I just tested one of Jura’s entry-level automatic coffee machines — it nails what others miss

More often than not, automatic coffee machines are ignored when coffee lovers get together and discuss the best espresso machines on the market. There’s a very good reason for that: automatic coffee machines just can’t make ‘proper’ espresso. Brewing espresso is an art, from the dosing, the grinding, the tamping, and the extracting — things that automation simply can’t replace.

I’m often disappointed by automatic espresso, but not from the Jura ENA 4. The ENA 4 actually brews deliciously balanced, yet complex espresso, and I found myself drinking multiple cups of a day.

However, it’s not perfect, thanks to its lack of milk functionality and almost unbelievable price tag. But could it be a shoe-in for espresso lovers who want convenience over anything else? Find out in this Jura ENA 4 review.

Jura ENA 4 review: Cheat sheet

• Who is it for? People who crave convenience over anything else (and maybe a small office, although Jura advises against this)
• What does it do well? The coffee tastes less like automatic coffee than other Jura machines
• What are its weaknesses? It’s not capable of making milk drinks, and it’s very expensive for what it is
• Anything else to know? If you want a machine that can make lattes, you’re better off somewhere else

Jura ENA 4 review: Specs

Jura ENA 4 review: Price & availability

The Jura ENA 4 is a pretty massive $999 from Amazon U.S. and $999 on Amazon U.K.. On Jura’s U.K. site, it’s a more palatable £765 but the same $999 on Jura U.S..

While the ENA 4 appears to be suitable for office use, Jura recommends the ENA 4 is only used in “private domestic” dwellings. Jura has a range of professional options on its website, including the 200-cups-a-day Giga X.

This is an extremely high price for a coffee machine that only makes two drinks. For the same $999, you could get a Breville Bambino Plus, as well as one of the best coffee grinders (like the affordable Baratza Encore ESP), and still have $300 left over for pounds and pounds of coffee.

However, I guess you’re paying a premium for uber-convenience, and that’s what the ENA 4 is here for. It’s to ensure you can have hot espresso at the touch of a button. Considering the De’Longhi Rivelia is just £749 in the U.K. and does everything the ENA 4 can and more, I’d recommend the De’Longhi for U.K. customers. If you really want a Jura, the U.K.-only (as of right now) Jura C8 is £899 and it makes milk drinks, so I’d recommend that.

Jura ENA 4 review: Design

The ENA 4 feels considerably smaller than other Jura machines. It's just 10.7 x 12.7 x 17.5 inches, which makes it about 0.3 inches smaller than the C8. This doesn’t sound like much, I know but the ENA 4 looked considerably smaller than the C8 and the E8 (a pretty hefty 13.8 inches wide) on my kitchen counter.

My favorite design aspect of the ENA 4 is the diamond-faceted water tank. It’s pretty small, at just 37 fluid ounces, but this is fine if you’re happy to refill it every 7 drinks or so. I found that the ENA 4 alerted me to refill the tank when it had about 10% remaining. Comparatively, the C8’s water tank is 54 ounces.

Although still not a touchscreen, the ENA 4’s LED screen is much more user-friendly than the C8’s. The ENA 4’s screen is brighter and easier to navigate, although it took me a few tries to figure out which button was ‘yes’ and which was ‘no’. However, after just a few minutes fiddling with the machine, I had this sorted.

Like the C8, the ENA 4 can take both ground and wholebean coffee. As it’s intended primarily to be used with wholebeans, the grinder hopper is larger than the grounds funnel. You also use the grounds funnel to insert cleaning tablets, which I’ll discuss later on.

The grinder itself is Jura’s own ‘Professional Aroma Grinder’. Now, I’ve tested my fair share of coffee grinders, and I feel like I know what’s what when it comes to crushing coffee, but this description feels arbitrary, and raises the ‘marketing jargon’ red flag.

There are no specifics here: no claim of the grinder being a burr or blade (although I can tell from appearance it’s a burr) and no assertion of material. The grinder is simply an average bean-to-cup grinder.

You can adjust the grind size with a tactile ring around the hopper. My machine came on notch three, and I never had to change this for the beans used in testing, as the espresso tasted great. Mileage will vary depending on the beans/roast used.

Lastly, I’ll discuss the drip tray and grounds drawer. I’ll discuss this more in detail in the ‘Storage & maintenance’ section below, but the long and short of it is that I needed to empty the drip tray about once every 6 drinks. The drip tray is angled so the water funnels out at the far end, which makes cleanup very easy.

Jura ENA 4 review: Espresso

So the ENA 4 can’t make milk-based drinks, which means its sole purpose is to craft black coffee and espresso. Thankfully, it performs that one job really well.

While the Jura C8 makes milk drinks and black coffee, the coffee tasted very average. It was overly bitter and burnt, even when using specialty light-roasted beans. This was probably due to overdosing shots or extracting the espresso with overly-hot water.

The ENA 4 was able to extract delicious, balanced coffee. The shots were powerful yet nuanced, and I was surprised by how delicate the overall flavor was. All my colleagues said their coffees were great, which was a major success after they weren’t huge fans of coffee made by other automatic machines.

