De’Longhi Rivelia review: Compact caffeinator

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I’ve always viewed coffee as a morning ritual; something that kickstarts my day and jolts my body from fatigue into readiness for the day ahead.

The De’Longhi Rivelia has challenged that belief. The concept — to be able to swap your coffee beans based on your tastes and routines — feels much more sophisticated than just “drinking coffee to wake up properly”.

And from a product perspective, De’Longhi has smashed the brief. The Rivelia is a gorgeous machine that is easy to use, simple to clean and unique.

But I wonder how many people will be eager to build a proper routine around different styles of coffee bean. After a month testing the Rivelia, by habits didn’t really change, making the machine’s interchangeable bean grinders overkill for my needs.

Maybe that’s just me, though. If you love your coffee and the process of trialling different roasts, the Rivelia is a fantastic product.

Design

Let it be stated clearly: De’Longhi knows how to design automatic coffee machines. The Eletta Explore was a joy to use, but the Rivelia is more compact. 

Measuring in at 245 × 430 × 385 mm and available in three colours (black, white, and grey), the RIvelia doesn’t waste a millimetre.

The key selling point of the Rivelia is the interchangeable bean hoppers, which sit at the top of the machine. You get two in the box, with colour coded lids so you can know which beans are in which hopper.

There’s a small compartment in front of the hopper that holds the ground coffee scoop and the hot water attachment. A ring around the right-hand side of the hopper lets you set the coarseness of the grind to your preference.

At the front of the machine’s top is the 3.5-inch colour touchscreen, which is used to select the drink of choice, cycle through user profiles and control the setup of the machine.

Four manual buttons surround the touchscreen, letting you switch user profiles, power on the machine, and quickly navigate between milky coffee drinks and black coffee options.

The 1.4 litre water tank has been placed on the side of the machine, which made it easy to reach to fill up. The lid just rests inside it though, and it’s not the easiest water tank to remove to fill up. Not hard, but not the easiest.

The front of the machine has the twin shot dispenser and a slot for the LatteCrema 200 ml milk frother or a hot water dispenser. The spout can move up and down to fit larger cup and mug sizes, while the drip tray is easy to pull out and clean.

Learning your coffee habits

While the interchangeable hopper is the most obvious feature in the Rivelia, De’Longhi has also added some intelligent software features to make getting your caffeine fixes easier than ever.

You can create up to four different profiles in the Rivelia, which worked out as one for each family member in my home.

Like the Eletta Explore, the Rivelia will track the type of coffee you make, and show your preferred option at the start of the list, so you can make your preferred drink faster than ever.

But the Rivelia takes it one step further, offering tracking by the time of day. So the Rivelia learned that I liked a nice Espresso Lungo in the morning, but in the middle of the day would be more likely to opt for a flat white. 

If you like an after-dinner espresso, the Rivelia will track that too, but I like my sleep a bit too much.

It’s a seamless integration, and doesn’t require any manual programming. And if you feel like something different one day, you just cycle through and find what you want to make.

Performance

For such a compact machine, the Rivelia makes a great cup of coffee. Within a couple of button presses, you can have a steaming cup of coffee in your hands.

There’s a surprising amount of customisation available via the touchscreen. You can adjust the intensity of the flavour, as well as the quantity of the pull. If you like your espresso a certain way, you can save your preferences so it will make it your way every time.

This is true for both milky and black coffee types, too. So if you like your flat whites strong but your long blacks weak, the Rivelia can easily accommodate your preferences.

It’s quick to get started. It runs a bit of hot water through the system to get you started, and then (unless you need to empty a drip tray or something), will start pouring your coffee within a minute of turning on the machine.

The Rivelia also lets you make iced coffee drinks, though unlike the ELetta Explore it doesn’t offer a cold brew option. Instead, it pumps out full temperature coffee, letting the ice do the heavy lifting to make it a cold coffee drink.

The result is a drink slightly more bitter than I would want from a “cold brew”. The Eletta wasn’t a true cold brew either, but it did manage to create a delicate flavour for its colder drinks.

The milk frother does a fantastic job of creating creamy foam for milky coffees across different milks. Its extendable arm can be pointed into any sized mug as well to not make a mess.

And if you do make milky coffees, the machine will offer friendly reminders on its touchscreen about keeping the milk container clean. It also prompts you to empty and clean the drip tray, so you shouldn’t ever have to deal with unpleasant overflow.

Verdict

The De’Longhi Rivelia is an exceptionally well-crafted automatic coffee machine, and definitely worth considering as one of the best coffee machines in Australia.. It’s compact enough for small kitchens, delivering the full bean to cup experience with minimal effort.

Coffee is great every time, with a large range of coffee options to choose from, and the ability to customise each one to your personal preference.

But I feel like the interchangeable bean hopper is a bit too niche. The customer who would appreciate the slight variations between bean types, roasting profiles and wants to mix and match throughout their day is likely to already have an extensive home espresso system.

The good news is that even if you would rather not swap your bean hopper, the compact body, ease of use and delicious coffee make it a great option for anyone.

Buy the De'Longhi Rivelia online

De'Longhi Rivelia

The De'Longhi Rivelia's interchangeable bean hopper is probably overkill, but the compact design and fantastic performance means you should still consider it for your kitchen.

Check price @ Amazon