Jura F90 Review

Overall Rating

Very easy to use and clean.
Great coffee.

VERY expensive.
Grind setting control is very difficult to get at.

I am very happy with the Jura F90. It cost £900 so I wouldn't want to be disappointed though! It makes excellent coffee very very easily. The touch screen is easy to use and you can very easily select the size and strength of the coffee you want..

The automatic milk frother (optional extra but seems to be bundled with the machine everywhere) is excellent. You drop a tube into a carton of milk, press a button and it sucks milk up the tube, froths it and shoots it straight into your cup. Brilliant. It will do either froth or just hot milk.

If I had to pick a fault with it it is that it has a daft feature which I can't see the point of. When you turn the machine on it flashes a message saying 'your machine is warming up' after 30 seconds or so it flashes another message that says 'press maintenance. When you press maintenance it performs a quick self clean that takes a few seconds. So, why on earth does it make you press the button? Why doesn't it just do it? It does everything else automatically except that. What this means is that you turn on the machine and wander off. When you return a few minutes later instead of being ready to make a coffee, the machine is ready for you to 'press maintenance' so that you can watch it do a self clean for 20 seconds... than have a cup of coffee. Grrrrr! It only does this when you first turn it on. When you turn it off it does a fully automatic self clean without you having to press any buttons. So why???

The other slight niggle is that the grind setting button is tucked away right at the back inside a flap. It can only be adjusted while the grinder is actually grinding so it is very fiddly. I would have liked an electronic control on the front to do that.

Cleaning this machine is a doddle. Every couple of days it will flash a message up saying empty grinds. To do this you simply slide open a door, take out a tray, empty it in the bin and put it back. The entire water tray slides out too and needs a quick swill under the tap every few days. Its all so easy that it is no problem at all.

Members' Comments ontcsr205's Review

• jenni7 on 23rd Feb 2007

  I have a different Jura Coffee & Espresso machine, but if I press the on/off button instead of the rinse machine button, and then turn it back on again within a few seconds, it is ready for coffee, and no having to rinse! Try that to save your frustration! :-)

• tcsr205 on 12th Jul 2007

  Update - My £900 machine went wrong and had to be returned to Fairfax (who deal with the UK warranty) to be repaired. The problem was that it just started to decide that it was going to make a cup of coffee for itself. It would suddenly start grinding beans and then pour out a cup of coffee into the drip tray. That meant that I couldn't leave it switched on in case it did it a few times and overflowed the tray. So every time I wanted a cup I had to switch it on and then off when it had poured the coffee. Also, it had started telling me to 'fill beans' after almost every cup was poured, even though the bean hopper was full'
  
  The experience of returning it is rather mixed. It actually took me two days to get through to Fairfax to arrange for it to be picked up. Apparently they were short staffed. When I eventually did get through they were very helpful. I was just going on holiday for two weeks so I arranged for it to be picked up the day before I left so that it could be mended by the time I came back.
  
  Bang on time it was picked up by UPS. When I returned two weeks later, busting for a good coffee, I phoned Fairfax for a progress report. I was told that someone would be looking at it that day. Grrrrrr. The next day I got a call from them saying that the entire touch screen panel was faulty and had been replaced and it was now ready to be returned. We arranged a day and sure enough it turned up bang on time.
  
  When I unpacked it I was rather put out that the brand new filter I'd just installed (@ about £7) was missing. However, they had obviously given it a really good work over. They had dismantled the entire bean grinding mechanism to deal with the 'fill beans' problem as well as replacing the touch screen. Also, to their real credit they had replaced the steam pipe, which they said was bent, without me asking them to do it. They did a very professional job on the repair. Very thorough indeed!
  
  Touch wood. All faults seem to be completely fixed now... although I hadn't expected two faults within four months on a £900 coffee machine.
  
  I love this machine though. It is fantastic : )

• tcsr205 on 20th Sep 2007

  Further update - I'm frustrated by this machine. It has once again started doing it's 'fill beans' trick after almost every cup of coffee. I sent it back to have this problem sorted out, which it was after 3 weeks of instant coffee : (
  
  It's been back a few months now and the problem has reappeared. The thing is, it's an annoying problem rather than a show stopper so I don't want all the hassle of sending the machine back again and waiting another 3 weeks for its return. So, during the making of pretty much every cup of coffee I have to poke my fingers into the coffee beans and give them a jiggle. If I don't, the machine stops grinding and tells me to 'fill beans'. Basically, the hopper can't be vibrating enough to ensure the beans fall into the grinder. Grrrr..... Very annoying on a £900 coffee machine!!!

• tcsr205 on 29th Sep 2007

  Further update to this saga! I bit the bullet and sent the machine back for repair. Fairfax, who do the repairs, I have to say were very good. They promised to get the machine back to me the same week. So, I sent it to them, and they did. However, this is what they said, in an email, about my problem..
  
  We have inspected your coffee machine and as of yet we have not found a problem with your grinder. We found that the beans you were using are quite dark and oily. This could have caused a partial blockage in the grinder. When we used our beans we couldn't find the fault, we made about 30-40 cups of coffee on all different strengths and sizes. If you are going to continue to use those particular beans I would recommend permanently keeping the grind on the coarsest setting (the biggest white dot on the dial).
  
  Now, does that seem reasonable to you... on a £900 'automatic' coffee machine? If I want to use my favourite beans (Monsoon Malabar, which can be bought at Whittards or most supermarkets) I have to have the grinder on the setting for a cafetiere rather than an espresso. If I'd wanted cafetiere coffee I'd have bought a £10 cafetiere and a £25 bean grinder.
  
  If you are prepared to use only the beans recommended by the manufacturer perhaps this is the machine for you. If you like to try different beans or especially if you like Monsoon Malabar... buy a cafetiere and a cheap grinder!