Unlike the C8 and the E8 machines, the ENA 4 only has three intensity levels. Personally, I think the coffee tasted best on the weakest intensity as I was able to enjoy the coffee flavor without being overwhelmed by bitterness.

Although there’s not really much visual difference between the three intensities, here are three photos of the ENA 4’s shots from weakest to strongest.

Image 1 of 3

As you can see, the shots look creamy and thick, with a nice layer of crema on top. The black heart of the shot is small, which suggests the coffee will taste sweet, with the perfect amount of acidity and bitterness to balance it out.

Although the ENA 4 only makes two drinks, espresso and coffee, both of these drinks were delicious. The default amount of ‘coffee’ is about half a mug, which threw me the first few times I used the machine.

However, all is not lost. It’s very easy to manually adjust the amount of coffee dosed. I just held down the ‘coffee’ button until the cup was full and the ENA 4 remembered this measure. It’s possible to adjust this amount infinitely, so you’ll always have enough to fill a cup regardless of cup size.

There’s also the option to fill the machine with ground coffee (for example, if you want decaf), but I didn’t use this as wholebeans tend to give a much more pleasant flavor. The De’Longhi Rivelia has two interchangeable bean hoppers for easy switching of wholebeans, so you can have freshly ground caffeinated and decaf coffee.

While the ENA 4 doesn’t brew espresso delicate and complex enough to impress coffee aficionados, this is a machine that places convenience above everything else (affordability included). As a result, the ENA 4 excels at its job: make coffee after coffee in quick succession. It just won’t be winning any flavor awards. If that’s what you want from your coffee machine, then this is a great option — easily the best espresso of any Jura machine I’ve tried thus far.

Jura ENA 4 review: Storage & maintenance

As I touched on earlier, I’ll discuss the drip tray and grounds drawer in full detail here. The drip tray is very long; it stretches all the length of the machine itself. This means it can hold a pretty large amount of water. There’s no red tab that pops up when the tray needs emptying; the machine tells you on the screen.

Emptying is easy as the water is funnelled out of a small opening at the rear of the tray. The grounds drawer is just behind the exterior mesh, and sits nice and flush in the tray itself. I found it easy to clean with hot running water, but it’s made of plastic, so might be quite easily tarnished. However, I only had this machine on a short loan so I unfortunately can’t test long-term usage.

Jura recommends (well, demands) that you only use Jura-branded cleaning tablets. These cleaning tablets are quite expensive: $21 for 6 tablets on Jura’s website, $20 for one water filter on Jura’s website, and $20 for 6 descaling tablets on Jura’s website. Jura recommends changing the water filter every 2 months, cleaning the water tank with multiple descaling tablets every 2 months. The machine will prompt cleaning tablet usage depending on how often you use it — minimum once a month.

These continuing costs will make daily machine operation quite expensive, so it’s worth accounting for these charges when figuring out if you should buy the ENA 4 or not.

If these costs seem a little too high, then I recommend the De’Longhi Rivelia automatic machine. De’Longhi sells a maintenance kit for $45 on its website, which includes a water filter, descaler, and a coffee machine cleaner as well as a microfiber cloth, but this should be repurchased every few months so the price difference could be negligible.

Jura ENA 4 review: How does it compare?

If money is no object to you and you just want quick, fresh coffee, then I think the ENA 4 is one of Jura’s most adept machines. It makes delicious espresso that is much sweeter and more drinkable than other Jura machines.

However, it is very expensive for what it is. It’s $999 and all it does is make espresso and black coffee. That’s it. It doesn’t steam milk, and it certainly doesn’t add syrups. For such a large product (albeit smaller than other Jura machines), you’d hope it would do something else.

The De’Longhi Rivelia is far more versatile. In the U.S., it’s a pretty hefty $1,299, compared to the more palatable £749 U.K. price. I think it’s a worthwhile investment seeing as it can make 13 drinks, compared to the $999 ENA 4’s meager 2.

For serious automatic coffee machine lovers, I can recommend the Terra Kafe TK-02 ($1,599) which can make a seemingly infinite amount of recipes in the Terra Kafe app. If you want the best of the best, opt for that instead. If you want just black coffee and don’t care that you’re spending $$$ for easy espresso, then the ENA 4 won’t let you down.

Jura ENA 4 review: Verdict

The Jura ENA 4 has one customer in mind, and it looks after that one customer well. If you want hot, fresh espresso multiple times a day and you’re happy to pay a premium price for convenience, then the ENA 4 is your perfect choice. Just don’t expect it to start brewing lattes and cappuccinos, because, well, it’s physically incapable.

However, if you do want a machine to make milk drinks, I’d recommend the De’Longhi Rivelia or the Terra Kafe TK-02 I mentioned earlier. The ENA 4 simply is not designed to prepare milk.

Even so, the ENA 4 definitely has a place. It’s easy to adjust coffee intensity so it would be good for a family or small office where people have different tastes. I’d just recommend getting a milk frother to go with it.