Delonghi ESAM 2600 — a good combination of “price / features”

Опубликовано автором

Opti­mal set of func­tions at an afford­able price

 

Automatic coffee machine ESAM 2600 Caffe CorsoIf you are look­ing for an afford­able yet proven and reli­able machine with auto­mat­ic espres­so prepa­ra­tion, then you should be inter­est­ed in a cof­fee machine. Delonghi ESAM 2600 Caffe Cor­so. It is designed to pre­pare one or two serv­ings of a drink at a time. You only need to select the nec­es­sary para­me­ters: the strength of the drink, vol­ume, tem­per­a­ture.

An impor­tant plus of the mod­el is extreme­ly sim­ple mechan­i­cal con­trol. The strength and vol­ume are reg­u­lat­ed by con­ven­tion­al rotary switch­es, and with mul­ti-stage posi­tion­ing. This allows you to fine-tune the set­tings to suit your taste.

The min­i­mum serv­ing vol­ume is 30 ml — this will turn out to be a ristret­to. Max­i­mum — 200 ml. This is strict­ly speak­ing not an Amer­i­can, but a big lun­go. Amer­i­cano is made by adding hot water from a steam tap to a shot of espres­so, which is com­bined with a panarel­lo noz­zle for froth­ing milk.

A man­u­al cap­puc­ci­na­tore cre­ates quite dense and ten­der milk foam, but this requires your par­tic­i­pa­tion, this is not an auto­mat­ic machine. The described mod­el is suit­able for prepar­ing a drink from both whole and already ground grains.

The “kru­til­ka” of the fortress allows you to mea­sure from 7 to 14 grams of ground cof­fee per serv­ing. The machine uses the brand’s stan­dard, com­pact, ful­ly remov­able brew­ing unit with the func­tion of pre-wet­ting the cof­fee tablet. It is accessed from the front after open­ing the front ser­vice door to the left. It is nec­es­sary to get it for wash­ing under run­ning water (it is rec­om­mend­ed to do it every cou­ple of weeks) and for lubri­cat­ing the mech­a­nism.

An impor­tant clar­i­fi­ca­tion. There is no men­tion of lubri­ca­tion in the instruc­tions. More­over, con­sul­tants in stores give out as one plus machines in front of com­peti­tors from Philips Saeko that lubri­ca­tion is option­al. How­ev­er, it is bet­ter not to neglect lubri­ca­tion. Do it at least once for 700–800 cups, or once every six months. You can use any food grade sil­i­cone for lubri­ca­tion — ask your local radio store. The default choice is OKS 1110 grease.

Sup­ply of ground beans direct­ly to the brew­ing unit

 

 

Delonghi Caffe Corso ESAM 2600: photo in detail

 

 

The advan­tage of the Delonghi Caffe Cor­so ESAM 2600 cof­fee machine is the unique Tube­less prepa­ra­tion sys­tem, thanks to which fresh­ly ground beans direct­ly enter the brew­ing unit, which favor­ably affects the taste of the fin­ished drink. It is also worth not­ing the pro­pri­etary solu­tion, when the exit from the ther­moblock is com­bined with the entrance to the brew­ing device. This gives min­i­mal loss of water tem­per­a­ture. It is because of this that all Delonghi cof­fee machines give out the final drink a cou­ple of degrees hot­ter than com­peti­tors. ESAM 2600 is no excep­tion.

Clas­sic ESAM chas­sis fea­tures include: a 15 bar pump, a 1350 W flow-through ther­mal block, a steel burr cof­fee grinder with 13 grind options. All these com­po­nents are used on a mass of brand ana­logues and have been test­ed for years, the reli­a­bil­i­ty is beyond doubt.

The water tank is designed for 1.8 liters of liq­uid, the bean bin — for 200 grams, the waste cof­fee con­tain­er — for 14 serv­ings. These are typ­i­cal indi­ca­tors for a home cof­fee machine. Yes, there is a pas­sive cup warmer at the top. It works from the heat of the ther­moblock, and there­fore, it is extreme­ly weak. When choos­ing any cof­fee machine, pas­sive heat­ing can be safe­ly neglect­ed. Active is anoth­er mat­ter, but this option is offered, as a rule, only in the pre­mi­um class.

De Longhi ESAM2600 MagnificaOf the short­com­ings, or rather nuances, one can note a decent noise lev­el and impres­sive dimen­sions, but the low price allows you to safe­ly turn a blind eye to this. Nev­er­the­less, I advise you to sober­ly imag­ine the phys­i­cal dimen­sions of the device, or bet­ter, look at it live, since it is wide­ly dis­trib­uted on sale every­where. They do not take mon­ey for inspec­tion, as they say. But it’s worth buy­ing care­ful­ly, at the manufacturer’s rec­om­mend­ed price of 670$, the real cost, for which it’s quite easy to find this unit, is about 400$. Some­times there is a mod­el name in the form De Longhi ESAM2600 Mag­nifi­cakeep in mind, it’s the same thing.

The best choice of the eco­nom­i­cal buy­er

Sum­ma­riz­ing, I can say that in terms of price / qual­i­ty ratio, this machine is one of the best on the mar­ket. Reli­able, unpre­ten­tious, with a full range of set­tings and extreme­ly con­ve­nient, intu­itive con­trols. I strong­ly rec­om­mend to dis­cern­ing buy­ers.

PS This cof­fee machine has a num­ber of “clones”, read about them in a sep­a­rate review.

PPS Con­fused about mak­ing cap­puc­ci­no by hand? Eval­u­ate the full range of options in a spe­cial mate­r­i­al. By the way, max­i­mum sim­plic­i­ty and speed, includ­ing when brew­ing cap­puc­ci­no, are achieved in cap­sule cof­fee machines.

Main technical characteristics of the Delonghi ESAM 2600 coffee machine:
Full instruc­tions: Down­load in for­mat pdf
Device type: Grain machine
Width x Depth x Height: 28 x 40 x 36 cm
Used cof­fee: Grains, ground
Cof­fee grinder: Mill­stone, steel, 13 degrees
Brew­ing group: One, remov­able, pre-wet

Heater: Ther­moblock, 1350 W
Max pres­sure: 15 bar
Water tank: 1.8 l front access
Com­part­ment for cof­fee: 200 g
Waste com­part­ment: 14 serv­ings, front access
Cap­puc­ci­na­tore: Man­u­al — panarel­lo
Max­i­mum Cup Height: 105 mm
Con­trol Fea­tures: Mul­ti-stage adjust­ment of the strength (7–14 g of cof­fee), mul­ti-stage adjust­ment of the vol­ume of the drink (30–200 ml), tem­per­a­ture adjust­ment (4 lev­els)
Oth­er fea­tures: Pas­sive cup warmer
Col­or options: Black