Siemens EQ900 Plus Review

Introduction

Is there such a thing as too much choice? The Siemens EQ900 Plus bean to cup coffee machine thinks not, offering the sort of drinks menu that could make even the most hardened caffeine addict’s head spin.

Its selection of 36 drinks has the potential to be altered in terms of strength, intensity, milk volume, coffee volume and maximised bean grind, as well as to switch beans thanks to two hoppers and grinders. All of which means you could enjoy a slightly different drink every day of the year and still have the potential to explore more. Plus, a connected app offers recipes and remote operation, so you can brew from the comfort of your bed.

Design and features

• Preset or ‘barista’ mode
• Adapts to different beans
• Large worktop footprint

Unsurprisingly, seeing as it includes two 280g bean hoppers and grinders, a generous 2.3-litre water tank, descaling and cleaning cartridges, and a milk system, the Siemens EQ900 Plus bean to cup coffee machine is a sizable bit of kit.

It’ll take up most of the depth of an average worktop, and requires access to both the left (milk), right (water tank) and top (bean hoppers and cup warmer), so it’s best for those who have space for it.

For all its size, the machine manages to feel premium, complete with a stainless-steel exterior and 6.8-in colour touchscreen controls, although its plastic parts, such as the cover for the cartridges, feel less so.

The design overall is angular, but thoughtful, with a small, unobtrusive filter in the water tank (so you lose less volume than many), light over the cups while brewing, and drip tray that tapers to a point, so it’s less mess to empty.

That said, a few aspects feel as if they’ve been overlooked. For example, there’s no option to use pre-ground coffee, and the triangular 700ml milk carafe that slots neatly into the side was too big and awkward to fit in my fridge. You also can’t remove either of the bean hoppers, which is a handy feature in other high-end bean-to-cups, such as the De’Longhi Rivelia. On the plus side, all the removable parts are dishwasher safe.

The machine can be controlled by either its touchscreen or the app. There are three menus: standard drinks, profiles of personalised drinks and specialities, all of which can be swiped through, and two modes.

These are ‘comfort’, where settings are decided for you, and ‘barista’, where you can experiment more with drink parameters.

Another interesting option is its beanIdent mode, which optimises all your brewing settings to the beans you’re using, extracting maximum aroma.

While the Siemens EQ900 Plus bean to cup coffee machine offers a lot of choice, sensibly, the touchscreen menu has only a few buttons. There’s a shortcut to switch between barista and comfort mode, one to make your drink a double, which I found handy when I was making longer drinks, a favourite that allows one drink to be saved to it (so you don’t have to scroll through your saved profile), and buttons for the maintenance and settings.

Connecting the coffee machine to its app was straightforward enough though its connectivity doesn’t offer much extra. You’re able to do everything the machine touchscreen would do in terms of tailoring drinks. The only standout feature is being able to turn the machine on remotely (handy as it can take a while to warm up before brewing), and start brewing – however, for this, you’ll need to have put a cup below the spout in advance and suspended the initial rinse that the machine does by default.

In terms of using the coffee machine, I liked that the water tank had its own handle, but found that it could be awkward to replace it properly without pivoting the appliance. Similarly, there was a good range of heights for the spout, but I felt that it didn’t lower down quite enough for an espresso cup and wasn’t high enough for a travel mug.

Perhaps its most interesting feature is that there’s lots of information on different types of coffees and drinks, educating the newbie as much as the dedicated drinker.

Another plus is its profiles, which allow you to save up to 100 favourite drinks. Should you have guests keen to create favourites, they can do so on the app, without having to disrupt those you’ve saved.

The downside of all this information is that brewing can require a certain amount of decision making – which menu are you in, what drink would you like, if you’re brewing from a profile and adjust it, do you want to overwrite the old drink or create a new one, which hopper… and so on.

This is something I found wearing, even though the coffee it brews was very good.

Performance

• Brews perfect espresso
• Can vary bean flavours
• Effortless cleaning

In general, the espresso it made was smooth with an aromatic crema. However, if I didn’t use the cup warmer before brewing, it tended not to be as hot as expected, and more of a drinkable temperature straight away – even when tweaked to the hottest setting.

Changing settings to a stronger, finer grind made the brew sweeter and fruitier, and the machine did a good job of bringing out the best of the mid-roast beans.

Its cappuccino delivered beautifully smooth foamed milk and coffee flavours, but I found it frustrating that I had to remove the milk before I could make black coffee drinks with hot water.

Longer black coffee drinks, such as its café grande, XL coffee and Americanos all brewed with more than one grind of the beans so that they didn’t feature typical bitter notes.

All had a good thick crema, with plenty of aroma and complex flavours. I also tried the kleiner brauner: milder than an espresso and longer, perfect for the start of a day.

Another feature that sets this machine apart from others is its automatic cleaning and descaling, which is set to be done so it doesn’t interrupt your use of it. Even so, you may still get caught out by maintenance: during the test period, the machine ran through a software update upon being turned on first thing, which took around 10 minutes. Meaning that you may still have to wait for your caffeine sometimes.

Should you buy it?

FAQs