Coffee Machines

De'Longhi Perfecta ESAM5500 Bean To Cup Coffee Machine

4.1(6)

£688.39In stock

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #415836 in Kitchen & Housewares
  
• Brand: De'Longhi
• Model: ESAM5500
• Released on: 2008-01-05
• Dimensions: 14.96" h x
  11.18" w x
  17.32" l,
  25.35 pounds
  

Product Description

The Delonghi 5500 Perfecta gives the ultimate beans to cup freshness with only one touch you can make the perfect cappuccino;The machine can be used with either coffee beans or ground coffee;The double boiler system, with one boiler exclusively for espresso and the other for steam/milk frothing, means your cappuccino can be made almost instantly with the press of one button;The patented Auto cappuccino system mixes steam, air, and milk, producing a rich, creamy froth for great cappuccino;The new easytronic digital display is simple to use and can memorise your individual coffee - choose from espresso, cappuccino, americano, try strong through to mild and at piping hot or normal temperatures;The digital display also offers a variable rinse and decalcification auto programme which can be adjusted to reflect the hardness of local water

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 65 people found the following review helpful.
So far so good
By J. Bird
I've had this machine for 2 months now and so far I have to say it's been wonderful. For the last two years I used a Gaggia Classic, which made great coffee but was a pain to keep clean and you had to get the grind and tamping of the coffee absolutely spot on or it would punish you with a cup of lesser quality. It had also started leaking coffee out of the filter for reasons I could not work out. Nor did I use the milk frother as previous experience of these has taught me they can be temperamental and take a lot of cleaning. I personally never drink milk in any form so it would only be used for friends. I wanted to get rid of these problems but feared that a machine that does everything might more easily break down. Anyway, I took the plunge and I have to say it has more than met my hopes.I only ever use coffee from the great Algerian Coffee Store in London's Old Compton Street (they do mail order if you can't get to them) and this machine really gets the best out of it. It really is so easy - stick the beans in the hopper, ensure the water tank is full, set the machine to auto so that it comes on in the morning by itself and you can make a perfect cup in no time and have nothing to clean up. Getting rid of the extra actions of grinding your own coffee, then getting it into a filter without spilling much and then cleaning afterwards has saved a load of time in the mornings.You have full control over a number of features: fineness of grind, coffee strength, cup size, water heat and so on. I find a relatively fine grind gives best results but if you get it too fine, it can slow water flow - some experimentation should show you the optimal grind for your taste. I have strength set to 'strong' as my wife also likes that - 'extra strong' is great, too. However, anything lower than that produces something I would not call coffee - if you like coffee THAT mild, why bother buying a machine at all? The froth or crema is fantastic in every cup I have produced so far although the manual does tell you that it takes a few cups to get up to standard on first use. Just select the strength and cup size you want (you can also set a custom cup size that the machine will keep in memory) and then press for 1 or 2 cups and the machine does the rest, telling you to wait until it has finished, which is very fast, and then it's ready to produce more cups or you can switch off - if you forget to do this, it will automatically switch off after 3 hours.There is a hopper for pre-ground coffee and I tried it a couple of times out of curiosity. Results were poor as I don't think the coffee was picked up correctly from the hopper. I'm not too bothered about this as I prefer the integral grinder in any case.I have only used the cappucino flask attachment once - I had thought people would want it more but it hasn't turned out that way. What I can say is that it works flawlessly and produces a very frothy cappucino (you can adjust settings to have more or less frothiness) which people said was excellent (I don't drink milk). The flask is easy to attach and detach and cleaning is a doddle as there is a button for this on the machine that forces steam through the nozzles. The important thing to note is that no milk enters the body of the machine - that makes a big difference in cleaning. One small problem with the flask - not a defect by any means - is that because of its size, it does not fit in my fridge unless I remove something else - whether it will be a problem for you depends how you organise your fridge.Maintenance: the manual recommends a number of things. Firstly, you use a supplied litmus paper to test the hardness of your tap water (I always use filtered water but it is not softened) and then enter the setting into the on-board memory. The machine will then signal when you should descale. I live in London, which is a notorious hard water area, but even so I was a bit surprised to get the descale warning only a week ago (only 7 weeks after installation). Descaling is simple (a bottle of descaler is supplied) - just follow the on-screen instructions. There is very little cleaning required as there is no loose coffee like with a conventional machine nor does it drip very much at all; when the used grounds container needs emptying, the machine tells you (same when the tank needs filling) - open the front of the machine, remove the drip tray and container and rinse after emptying. Once a month, the brew unit, which does all the work, needs to be soaked for 15 minutes in clean water. It's very easy to remove and insert but do this with the machine switched off.Don't be put off by the apparent size of the machine - the footprint is no bigger than my Gaggia and there is no filter handle jutting out.That's its. So far, it's been perfect in use and is easy to manage. The real test will be after one or two years.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Coffee!
By A. J. Winskill
Good Points - Excellent coffee, easy to use, low messBad Points - Size (it is bean-to-cup...), finish (but on a par at this price point)We purchased this coffee maker as we wanted an easy to use machine - coffee with the lowest amount of faff!Unpacking the machine we were surprised at its size; it's about 14 inches tall and quite deep, about half the size of a microwave. In comparison to manual espresso machines, very large; about average for bean to cup. Be aware that you need to access the top of the machine to fill with beans or pre-ground coffee, this has limited us to putting it onto a worksurface where there are no wall cupboards.The machine is quite "plasticy", lacking the elgance of some of the other more expensive steel machines, but still appearing to be high quality. The drip tray top is steel and appears to be prone to scratching - it's scratched from the milk container within 3 weeks.Setting up the machine was very easy - plug in, fill with water & beans, coffee mug steaming! At first the coffee seemed quite cool, even with the temperature set to the highest setting. Pre-warming the mugs with hot water solved this.The potential coffee options are immense - long coffee, strong coffee, very short coffee, double shot etc. It took a long time and lots of experimentation to find my ideal coffee (double shot, normal strength & length + 2 shots of frothy milk into a large mug), but once found, it's awesome to have a coffee shop quality coffee within a couple of minutes of waking up! And this is what makes this machine rate 5 stars, the coffee quality is fantastic and so easy to keep clean. It is so easy to use with so little mess my wife is now a convert!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Good points and bad points ...
By Kerry Kenton-clarke
I ordered this machine to replace a Gaggia Titanium (actually, I think it was my third of fourth Gaggia Titanium following numerous repairs and replacements!).The De'Longhi provides a more sophisticated 'experience' than the Gaggia. Access to the water reservoir is excellent and far less hassle than the Gaggia. The bean hopper works well and, unlike the Gaggia, beans don't get require manual 'encouragement' to drop into the grinder when the supply is running low. Good range of coffee options but I didn't manage to configure all of these to my personal preference prior to returning the machine ....The 5500 only allows you to get your hot/foamed milk using the milk carafe (in the photos it looks like there's a traditional steam pipe alongside the carafe). Unfortunately the temperature of the milk is far from acceptable. According to De'Longhi the milk should be at around 60 degrees - my machine only managed around 40 to 45 degrees, although after using the function several times in a row it would creep up to around 55 degrees but then that's a big waste of milk! De'Longhi told me that the machine was faulty but, havign subsequently read other reviews, it seems that this is an inherent problem. Even with the coffee at its hottest temperature the end result was a moderately hot cappuccino or latte.As a replacement I've ordered the ESAM 5400 which has a traditional steam pipe - and paid a lot less for it than the 5500 so saved some money along the way!There is no option to adjust the temperature of the milk (unlike the coffee) so if you want to be in control of your milk ... don't buy the 5500!!