De'Longhi's new La Specialista Touch performs just like the Ninja Luxe Café, but looks so much better
De'Longhi just dropped its smartest automatic coffee maker yet. The La Specialista Touch is as clever as they come, offering guided grinding, tamping, and brewing, as well as an automatic steam wand.
De'Longhi's La Specialista Touch coffee maker launched in Europe back in March, but it's now available in the U.S. for $999 at DeLonghi.com.
The machine features a 3.5-inch intuitive touchscreen that takes you through every step of the coffee-making process. It's super responsive, and I personally love the look. It combines the classic style of a De'Longhi La Specialista with the smarts you'd expect from Ninja's Luxe Café.
The De'Longhi La Specialista Touch brings exceptional coffee to your home with a simple, easy-to-use touchscreen that'll do the hard work for you. It's also the brand's smallest bean-to-cup machine yet, meaning it'll slot in nicely to your kitchen without taking up too much room.
There's a lot to like here. And I'd know, because as a U.K.-based writer, I had a head start in testing this flashy new model. For one, it's got 10 barista-style recipes and fully customizable drink options, which is a lot of versatility for an automatic coffee maker.
The interface is faultless, with De'Longhi's Bean Adapt technology guiding you through grinding settings and helping you adjust based on extraction times to optimize your espresso.
Plus, there's the Cool-Touch Auto Steam Wand, which'll take all the hard work out of steaming by doing it for you. If you like to get your latte art practice in, though, there's also a manual option.
I'm a fan of the De'Longhi La Specialista line, and we've tested a number of its models. There's the De'Longhi La Specialista Opera, which we awarded four-and-a-half stars in our full review and a spot in our best espresso machines list. And I can't forget the life-changing shot of espresso I made in the De'Longhi La Specialista Arte Evo.
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I'll be writing my full review of the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch later this week.
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Tom's Guide
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De'Longhi's colorful new coffee maker is so compact you could put it in your carry-on
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Just in time for winter, De'Longhi's serving up hot EOFY deals on its top coffee machines — save up to AU$559.90!
If you're in the market for a new coffee machine this Australian EOFY, there's some tasty discounts on De'Longhi's excellent range of fully automatic coffee machines up for grabs. Beyond the long-term cost-effectiveness of having a machine at home, the De'Longhi EOFY sale lets you save up to 30% on its most popular models, and you can even shave an additional 10% off with our exclusive Tom's Guide discount code. While making great coffee can often be a lengthy, involved process, De'Longhi's automatic machines let you achieve the same results as manual machines with significantly less time and effort. De'Longhi boasts a wide selection of discounted, fully automatic machines, ensuring there's an ideal option for every coffee enthusiast. For instance, the best-selling Magnifica Evo Next is now just AU$1,149 AU$799 — that's an epic saving of AU$350! Meanwhile, the top-tier Eletta Explore Grey is now just AU$1,999 AU$1,599, slashing AU$400 off the usual price. But the savings don't end there — De'Longhi is offering stacked discounts, meaning you can score an additional 10% off the already-reduced price by using our exclusive TOM10 coupon code. That brings the price of the Magnifica Evo Next and Eletta Explore Grey down to just AU$799 AU$719.10 and AU$1,599 AU$1,439.10, respectively. On top of this, you also have the chance to win 1 of 5 eGift Cards valued at AU$500 simply by purchasing through De'Longhi's website. And, selected machines purchased during De'Longhi's EOFY sale come with a Winter Value Pack that includes 1kg of coffee beans and 2x Sttoke mugs as a free gift. That's over AU$129 in value! T&Cs apply. So if you've bean meaning to upgrade your coffee-making situation at home, now's the perfect time. De'Longhi is a Tom's Guide preferred partner (What does this mean?) Save AU$429.90 with discount code Enjoy coffee made from freshly ground beans with De'Longhi's Magnifica Evo Next coffee machine. Its user-friendly controls and 2.4-inch display make it easy to create 13 highly-customisable beverages, letting you adjust your coffee's size, intensity and temperature, while its LatteCrema Hot Technology will top your drink with cafe-style creamy milk froth. It even offers dishwasher-safe components for easy cleanup. De'Longhi is offering an initial AU$350 discount, but you can save an additional 10% off that with our exclusive TOM10 coupon code. Save AU$559.90 with discount code Take your coffee game to the next level with De'Longhi's Eletta Explore Grey, which offers over 40 customisable hot and iced coffee recipes via a user-friendly colour display. Enjoy freshly ground beans and the clever 'To-Go' feature, which prepares takeaway coffee for mugs in Piccolo, Medium or Grande sizes. De'Longhi's initial discount saves you AU$400, but you can get an additional 10% off with our exclusive TOM10 coupon code. Save AU$369.90 with discount code Want great coffee at home without breaking the bank? De'Longhi's Magnifica Evo Silver Black provides just that, with five one-touch coffee recipes and a integrated milk steaming wand that'll have you whipping up lattes like a proper barista. De'Longhi's starting discount slashes AU$300 from this model's price, but you can take a further 10% off with our exclusive TOM10 coupon code. Talk about some truly robust savings! You can check out the full range of deals on the De'Longhi EOFY sale landing page.
