-cup machine, I have no way of weighing the pre-infusion coffee grounds, so I don't know the ratio of coffee to water. I extracted this on 'mild'.
As you can see, the shot looks nicely layered. You can easily discern between the darker heart of the shot and the caramel body and fluffy crema.
I used artisanally-roasted Nicaraguan beans for this shot, which usually have a flavor profile of muted chocolate and a subtle hint of spice. However, this shot was incredibly bitter and undrinkable.
With milk, though, the espresso was fine. Next, I made myself an oat milk latte macchiato. I'm unsure why the C8 offers a latte macchiato but no latte. A latte macchiato is kind of an upside-down latte, where the espresso goes on top of the milk. A traditional latte has espresso then milk.
I experimented with the 'intense' espresso mode next. Again, I pulled 45ml of espresso for this test.
As you can see, there isn't much visual difference between the 'mild' and 'intense' espresso shots. However, the second shot tasted much, much more bitter and, yes, intense. This will suit people who like softer or more intense coffee flavors. It's good that there's a variation of espresso flavor, but the overshadowing espresso flavor is just bitter.
As I mentioned earlier, the C8 doesn't come with a milk carafe. My sample just came with a silicone-like pipe. I used one of my espresso machine milk jugs to hold the milk during use.
There aren't any milk foam settings: it's simply milk. Bizarrely, you can't control the volume of milk used, but just length of time the milk pours for.
Here's a photograph of the 'latte macchiato' recipe.
As you can see, the milk is quite bubbly. I would say this is too dry for a latte; the milk should be silky smooth like melted ice cream.
Conversely, here's a photograph of the 'cappuccino' recipe.
The milk is almost identical to the latte macchiato milk. While there's nothing inherently wrong about this, there should at least be a variance in milk texture, especially if a £900 machine is only capable of making two milk drinks.
The only difference between the latte macchiato and cappuccino is this: the latte macchiato defaults to 45ml of coffee for 20 seconds of milk, and the cappuccino defaults to 95ml of coffee for 6 seconds of milk. It's basically a latte macchiato and a triple espresso macchiato.
Of course you can change the milk dispensing time — I found 22 seconds to fit most of my mugs the best. Also, 95ml of coffee to 6 seconds of milk resulted in an overly-strong drink that my colleague struggled to finish.
I tested the C8 with both semi-skimmed and oat milk, and while there weren't any major differences between two textures, the oat milk foam dissipated much faster than cow milk.
I'm actually really disappointed by this milk performance — the £749 De'Longhi Rivelia can make beautifully smooth microfoam in seconds, and has a wider range of plant milk capabilities.
As the C8 is quite a large machine, I'd recommend making sure you have enough space in your kitchen before purchasing. It's a pretty whopping 17 x 13 x 10 inches. The water tank is on the right side so this would need to be accessible.
The drip tray is metal on the outside and plastic on the inside, which was quite easy to clean during testing. The grounds drawer is easy to empty too although coffee grounds did tend to stick to the inside.
Jura provides a water filter for the water tank, and has an on-machine setting to select water hardness. I'd recommend doing this ASAP to ensure machine longevity. On its site, Jura sells milk system cleaner for £14 and cleaning tablets for £11.
As I've discussed throughout this review, the C8 really pales in comparison to the £150 cheaper De'Longhi Rivelia. The Rivelia has a bigger range of drink recipes (including flat white, my personal favorite coffee), more customization, comes with 2 bean hoppers so you can easily switch out beans, and a milk carafe. I would recommend the Rivelia over the C8 any day.
If you seriously want a Jura machine due to the smart home capabilities or the 2-year warranty, the £775 EN4 might be a better choice. It has a more modern appearance and the price is a little more appealing.
One of the cheaper automatic coffee machines I've seen is the Philips 3200 Series, which is $775. However, it brews a much weaker coffee than the C8.
Even so, I have yet to test this one personally, so from my own experience, I recommend the Rivelia.
If the Jura C8 was around £200 cheaper, I'd have given it a little more praise. However, at £900, there's not really much room for error. For £900 I'd expect a semi-premium product that can make consistently delicious and technically accurate coffee. Unfortunately, that's not the Jura C8.
It only makes four drinks: espresso, coffee, cappuccino, and latte macchiato. The milk is the same for both cappuccino and latte, which isn't traditionally accepted. On top of that, the espresso tastes overwhelmingly bitter, even with artisan, locally-roasted beans.
As a result, I don't think the Jura C8 is worth the money. I'd just go for the trustworthy De'Longhi Rivelia — it performs much, much better than the C8, and will save you £150.