DeLonghi - CitiZ with Aeroccino (EN267BAE)

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.

The Ninja coffeemaker is far superior to Keurig. Keurig quality has gone downhill. I have Nespresso Citiz( which I love) used original capsules and Ninja( which is much better than keurig) it gives you many options. https://preview.redd.it/sug50ib43ybf1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f24a8abbf0c25af156d0d4e83511c489b89526af

Personally; I like the Citiz. I have had this machine for 15 years and it works the same as the first day. It’s a really heavy unit. Mostly stainless steel. There are two buttons on top that you can program how long of a drip. I use the first as a double expresso size and the second one I have programmed for 10 oz so I can make a latte or ice coffee. I use the strongest coffee capsule to accomplish this. I also have the Nespresso Frother. It will froth both hot and cold. I have never had a problem with that. I know friends that have the Nespresso Vertuo and they seem happy with that. It just depends on your needs . I like really strong coffee.

I had a sage barista express for years. Switched to OL nespresso citiz. I just needed a quick coffee in the morning without having to worry about grinding beans, throwing them away etc. the nespresso is just so much quicker. To be honest not noticed much difference in coffee taste. Wasn’t much of a connoisseur anyway and mostly used syrups. Probably prefer the nespresso because of the different flavours I can get without having to use syrups.