I’ve tested some of the best coffee makers on the market and have become a certified coffee fanatic through my profession that gives me the opportunity to test the latest brewing technology. However, when summer is in full swing and I’m switching from my morning cappuccino to an iced coffee, I usually retire my espresso machine and opt for a homemade cold brew concentrate. The problem with using traditional espresso to make an iced coffee is that my ice melts immediately, resulting in a watery coffee that just isn’t the right fit.
Although cold brew is cheap and relatively straightforward, it takes 12 to 24 hours to make and must be done in large batches, so when I found out that De’Longhi had worked with the Specialty Coffee Association to develop a line of machines that could make cold brew and cold espresso at the touch of a button, I was cautiously intrigued and eager to test the machine out.
To extract the unique flavors of a cold brewed coffee, De’Longhi added a proprietary water circuit to its brewing unit, which extracts cold brewed coffee over an extended period of time using room temperature water. Instead of applying high pressure and heat like you would with an espresso, the cold brew setting on De’Longhi’s La Specialista Maestro lets your coffee grounds steep for up to five minutes to produce a less acidic flavor.
Cold brew didn’t really make sense to me until I first heard it compared to tea. Similar to tea, the brewing process is triggered by steeping the coffee grounds to create a sweeter and more nuanced flavor. Normally, you would use a coarser grind when making cold brew overnight, but since the De’Longhi brews its Espresso Cool or Cold Brew shots over a much shorter period of time, I found it worked well with regular, fine coffee grounds too.
De’Longhi’s cold extraction technology is available in Explore Eletta, Eletta Explore And The Specialist Master Machinery.
Does it pass the taste test?
Let me preface this by saying that while I’m a coffee lover, I’m no James Hoffman. While I enjoy the rituals that go into making a great cup of coffee, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a cold brew from the likes of Blank Street. Is the cold brew you get with De’Longhi’s Cold Extraction Technology as good as a concentrate slowly steeped for 24 hours? No. But why would you expect it to be? First of all, it takes the room temperature water from your coffee maker’s tank and pushes it through the brewing element without any heat. So it doesn’t come out cold, it comes out at room temperature. That’s OK though, I just poured it over ice and enjoyed its smoother and more subtle flavor.
I actually found that the cold coffee I made in the De’Longhi was better without milk. It took about three minutes on average and came out in a stream of drips. The machine I tried also has a cold espresso setting that makes a shorter and quicker shot that I liked to combine with cold milk for an iced latte. What I would have liked, however, is a cold milk setting on the machine’s automatic milk dispenser.
Can it replace a cold brew maker?
I make my cold brew using my trusty Toddy Cold Brew System, which only costs about $50 and typically takes about 18 hours to reach the desired concentration. My biggest gripe with this system is that I never know if I’ll use up the amount of cold brew concentrate that’s left over, and I’ve thrown away a lot of cold brew in the past that either didn’t turn out the way I wanted or that I didn’t use up quickly enough.
Suffice it to say that making cold brew at home requires some trial and error and also a lot of patience—two things you don’t need with the precision and simplicity of a cold brew espresso machine.
It goes without saying that you’ll spend a fraction of the price if you opt for a cold brew system, and if you get the formula right, the quality of the concentrate you get can be better than the brews I made with the La Specialista Maestro. However, you’ll need to take the time to prepare your cold brew coffee at least 12 hours before drinking it.
