Ninja Luxe Café Premier Espresso Machine & Drip Coffee Maker, Rapid Cold Brew, Integrated Grinder, Assisted Tamper, Hands-Free Frother for Cappuccinos, Dairy or Non-Dairy, ES600 Stainless Steel

I decided to switch from fully-automatic espresso makers to this semi-automatic one and so far I really like it. Of course it's a little bit more messy since I have coffee grounds that get spread around, but I feel that there are much fewer things that can go wrong with this compared to the fully auto ones I've had in the past.

My family uses this machine daily and we've already made hundreds of cups of coffee that taste better than the local coffee shops. At $7/cup it has already paid for itself. Setup took a while with multiple steps to prepare and configure, maybe 45 minutes total. After that, everything was pretty easy. Moving from grinding to pulling shots to frothing milk was straightforward and takes about 4 minutes for a double shot with foamed milk on the default settings. It holds a decent amount of water and will alert you when the reservoir is low, even during a a brewing session. I.e., it will pause the cycle until water is added. A cleaning cycle can take a while but I've only had to do this once. I think it was about an hour to complete after a month of daily usage. Minor irritations: When switching the types of coffee (double vs quad) it seems that you need to turn off the machine before you can select a different type. For example, if I grind beans first without selecting the coffee type immediately on start, I have to turn off the machine for it to reset to allow me to choose brewed coffee or a quad shot. Also, when grinding beans it doesn't always register that the holder is inserted. You have to fiddle with it until it seats. All said, I'm very satisfied with this machine. It can brew lattes, regular brew, foam milk with or without heat, make Cuban coffee, etc..