Review: KitchenAid Semi Automatic Espresso Machine

KitchenAid is a brand that’s had a place in every home kitchen I’ve ever had, even growing up. When I bought my own KitchenAid stand mixer for the first time after college, my apartment finally felt like a place where a grown-up lived. My affection for that stand mixer cannot be overstated, so naturally my ears perked up when KitchenAid announced it was revamping its espresso machine lineup.

There are three new fully automatic espresso machines: the KF8, KF7, and KF6. Then there's the KitchenAid Semi Automatic Espresso Machine, plus a 2-in-1 with a built-in burr grinder. I love a good fully automatic espresso machine for its expedience and ease, but there’s a part of me that just craves the practiced ritual of brewing your own espresso at home. The first of these machines to make their way to my doorstep was the Semi Automatic, so here we are. Keep an eye out for my review of the automatics soon.

Considerate Counter Footprint

I’m a lifelong apartment-dweller, and one of the many lessons I’ve learned from a life spent apartment-hopping is the value of counter space. When I set the KitchenAid Semi Automatic Espresso Machine on my counter for the first time, I couldn’t help but smile.

This is a fully-featured espresso machine with a built-in burr grinder, and it fits in the area previously occupied by my rice cooker—a strip of counter too narrow for other practical uses. This machine is narrow, clocking in at about 13 inches wide and 15 inches tall. It fits comfortably, with room to spare, underneath my somewhat low-hanging kitchen cabinets.

Photograph: Jaina Grey

Because of the tight space in my kitchen, it’s sometimes hard to access the water tank on the back of espresso machines I test. Usually, I have to either wrestle to remove the tank and bring it to the faucet, or resign myself to filling it by carrying cup after cup from my sink to the machine. The KitchenAid Semi Automatic effortlessly navigates that little stumbling block by having wheels on the bottom. I can just pull the machine away from the wall, turn it sideways, and fully remove the water tank.

I initially worried the machine would be too slippery with wheels, making it hard to tighten the portafilter into place without the whole thing sliding all the time. Thankfully, the wheels are smooth but they do require a little muscle to move—a good thing. To twist the portafilter in place, you still have to brace it with one hand, but you typically have to do that with small espresso machines anyway.

The wheels also make it so much easier to clean under and behind the machine. I’m currently testing another espresso machine on my other countertop, and it's so heavy that moving it to clean up any spilled grounds or ultrafine coffee dust that’s accumulated behind the machine is a huge pain. A literal pain, given my chronic back issues.

Whisper Quiet

This KitchenAid machine features a certification from Quiet Mark, meaning it’s been tested to ensure it’s as quiet as possible (there’s a cute little Q sticker on the front of the machine). I was skeptical because even quiet grinders can get pretty loud. I was wrong. This Semi Automatic just might be the quietest espresso machine I’ve ever tested.

Grinding the beans produces only a little mechanical whirr sound. It's quiet enough that you can continue to have a conversation while it grinds—a test every other grinder that’s come through my kitchen has failed, even the quiet ones. The grinder is also remarkably consistent. It produces grounds fine enough for espresso and coarse enough for other brewing methods. I think it can fully replace a countertop coffee grinder, no matter what kind of other coffee you like brewing.

Photograph: Jaina Grey

Pulling shots produces a few internal pump sounds, and then the sound of pouring espresso. Steaming milk is still loud, but there’s not much any machine can do about that aside from including a tiny anechoic chamber to stick your hand and pitcher into while you steam.

This machine comes with a hefty and sleek flat-bottomed 58-millimeter portafilter, with two single-walled baskets for single shots, and two double-walled baskets for double shots. The flat bottom ensures you can rest it flat directly on your countertop, but it’s not an open-bottom portafilter. This one still has two little spouts on the bottom pointing directly downward. I would’ve liked to see it come with an open-bottom version, mostly because I’m enamored with the look and feel of KitchenAid's portafilter and my 58-mm open-bottom portafilter just doesn’t feel the same.

I find open-bottom or dual-spouted portafilters to provide a more aesthetically pleasing espresso-making experience, but that’s just a personal preference. There’s just nothing like watching the crema come together as it flows across the open bottom of the brew basket, forming a single cremalicious pour of steaming-hot espresso.

