DeLonghi - CitiZ Platinum & Milk Stainless Steel

I have the citiz platinum and that’s the closest to replacing both in my opinion it makes two sizes of americanos as well as they typical expresso and lungo and you can use third party brands . But they creatisa are really nice but if you want it to make coffee not just espresso get the vertuo creatisa. If you just want to replace the keuring get the original vertuo with the dome top. We don’t know if the vertuo up will break like the Next did yet.

I have the Nespresso Citiz Platinum. It has four options to make coffee. Espresso, Lungo, Americano, and Americano XL. If you want stronger coffees go with espresso or lingo and to stretch it out you two pods. I also have a Keurig K-Cafe to offset the expense and use ground coffee. Biggest reason it has a frother built on the side that stirs lattes and cappuccinos hot or cold. Good luck and welcome to the Espresso fam.

I’ve owned the CitiZ & Milk for over two years now totally blends into my morning routine. milk frother gives creamy lattes like a cafe and the crema holds up even when I stretch shots. If both espresso and milk drinks are your thing, the Original line like CitiZ nails the flavour and crema more than the Vertuo. Vertuo is awesome for larger coffees but the crema’s different more frothy than dense. On a tighter budget. Essenza or Pixie do the job just add a good frother. What really makes a difference though is regular cleaning & descaling. Also stick with one pod type to avoid confusion. If I needed to buy another now, I’d still go with CitiZ & Milk solid all rounder.

If you like black coffee and also want the espresso shot for your weekend mocha, an Original Line Nespresso (like a Citiz & Milk or Pixie/Essenza Mini + Aeroccino frother) is often the best bet.

We just bought our first super automatic, the Jura Z10 after about 12 years with a Nespresso Citiz with Milk machine (which served us really well). No regrets so far. The Z10 is a big leap in terms of expense and complication - it’s been set up for a few days now and we are learning how to get what we want out of it, which has been fun. The drinks taste great and we’ll get it dialed in. We also bought Jura’s Milk Cooler. Having a machine produce the foam has required us changing the milk we use. Chobani Vanilla creamer worked great in the Nespresso whisk thing, but is too thick for the Z10 to pour nicely, it sputters a lot. Skim milk works great in the Z10. Cleaning the Z10 is easy, we had to clean the Nespresso milk thing daily too so that’s not really a big deal. I love how you can customize drinks in the Jura…everyone in the family now has a drink of their own that they are getting just right.

Fully second the CitiZ and milk and I’ve been using mine for 3-4 years. I prefer espresso/americanos while my partner likes lattes so it was nice to not feel like we were paying a premium for a “higher-end” milk steamer/frother. Plus, the vanilla soy milk from Costco foams up incredibly well so it’s perfect. I also feel like an aeropress is marginally more work for better coffee than a capsule machine could ever make so that’s my go-to when I want larger volume. Can’t make the same case for most espresso machines so that’s something to consider!

I'm a coffee snob and would never have even tried a pod machine (apart from desperation in hotel rooms) but I read, this is years ago now, that the swanky restaurants in Manhattan were all using Nespresso machines. I got one and I absolutely adore it. I thought it was so good I bought one of their new machines that do more than espresso, assuming it would be even better. It is not. The original line Nespresso is the way to go. The copyright on those pods is also expired so you can get all kinds of different coffees for the machine. You cannot do that for the new version. 

I have the Citiz as well and love it. I was just wondering how the Ninja stacks up against it. 

You don't need to pick which one is more faster cause it only took seconds to minute, I honestly dont think it matters. For Citiz and essenza, those are original line coffee machines, smaller capsule. Vertuo lines are good too. The difference between vertuo and original line is the extraction method. The original line uses pressure to extract coffee from capsules while the vertuo uses bar code for reading and then it identifies the volume of your coffee. You might consider the creatista so you could easily make coffee in just one press, it automatically adds milk depending on your coffee choice. Also the cup size, in vertuo you need larger cup size so if you like large cup of coffee you should go with vertuo. I have tried both vertuo and original line. I tried pixie, Citiz and creatista from original line and there is no big difference in the coffee extraction really. For vertuo, I tried vertuo plus and it's really good.

if you want flat blacks then the vertuo is good option as the machine is cheaper, but you are limited to buying the pods from nespresso and they are more exepensive than the original line (OL). OL line is better for espresso and milk ones - and can do a decent job with flat black (with some trial and error) - the pods are cheaper than the vertuo pods at nespresso and you can get a host of even cheaper 3rd party options (local stores - country/state dependant or via online like amazon etc) - though the cons are the machines are more expensive. If you are going for a citiz or pixie (OL) or similar I think you are hitting the sweet spot. If you are going for a more costly machine like the latissimo or sage then you might want to consider/look at decent bean to cup model as they are in similar price range and while not quite as convient and take larger space you technically can get a cheaper cup from them.

I have a Nespresso Citiz about to celebrate its 10th birthday. Quite happy with the machine.