Zulay Kitchen Super Automatic Espresso Machine with Grinder

Let me preface — I love the Magia and you can read my initial review at the bottom. However, ours, at least, has a serious flaw that has remained unaddressed. I wrote the Magia folks about the insane amount of waste the Magia produces because coffee spills all over the inside of the machine, way more than is actually used to make coffee. I wrote the Magia folks and sent them pictures.I quickly got a cheerful reply that answered none of my concerns. In essence, they said it was simply a matter of proper adjustment. Well, I followed every step of the instruction video, to no avail. The Magia continues to blow coffee grounds all over the inside of the machine, necessitating a major cleanup every day. Maybe we have a faulty brewer, maybe the design simply isn’t optimized, but 2/3 of all ground coffee going to waste is really unacceptable.

—— Below the initial review,

If you ever wanted one of those espresso/specialty coffee machines that’s somewhere between low-end (from low $100s) and high-end (thousands), the Magia fits the bill. We’ve had ours for a month and a half, and use it multiple times every day. So here are some of my comments and impressions.

First, this is NOT a high-end coffee machine and not even a Mr Coffee replacement. It’s also not for those who drink coffee by the 32-ounce tumbler mug, for the Magia can barely accommodate a US-size tall cup. The Magia CAN make regular coffee (“Americano”), but it’s really for making Italian style specialty coffee drinks: Espressos (very strong), Restrettos (super-strong), Macchiatos, Cappuccinos, Lattes, and other coffee/milk/foamed milk combinations.

How well does it work? Very well, but there’s a bit of a learning curve. The instructions that come with it show good effort (the basic setup steps even printed on the box it comes in), but not extremely detailed. Watching the instruction videos helps.

The elegant touch screen interface (likely Android-based) makes everything quite simple. You tap to select one of the programmed drinks as is, you can finetune each drink in how strong, how much, how much of what, temperature, etc. Each member of the household can personalize their own favorite drinks. You’ll learn to love the various ways foamy, frothy milk can make for delightful coffee drinks. The machine also contains recipes that include other flavors that you put in manually.

The Magia is quite complex, and it cleans and maintains itself. It makes all sorts of preparation and operating sounds, hissing, steaming and disposing of waste water. You need to learn where to place a dish for waste. The Magia alerts when the coffee or water supply is low (calling it a “shortage”), when the coffee grounds waste container (it presses the grounds into little pucks) needs to be emptied, or when the machine should be “descaled” (a process that takes over half an hour). It does most very well, but it can get confused, alerting to no beans when there still are plenty, or sometimes just spitting water instead of milk (reboot).

There is considerable waste; a lot of the ground coffee piles up inside the machine, so fairly frequent cleaning is necessary.

The way milk is handled is not elegant. You put the milk into a cup next to the machine and insert a flexible tube to suck the milk. Apparently the newer white version of the Magia comes with a nice milk tumbler with the proper tube attachment, but that’s not separately available (yet) for the black version.

Cup size is an issue. The coffee/milk dispenser can be adjusted up and down, but even the tallest it goes isn’t enough for many US cups. And the Magia doesn’t tell you what size cup it needs for a drink. Given its sophisticated computer interface, that info should be added. You can, however, stop dispensing during the pouring.

Overall, way more fun and way more useful than we expected. It’s complex, though, and time will tell whether the Magia (or its fascination) will hold up.

Jamais ete capable de faire mousser le lait et j’ai pourtant suivi toute les recommandations .le café n’est pas très chaud même si je l’ai ajusté au maximum possible il se ramasse beaucoup de café moulu non utilisé dans le fond de la machine ou il y a la porte sur le cote. Je suspecte un défaut de fabrication elle passe son temps à nettoyer mène lorsque non utiliser. J’ai du la retourner Faite attention car j’attends mon credit depuis plus de trois semaines et ce n’est pas un petit montant. Pensez y avant de commander

 What a wonderful way to start the day! I like it feasibly using directly milk carton which I can put it back to fridge right after the coffee is made without worrying the leftover. I put it closer to tap water to rinse the exterior part of the milk tube which can be put into water bottle for immediate cleaning. Although it will ask you to thoroughly clean the whole system when it turns off either by itself or manually, I would like to clean the milk system immediately so that no leftover go bad. I wish the water reservoir on the rear side has a transparent side view so that I can monitor the water level easily. I have tried multiple versions of milk system based coffee machine and this works best for me. Diligent washing definitely required since it is so easily cleaned, I don’t mind cleaning it throughout the day.
Updates on February 17th, 2024:
1) Consistently producing nice milk froth satisfying the daily needs of latte for two or three cups. For a 1K purchase, It has fulfilled its value after two months usage comparing to pay at Starbucks and it is obviously totally worthy it.
2) The more I used it, the more I understood the machine.
A) it would be nicer if the machine reminds me to have milk cartoon ready before the milk-froth program starts.
B) Becaude it is lacking such an important reminder, I ended up to promptly stopping the program just after it is starts. This led to prematurely dumping the coffee cake, and the mechanics did mess up and the dry coffee powder spreading inside the mechanical parts, eventually resulting in the movement got stuck or not in the precise space or alignment. The symptoms won’t show immediately until one day the brew color is lighter and lighter to a clear water flow. No Worry it turned out that after I thoroughly vaccumed and washed and dried the plastic mechanical brewer. It went back to normal.
B) One time we put several drops of water accidentally in through coffee bean chamber. This led to coffee powder moistured and got stuck before it free-flows into the brewer chamber. The symptom was the same no coffee brew only clear water stream. Since it is restricted for access, I took the coffee bean chamber apart and had it thoroughly vacuumed inside and out. It then went back to normal
C) It is good practice to descale, but it only does to the internal tube for traffic. But it definitely useful to make sure the brewer’s tiny holes cleaned.
D) In conclusion, To better maintain the machine is to make sure the mechanical parts working. It requires the coffee powder precise collection, then moving and alignment to the brewer pressing arm. Definitely needs take it out to clean and vacuum the coffee powder routinely so that it is not stuck in between the mechanical moving joints.
3) All in All, I love the machine and should enjoy it further years with more and more understanding it!

Elle est magnifique j’adore, facile à comprendre même si tout est en anglais full image et facile d’entretien