Have you heard of Melitta before? They make Coffee machines and we’ve tried a couple in the past, which have been really good. They have a range called AromaFresh, which is a range of filter coffee machines. Now they’ve got a new model out, the AromaFresh 2, they sent it over and after a few weeks of using it, here are my thoughts. 

The Aromafresh 2 is their top-of-the-line filter coffee machine. It’s a bean-to-cup, or bean-to-jug machine, so you can pour your own beans into the machine, grind them and brew a coffee. It has an integrated ceramic grinder with 11 different grind settings. It has adjustable brewing strength, a 10-cup water tank, limescale protection, a built-in timer for automatic morning brewing and lastly, you can bypass the grinder part and use your own ground coffee if desired. 

Visually, it’s very sleek, very modern and in keeping with Melittas newer products like the EPOS or Epour. At the very top, is the hopper with a lid where you put your beans in. That is also where the grinder is and a rotary knob for you to adjust the coarseness of the grind to suit your needs. Moving down, the basket, which is on a hinge and swivels out. This is where you put your filter paper and/or ground coffee if you’re not grinding. Below that, the glass coffee pot or jug with a lid and below that, the warming plate. This gets very hot, do not touch it at all but if you keep your pot on it, it will keep your coffee hot for a while. The plate can be on for 20, 40 or 60 minutes. To the right-hand side, the 10-cup or 1.25-litre water tank with a lid, and then below that the display and controls. It comes in this matte black finish only, it’s generally made from plastic but overall, feels well constructed. As for size, it looks ok on my kitchen worktop, the footprint isn’t huge so it doesn’t take up too much space but it is kinda tall.

Set-up is very easy and there isn’t too much involved. If you read the manual first, it does tell you to set your water hardness. Now I know I have hard water, I see limescale on my taps and so forth, and I know this can damage coffee machines. So I use bottled water. Yes, it’s a bit extra but I’ve had machines break in the past and you can’t just keep buying new machines. So I buy bottled water and recycle the plastic. I didn’t test the bottled water so I went for hardness setting 3. By doing this, the machine programmes when it needs cleaning and descaling via usage. I’ve not hit that mark yet but I imagine after 50 jugs or so, I’ll be prompted to de-scale. 

Using the machine is dead simple and you can do these steps in any order you want. Pour your beans into the top of the machine, open the swivel basket and insert a filter paper. Fill the water tank up to however many cups of coffee you want and then you’re good to go. Now there is a cup button, which I initially thought was how many cups you wanted but that isn’t quite right. The amount of water you have put into the tank must match the number of cups you want. All the water in the tank will be used, regardless of the cups selected, so it seems a bit like a pointless button to me. 

After that, you press start and a little green light will show. See what happens, taste the coffee, it might be good, it might be bad and then this is the time to dial in the set-up to suit you. Grind settings at the top, time to play with these 11 settings to find how coarse you want your beans to be. I started in the middle, about 5, but then went a little finer. Next, coffee strength which is simply 1,2 or 3 beans on the display. 1 bean equals mild strength, 3 equals strong. Beans, get whatever you want, try lots, find your favourite brand and keep them fresh. Filter paper, use Melitta ones or grab some off Amazon, they do vary in quality so again, play around and find your favourite ones. If you want to use pre-ground coffee, you have to press the little spoon button, which will bypass the grinding step. 

As you use the machine and try different things, you’ll eventually hit the right settings and get the brew you want. 

As for performance, so far so good. It smells great, you do actually get a very lovely aroma from the machine and it’s the best smell ever. The quality of the coffee depends on the settings and beans but after 3 weeks, I’ve got a good brew, it extracts well, good flavours and my wife and I are happy. Once the grinder has finished, it’s quiet. The time taken to make a jug depends on how many cups you’ve selected but it’s not that long and it’s not that noisy either. You can very much press start and walk away, which is great. That’s also where the timer function comes in. Set the timer to 7 am and wake up to a lovely smell of freshly brewed coffee and if you hit that snooze button, no problem, as you’ve set the hot plate to 40 minutes so your coffee will stay warm.

I’ve not yet had to do a cleaning process but I imagine it’s like the other Melitta machines. I’ll be prompted if it needs cleaning and then I’ll refer back to the manual and do the step-by-step to clean it.  

For more information and to purchase, head over to the official Melitta website.

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