This super automatic espresso machine is just $800. Is it any good? Can it produce real espresso? Is it passable to the untrained palette? That’s what I’m hoping to help you find out.
This machine comes from a company called Radexx Technologies. At least, I think it does? That was the company email of the person that sent me this machine, although on Amazon the company is called Mcilpoog?
Anyway, this $800 machine has a surprisingly decent rating on Amazon, granted it only has 98 reviews, but 4.3 stars isn’t too shabby. And for the record, I did run this page through a fake review spotter and came up with no red flags.
Okay so first, let’s go over the build quality of this machine.
Build
This machine is made of mostly plastic, which is a bit of a bummer. For some odd reason, the only metal parts here are the lid, maybe to give the impression that this is more premium than it actually is.
Here you can see we’ve got our standard superautomatic machine parts including a bean compartment which is not airtight, a water filling compartment, and you’ve got the drip tray itself.
Which I absolutely hate.
The drip tray is this long weird piece which has a spot for the spent grounds. Although the grounds do still make a mess regardless. The drip tray does have one cool little feature and that’s this plastic piece that floats when the drip tray gets full.
But, this machine does have one really nice feature going for it. And that, oddly enough, is this weirdly high resolution touch display!
I’m not sure why, but this screen is a lot nicer than what I expected. It’s pretty responsive, looks good, and feels like actual glass instead of something like cheap plastic or acrylic on top.
Getting straight to the point, can it make espresso?
That’s a quick and easy no. I mean even in James Hoffmann’s superauto machine comparison, espresso isn’t really a factor. It’s definitely closer to something like Moka pot coffee in my opinion.
This machine uses 16g doses for espresso based drinks and outputs about 5ml more than your selected volume out.
If you’re going for straight espresso, I can already tell you that this isn’t the machine for you.
That being said, if you’re going for milky drinks - then this really isn’t that bad. In addition to that, I would recommend using a darker roast with this machine.
Now I was super surprised to find that this machine can produce milk foam that is nearly perfect for that silky latte art quality milk foam.
The milk does have an adjustment knob for being able to set how foamy it gets, and somewhere in the middle I was actually able to get foam that could pour latte art.
Weird, but cool. It had a nice silky texture that was definitely smooth in the mouth and as good as I’d expect steaming myself on one of my “real” machines.
Milk Integration
Speaking of, the milk integration here is a little wonky. Basically you have this plastic piece that needs to stick out of the machine connected with a hose into a cup that then has your milk.
In a way it makes sense to make it easily accessible since milk residue is a quick recipe for disaster in terms of bacteria and mildew.
So basically, you’ll always need at least 2 cups to make a morning milky drink. One for milk and the other for the actual drink.
Cleaning
Okay so cleaning this machine is unsurprisingly, a huge pain.
From milk tubes, to the grinds chamber, to basically the entire internals being a mess. Super automatic machines are, by nature, not going to be the easiest to clean.
And that’s okay - because the tradeoff between a machine doing basically everything for you, is likely going to be this cleaning aspect.
That being said, I hate cleaning it with a passion and that’s likely a trait I’ll have with other super autos. Because of the nature of the spent puck sitting in a plastic box full of other steamy wet pucks, mold grows very very quick.
For the sake of the squeamish, I’ll avoid showing you a picture.
This machine does have functions to clean the milk tube and give the internals a quick rinse, but you’ll likely need to regularly clean the inside of the machine and grinds chamber if you use it even one time.
Conclusion
Okay conclusion time. While overall, really not a bad machine, at $800, would I buy this machine?
Definitely not. Then again, I’m definitely not the target audience for a superautomatic machine.
So who is this machine for?
I think it's for someone who regularly drinks and enjoys non-specialty coffee, possibly with milk and possibly even with sugar. Maybe your average Starbucks drinker?
Even for the untrained palette, there’s definitely still a noticeable distinction between this and “real” espresso, but once mixed with milk, sugar, maybe even some flavorings - then you’ve got a drink that has great texture and of course that sweet indulgent flavor.
But for $800 - you could also get a used Gaggia Classic Pro and a decent grinder in that price range which, while more work, will certainly yield better results.
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