Lab – The Delonghi Specialista Arte coffee maker raises the temperature

Marketed a few months after the very sophisticated Specialista Prodigio and Maestro, the small Specialista Arte is a gateway to the catalog of semi-automatic coffee makers from Delonghi. More compact and more accessible than its predecessors, the Specialista Arte is launched at €549. Its price positioning necessarily implies some concessions, including the absence of the famous Smart Tamping arm, which is used to pack the coffee in the percolator after grinding. This is replaced by a barista kit that includes a pestle to tamp the coffee and a rounded accessory that serves as a doser and tamping aid. Everything has been thought out to offer the best possible barista experience. But as everyone knows, the preparation of an espresso is an art that meets three requirements: the pressure (it must be at least 9 bars), the time for the coffee to flow (between 20 and 30 seconds) and the temperature of the coffee. extraction (which must be between 90 and 95°C). Indeed, below the 90°C mark, the water is not hot enough to extract all the aromas of the ground coffee. Conversely, above 95°C, water that is too hot risks burning the grind and therefore the aromas. It is precisely on this last criterion that we are focusing today.

The Delonghi Specialista Arte judiciously provides a temperature setting on three levels, accessible directly from the control panel of the coffee maker. By inserting a temperature sensor at the outlet of the portafilter outlet nozzles, it is easy to test the temperature of the preparation (before it is cooled on contact with the cup).

On the first temperature level (the lowest), we observed a temperature peak of 88.4°C, which is slightly below that expected and can affect the taste of the coffee. At the intermediate level, the peak is at 92°C: this is completely in line with what one can expect to obtain a good espresso. Finally, at the highest temperature level, the water is at 95°C, the limit for not having burnt coffee. Our temperature curve illustrates these measurements. The depressions you observe indicate the end of the flow of coffee.

The extraction temperature is therefore fully in line with what one would expect from a barista machine. And that’s good, because that’s the whole point of the Specialista series and even more so of this Specialista Arte. The first bet is therefore successful, but the tests continue and you will have all the details of the measurements on Saturday August 6 during the full test.