Jura C8 review: Simple bean-to-cup brilliance

The Jura C8 is the brand’s debut model in its “premium economy” range. If your eyes have scanned back to the price (£895) and either one of your eyebrows has raised quizzically, then join the club. A coffee machine that costs the best part of a thousand pounds doesn’t exactly scream economy, not even of the premium variety. Perhaps the most surprising thing, then, is that the Jura C8 justifies the outlay.

In fact, the C8 is a shining example of trickle-down technology done right. Jura has taken the coffee-making prowess of its high-end models and pared away the fancy features – touchscreens, myriad drinks types and pricier materials – to create a sub-£1,000 bean-to-cup coffee machine that does all the essentials, and a bit more besides, really, really well.

You only get to choose from four main drinks – espresso, cappuccino, black coffee and latte macchiato – but it brews and serves each of them so adeptly that most coffee drinkers are unlikely to hanker after more.

But by far the biggest boon here is the milk frothing system. You get a fancy glass carafe in the box, but you can also dangle the little rubber tube in a milk bottle or jug fresh from the fridge. Given most rivals at this price come with multi-part plastic milk containers filled with awkward-to-clean nooks and crannies that need to be fastidiously cleaned on a daily basis, it’s a much more practical system. You can even upgrade to Jura’s Cool Control 1.0 milk cooler (£250) to create a coffee machine with a refrigerated milk cooler.

Put all this together, and you have an automatic bean-to-cup machine that makes some of the best-tasting, zero-effort coffees you’ll get south of £1,000. If I could afford one, it’s what I’d choose for my kitchen.

Jura C8 review: What do you get for the money?

The Jura C8 looks the business. It’s all plastic, with the odd bit of chrome effect plastic here and there, but it’s still a genuinely nice-looking machine. This is partly due to the lack of bumps and lumps: where rival machines have coffee bean hoppers sticking out of the top, clip-on milk carafes and touchscreens jutting out, the C8 cuts a refreshingly minimal dash, all clean lines and crisp angles.

Peer over the top and you’ll see that the 200g bean hopper is flush with the top panel, a little rubber-edged plastic lid keeping a nice airtight seal. A flap along the machine’s right-hand side flips up to reveal the aroma selector (another name for the grind-size control) and also allows you to pull the tall, slim 1.6l water tank out. You’ll know when the tank is empty because the screen will flash a warning, but you can also check manually by peering around the machine’s right-hand side – the tank’s see-through plastic flank sits flush with the C8’s side panel.

A single Claris Smart+ water filter is supplied in the box, and this slots inside the water tank to provide up to 40 litres of filtration for the hardest water, and up to 65 litres for soft. A water hardness testing strip is supplied, so you can set the machine to your area’s specific water hardness – the machine then reminds you to replace the filter after the correct amount of usage. Refill packs of three filters cost £45 direct from Jura.

Inside the machine, you get the same Pulse Extraction Process technology found on Jura’s pricier machines which claims to serve espresso to ‘barista’ standards. Jura has also used the same brew group (the bit which, you know, makes the coffee) as the well-regarded Jura E8 (£1,895) and the Jura Z10 (£2,750).

The C8’s grinder is a more basic version than these pricier stablemates, and you get vastly less drinks choice – six on the C8 versus 17 on the E8 and 32 on the Z10 – but the C8 should theoretically brew coffee that’s not a million miles off the pricier models.

The C8 is also compatible with Jura’s J.O.E mobile app, but as it doesn’t come with the Jura Wi-Fi Connect – it’s a £45 optional extra – I wasn’t able to test it myself. The app allows you to tweak the standard drinks types and create your own recipes from your smartphone, so I’ll update this review when I get the chance to do some of my own hands-on testing.

Jura C8 review: What’s it like to use?

Fixed in the centre of the C8’s front panel is an old-school LCD black and white display which displays low-resolution, pixelated text. This is flanked by four physical buttons, two on each side of the screen.

Making a drink is easy. You cycle through the four main drinks types using the arrow buttons to the right and left of the display, then press the corresponding circular button once for one drink, or twice to pour two simultaneously.

While your drink is preparing, quick on-screen prompts give you the option to select the drink strength, ground coffee weight or milk amount, so you can quickly tweak the presets to your liking. If you want to change those settings permanently, you simply hold the button for the drink in question. It’s all wonderfully intuitive, but if you can’t be bothered you don’t have to change any settings at all to get a decent coffee.

Cleaning is uncomplicated. Press down lightly on the drip tray’s front edge, and it slides out along with the coffee grounds bin, and this separates into three parts for easy cleaning with warm soapy water, which Jura recommends you do daily. Jura further recommends a deep clean after you’ve turned on the machine 80 times, or every 180 drinks, whichever comes first, and the screen prompts you to do this – simply add a Jura cleaning tablet to the ground coffee funnel and the machine does the rest.