This nitpick aside, I love the way this portafilter feels in the hand. The plastic handle is textured, and it’s secured to the basket with a hefty nut stamped with “KitchenAid - 1919” on it. These are some of the little details I appreciate.

Intuitive Designs

When I spoke with the KitchenAid team, one of the details they were eager to point out is also one of my favorite features of this machine. Each button and knob on the front-facing control panel of the machine features a super-clear little icon that tells you what it does. This isn’t unique—the Delonghi Specialista Arte Evo, for instance, also uses symbols to label its buttons.

What I appreciate about the KitchenAid is the clarity, size, and space each icon is given. The controls are given room to breathe while fitting into a roughly rectangular area on the front. Because each icon and each group of buttons are so carefully spaced, your hands will learn quicker than your eyes what each group of buttons does. Left side is for the grinder, the center group is for setting up what you want the machine to do, and the right side is for controlling the brewing and steaming. These clever design decisions guide your hand and eye from left to right across the control panel, from grind to brew, by just relying on intuition.

Another slick design choice I’ve come to enjoy is the flat tip of the steaming wand. The wand itself steams up milk perfectly every time, but instead of the usual rounded removable tip you usually find on steam wands, the KitchenAid’s wand ends with a sharp flat edge. It doesn’t affect the experience of using the steam wand, but it looks nice and feels like an addition that nicely mirrors the flat bottom and chrome finish of the portafilter.

Photograph: Jaina Grey

Beware of Flying Baskets

Even great product design can have hiccups though. When setting up my first couple of test shots, I ran into a bit of an issue. To decide how much coffee you want the grinder to grind and dispense, you just turn a little knob on the left side of the control panel. Right out of the box, the knob was set at the midpoint, which felt like a good place to start.

I slotted the portafilter underneath the grinder and hit the grind button. Within a few seconds, I was pretty sure the grinder was going to overfill the basket, but I let it do its thing, trusting the little knob that this was a medium amount of coffee grounds for two shots. By the time it finished grinding, there was a small mountain inside the portafilter. I set about carefully nudging the grounds with the tamp to get them roughly distributed before tamping them down. I locked the portafilter into the group head, hit the brew button, and waited.

As I expected, only a few drops of espresso came dribbling out of the machine, and the pressure gauge swung well outside of the helpfully labeled ideal range. I tried again with a coarser grind and got the same result. After some trial and error, I ended up lowering and lowering the grind amount until it rested one dot above the minimum for two shots. This ended up being what felt like an ideal amount for the fine espresso grind I was looking for.

Photograph: Jaina Grey

The whole experience was a little outside of how much trial and error I usually have to go through with a new espresso machine before I get it dialed in just right. Normally, I can do it in about two to three tries, but with the KitchenAid, I didn’t get a cup of coffee I was happy with until round four or five. It’s not the worst an espresso machine has ever done in my hands, far from it. But for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been testing a nearly identical 2-in-1 espresso machine in the same price bracket with almost all the same features, so I felt pretty dialed into this category—and it still took longer than I expected before I was happy with the results.

I also had some trouble knocking the spent espresso puck out of the portafilter. Normally you just flip the portafilter over and give it a good knock or two into the trash, and the puck pops right out. With the KitchenAid, I have yet to pull a shot that doesn’t require the assistance of a spoon—and not because the grounds are too tightly packed or too wet either. It’s because the brew baskets aren’t as tightly locked into the portafilter as they are on some other machines. It only takes three good knocks for the brew basket to become slightly or completely dislodged right into the garbage. So I’ve just stuck with spooning the grounds out by hand to be safe.

Despite these issues, KitchenAid's Semi Automatic Espresso Machine made quite an impression. It has a lot of features I like and a few downsides. But taken as a whole, it feels substantial—a tool I can rely on to make great coffee and withstand the test of time. At $700, it's just about what you'd expect to pay for a machine with these capabilities and features, but it's still a big investment.

If I’m going to buy something that expensive, I want to feel like it’s going to last, like it’s going to be worth it to repair rather than replace it after a few years, like a vintage KitchenAid stand mixer. Time will tell, but the KitchenAid Semi Automatic Espresso Machine has earned a place on my crowded countertop, and I think it’s going to be there for a very long time.