Tom's Guide
6 days ago
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I spent a month testing the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch, and it's an instant classic
There's a growing trend of assisted automatic espresso machines and I, for one, am here for it. These machines allow you to go through the motions of crafting the perfect espresso from scratch, but use smart controls and guided features to give you a helping hand. In other words, they make you feel like a barista, even if you've got zero training. What's not to love? The latest addition to this new genre is the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch. I spent a month testing it, and it's almost everything I could want in a coffee maker. Retailing for £699 in the U.K., where I'm based, there's no denying this machine is a better deal for European readers than in the U.S., where it costs $999. But even while it's less competitively placed for American markets, it's still the sort of machine I'd recommend investing in. In fact, if I didn't have a constant conveyor belt of machines to test in my kitchen, it's definitely the sort of machine I'd buy for my small kitchen. Here's how it performed when I used it to make hot, iced, and milk-based drinks for a full month. Price $999 / £699 Size 14.37"D x 11.22"W x 15.87"H Weight 23 pounds Grind settings 15 Drink options Espresso, Cappuccino, Cold brew, Latte macchiato, Latte, Flat white, Hot milk, Long black, Americano Capacity 250g of beans Material Brushed Stainless Steel Water tank 56 fl. oz. At £699 in the U.K., where I'm based, the La Specialista Touch is far from an affordable option, but it's very competitively priced. It will cost you around the same as Ninja's Luxe Café coffee maker, which, while a fantastic machine, doesn't put up much of a fight in the looks department. Plus, there's coffee pedigree to consider, which De'Longhi has in spades. In the U.S., it's a $999 machine, putting it on par with the Breville Touch Impress. This model offers a lot of the same features and the same great aesthetics but can't beat the $599 Ninja Luxe Café on price. I'm a huge fan of how this machine is designed. For one, the La Specialista Touch is unusually petite. My main complaint about De'Longhi's La Specialista Maestro is that it was just too big for my kitchen, but the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch packs a lot of the same smart features in a much more compact frame, and adds a 3.5-inch intuitive touchscreen. There's something for everyone with this touchscreen. If you want to get granular, you can look at the brewing temperature and pre-infusion settings with just a few scrolls. For most people, you'll be using it to scroll through pre-set drinks and choose your preferred beverage. Once you've selected your drink, you use the touchscreen to get the process going. It starts your grind, brew and milk controls, allowing you to toggle with extra dosing or manual steaming if you so wish. The screen is responsive and easy to use, and I also enjoyed the manual On/Off button and manual grinder controls on the top of the machine. Like Ninja's Luxe Café, it doesn't feature an in-built tamping arm but instead offers guided tamping. This allows you to add a mess-free funnel onto your portafilter to capture every coffee ground, and then use a tamper which indicates the ideal level for your coffee. You can then report all of this back to your machine, which will adjust the grinding settings for next time. This machine is highly interactive. Using De'Longhi's "Bean Adapt" tech, it can walk you through your initial setup to get its grinding and brewing settings aligned with your choice of beans. It makes things accessible by using the color of your beans to ascertain the roast level, and asks you to report on the tamping level to help it land on the ideal volume dose for your beans. And best of all, you can save this bean profile if you want to switch it up with a different bag, which I often do. Toggling between beans is very straightforward, and the machine will remind you of the ideal grind setting each time. The machine uses a connical burr grinder with 15 settings. I found this perfectly adequate for getting a good extraction from the different beans I used, but it's worth noting that rivals such as the Breville Barista Touch Impress offer 30 settings. I got some great espresso from this machine. The beans I was using in these shots were a dark-roasted, budget brand robusta, which typically won't lead to as lively or aromatic an extraction. Despite this, I was pretty happy with the deep and nutty flavors I achieved from the La Specialista Touch. When I switched to my go-to Lost Sheep Coffee Get To The Hopper blend, I was able to hit the lovely toffee and chocolate notes I grativate towards for long black coffees. The machine also has a hot water dispenser which points directly into your mug when it's placed under the portafilter, meaning it automatically tops up your espresso when you opt for an Americano, which I often do. I'm a huge fan of cold brew, so