In terms of noise, the Jura C8 doesn’t make too much of a racket – but you’ll probably want to close the kitchen door if you’re an early riser. The milk system can make a sharp slurp as it first pulls milk into the tube, but thankfully this is as loud as it gets. From a metre away, I measured an average of 60dB while making a Latte Macchiato with a peak of 75dB from the milk system and the grinder whirring away above 70dB. Once it’s brewing, it’s relatively quiet, but you do get a variety of clunks and whirrs from the machine as it goes through the process.

By contrast, the pricier (£999) De’Longhi PrimaDonna Soul’s sounds quite muffled by comparison, and while it averages a similar 60dB while making a Latte Macchiato, the peaks of 68dB from its grinder and milk system were much quieter.

Jura C8 review: How does the coffee taste?

During my month or so living with the C8, I compared it to a variety of Expert Reviews’ top-rated coffee machines, including the De’Longhi Primadonna Soul, De’longhi Magnifica Evo One Touch and some of my go-to manual espresso machines, too, such as the Sage Barista Touch Impress. I used the same coffee beans sourced from Craft House Coffee, including decaffeinated and caffeinated varieties, and none were more than a fortnight old.

While it may not come as much surprise to hear that the C8 didn’t beat my various manual espresso machines for flavour or milk texture – I’ve never met an automatic bean-to-cup machine that could – it put up a far more convincing fight than almost any other sub-£1,000 bean-to-cup machine I’ve used to date.

This is in no small part due to the quality of Jura’s brewing technology, which uses slightly larger doses of coffee than some rival machines I’ve tested. The result is consistently tasty coffee with a depth of flavour that’s a clear step up over cheaper machines.

The standard espresso is the base of many milk-based coffees and here the Jura puts in a very good effort. It comes out nice and hot at around 70°C, and there was a thick, inviting layer of crema to every shot. The default settings are a good middle-ground, with the Balanced aroma setting and 45ml shot volume creating a very drinkable espresso.

It’s the flavour here that’s the winner, though: compared to cheaper machines such as the De’longhi Magnifica Evo One Touch, there’s more body to the shot, and more of the fruit and chocolate notes come through in the cup.

Compared to the pricier De’longhi Primadonna Soul (£1,379), though, the Jura drops behind at its standard settings. There’s a thickness to the De’Longhi’s shots that I initially couldn’t replicate with the Jura, even with reduced shot volumes or selecting the Intense brew option. Reducing the shot volume to 35ml and upping the aroma setting to Intense added a pleasing thickness and extra punch to the shot, however, and adjusting the grind size closed the gap, producing a more unctuous, fruity shot in the cup.

If you don’t mind a little experimentation, then, you can eke more flavour from the C8’s drinks by adjusting the grind size to suit your specific coffee beans. You have to make adjustments while the grinder is running, so it takes a couple of coffees before you can see the results in the cup, but it’s worthwhile.

The two milk-based coffees – cappuccino and latte macchiato – are also very drinkable. Unsurprisingly, it’s the quality of the milk frothing that makes the difference here. While De’Longhi’s LatteCrema technology does a pretty good job of creating a thick, inviting milk froth, it doesn’t produce the silky, thick foam that you can get from a manual steam wand, or a really good assisted espresso machine for that matter, such as the Sage Oracle Jet (£1,700). The Jura isn’t as good as those either, but it gets a little closer than many I’ve tested: the milk foam is tighter and creamier, and there are fewer large bubbles than the De’longhi.

The Jura’s cappuccinos are quite light on milk by default, but they’re very tasty all the same. Personally I prefer both a little more milk in my cappuccinos and a stronger shot of coffee, so I upped the default milk amounts and increased the brew to the Intense settings.

The cappuccino recipe makes sense once you pour a latte macchiato. Where some machines have multiple recipes which are rather similar, the Jura’s latte macchiato is a completely different beast to the cappuccino. It’s heavy on the milk, with a preprogrammed pause in the middle to allow the milk layers to separate. The result in the cup is a lovely multi-layered sandwich of hot milk, coffee and a rich, silky froth on top.

If you’re brewing for a travel cup you’ll need to up the shot and milk volumes, but I only increased them slightly for my Bodum Pavina glasses, which are 115mm tall and have a 355ml capacity. A word of warning, though: you may want to invest in some decaffeinated coffee beans. During the month or so I lived with the C8 on my kitchen countertop, the temptation to have Just One More latte macchiato was hard to resist.

Jura C8: Should you buy it?

No two ways about it, £895 is a lot to spend on a coffee machine, and if the Jura C8 really is above your budget, then there are good economy class options you should consider. For instance, the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo One Touch (£549) often retails for close to the £400 mark, and while its coffees aren’t quite up there with the Jura C8’s, it’s not a million miles off for half the price.

Where the Jura C8 plays its trump card, however, is in its design. It’s a good looking machine that’s well-built, intelligently designed and backed up by a 25-month warranty. The milk system is a huge boon, too – easier to clean, less likely to taint if you forget to clean it once in a while, cheaper to maintain (replacement tubes cost a few pounds) and markedly less faff.

Add in the possibility of upgrading with Wi-Fi dongles and adding optional milk coolers, and as a long term investment, the Jura C8 begins to look like rather good value for money. Maybe premium-economy wasn’t so far off the mark after all.