Delonghi Rivelia Bean-to-Cup koffiezetapparaat

The DeLonghi Rivelia is DeLonghi’s latest bean to cup coffee machine, and on paper I was intrigued. Was I expecting this to be the best bean to cup machine I’ve ever used, haha, nah – but guess what? I think it might just be!

It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say this, but DeLonghi have impressed me, a LOT.

If you’ve never been here before, you may misunderstand this to be the same exaggerated sales blurb you’ll read whenever you’re thinking about buying anything.

If you have read my content before, you’ll know this isn’t the case. I write „warts ’n all“ reviews.

As you’ll read below, the Rivelia isn’t perfect, there are a couple of things I’d change, but they’re insignificant, while the things that have surprised me about this machine, are really quite significant!

Anyone who has read enough of my content will know that although I very much appreciate bean to cup machines for how easy they are to use, they’re not quite for me.

I’m talking about actual bean to cup machines here, by the way, not machines from Sage such as the Barista Express & Barista Pro, which are often sold as bean to cup coffee machines.

Bean to cup machines (which have built in grinders and internal brewing units or „infusers“) are usually a bit of a much of a muchness until you get to the very high end, approaching commercial bean to cup machine territory.

For example, the Bravilor Sprso, Gaggia Accademia & DeLonghi Maestosa are all close to the two grand mark, and they do deliver something different where cup quality is concerned.

But most other entry to mid level bean to cup coffee machines, tend to have very similar tech, and deliver incredibly similar cup quality.

This, however, is a mid priced bean to cup machine from DeLonghi, which I have to say, I think blows most of the similarly price one touch milk machines out of the water!

Features and Benefits

• 12 One Touch Hot Coffees
• 9 One Touch Iced Coffees (via optional addon)
• True micro foam (from a one touch milk carafe!)
•  Quick Swap Hoppers
• Bean Adapt – Dialing In Assistance
• Very Intuitive, Interactive User Interface
• 1.4 Litre Water Tank  (front accessed)
• Dump Box Capacity: 10
• Extra Shot Function
• Maximum Cup Height : 14.0
• Grinder Bypass Chute for Pre-ground

The Rivelia is quite a revelation, which does sound like a pun, but it’s not really since Rivelia is Italian for „Reveal“, so that doesn’t quite work.

It has a dual hopper system for loading different beans & a clever „switch“ mode for allowing you to make one last coffee with the beans that have already dropped into the burrs when you swap over.

The user interface is refreshingly simple, and talks to the user as if it’s human, right from the point that you turn it on, for example instead of just prompting you to enter the date, it displays this text on the touch screen:

„Before we go any further, can you tell me what time it is? It’ll only take a minute.“ And below that is the option to choose the day and the time.

The more I went through the set up steps, the more impressed I became with it, but then, I tasted the espresso…

It was up there with the best espresso I’ve had from a bean to cup machine.

OK, impressive. But then I made a „flat white“, and I’m using the quote marks because remember, this is a one touch milk frother bean to cup machine, they can’t do proper flat white texture.