I'm very happy to see more coffee brands adding it to their default settings. Of course, as with any cold brew from an espresso machine, it can't rival the authentic stuff. But seeing as it's not steeped for 24 hours and instead requires just a few minutes, that's fine with me. Interestingly, you don't need to adjust your grind size to make cold brew with this machine. Most cold brew requires a much larger grind size, but the La Specialista Touch sticks to the same settings that you'd use in your espresso. The brew took around four minutes in total, and left me with a light and fruity flavor. It was quite mild as a result of the low-heat, low-pressure extraction, so I preferred drinking it black. Note that this machine doesn't do cold espresso, so you'll need to use regular espresso for iced lattes. The La Specialista Touch uses an automatic steam wand with an in-built temperature probe to steam milk for lattes and cappuccinos totally hands-free. This is a big step up from machines that come with hot milk dispensers, which don't use steam to texturize the milk, and don't let you hand-pour to work on latte art. The automatic settings are really strong, easily comparable to the likes of Breville machines. My milk did have quite a heavy top layer of milk, which is about right for a cappuccino, but the microfoam was consistently full of body and fine bubbles. I was confident I could do a better job hand-steaming, but if you've not got five years of barista skills under your belt, it's a good alternative. One of my few complaints with this machine is that the handy temperature probe on the steam wand does make it tricky to get a good vortex going when you're hand-steaming. But with that being said, I was still able to get something verging on latte art when I steamed by hand. The steam wand is powerful and pre-heats quickly, and you can see the temperature of your milk rising in real time. This is quite useful for those who are prone to burning their milk. It's also useful for plant-based milks, which will burn at lower temperatures. When you're done using the wand, you simply need to wipe it down and return it to its resting position using the dial at the side of the machine. It automatically purges to prevent blockage, which is a nice touch. It's worth comparing this new model to the De'Longhi La Specialista Maestro, which is De'Longhi's most souped-up espresso machine. The Maestro is big, brash, and also offers pretty good value for money. However, it lacks automatic milk steaming, instead offering a manual steam wand and a hot milk dispenser which doesn't quite offer the same charm. So in my book, the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch is a more practical and appealing offering, and an excellent evolution of the Specialista line. In my book, the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch is a more practical and appealing offering, and an excellent evolution of the Specialista line. Another great comparison would be the Ninja Luxe Café. This machine retails for $599 / £599, so it's a cheaper machine that still offers a lot of the same perks of the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch. This includes cold brewing, automatic milk steaming, assisted tamping (without a tamping arm) and interactive controls. But it does lack both the charming design of De'Longhi's more traditional approach, and the interactive touch screen. Personally, I'd buy the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch over the Ninja, but I'm based in Europe, where the pricing is much more comparable. There's not much to fault with the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch. It's intuitive, attractive, and will slot easily into even more compact kitchens. And while I struggle to call $999 / £699 affordable, it's priced very competitively in a market that's ripe with assisted automatic espresso machines to choose from. I have two minor gripes. First, the temperature probe gets in the way of manual steaming, although it's something you can work around with a little practice. Second, while I enjoy the funnel to prevent mess and the tamping guide to ensure your settings are accurate, I'd always opt for a tamping arm if it's on offer, which it is with the likes of the Breville Barista Express Impress or Ninja's new Luxe Café Pro (which is next in line for a review from yours truly). Perhaps my favorite thing about this machine is that it will work for any household. As a coffee enthusiast who's completed a qualification in barista skills, I don't want a machine to take away the fun of crafting coffee from home. And while the La Specialista Touch lends a helping hand, it doesn't feel restrictive if you want to take the reins and control your grinding, brewing, and milk steaming manually. On the other end of the scale, it's also a smart choice for someone like my partner, who's much more interested in the finished result than the process. It makes good coffee easy, and will even do you the favor of steaming into your jug, so you can pretend you perfected that latte art yourself.
