Gaggia Carezza Deluxe review

Gaggia’s Carezza Deluxe is a super-stylish espresso machine that you’d be proud to have on display. As well as looking great this coffee machine is neatly designed, with the large 1.4L water container pulling out from the front. This means you can keep the Carezza under a relatively low cabinet and refill it without having to pull it forwards.

It’s nice to have the water reservoir at the front

Using the machine is simple. Once you’ve turned it on, an indicator light is lit when the Carezza is up to temperature. There’s also a temperature gauge that shows you the machine heating up. It’s a nice design detail, but with no markings on the temperature scale it’s not particularly practical. While the Carezza is heating up, you can pre-warm your cups using the warmer on top of the machine.

Once you’re ready for coffee, it’s a matter of filling the group handle with your ground coffee or ESE pods. We used ground coffee for our testing. Gaggia recommends that you don’t tamp the coffee grounds into the pressurised group handle and doesn’t provide a tamper in the box. We found that a light tamp actually produced better results, so it’s worth buying a tamper if you go for this machine.

The group handle is slightly sprung, so when you clip it in place into the group head and let go, the handle springs slightly to the left. It makes it a little trickier to line up the spouts if you want to pour two cups of coffee.