Gaggia Titanium Plus
Gaggia describe this exclusive Titanium model as a domestic machine, but it wouldn’t look out of place in a small bar, or café. It comes in only one colour, silver, and has many stainless steel details. It’s weighs a ton, or 10kg to be precise. It’s dimensions are 290 x 375 x 425mm. On the front in a neat digital control panel with a bright blue LCD, this shows information in white. At the rear of the machine is a large portable water tank with internal handle for easy removal and making carrying to and from the tap easier. An area on the top of the machine leaves you with enough room for four small espresso cups, or 2 larger mugs.
Setup/Installation
Almost a plug and play, all you have to do is pour in 250g of coffee beans, fill up the 2.3 litre water tank, and turn the machine on. After about 2 minutes of warming up, the screen indicates that it is ready to brew.
Features
Gaggia have introduced their latest coffee machines to the digital age, by equipping them with gadgets and gizmos galore. Once you see what the Titanium can do, you’ll be as flabbergasted as we were. What we really like about this model, is that you can make the whole coffee making experience as simple or as complex dependant on your personal preference. The manufacturer’ settings have been set to give you a perfect cup of coffee, but you want to make changes, it’s very easy to do. For example, using the digital LCD menu, you can choose how coarse coffee beans are grounded, and you can also choose how much grounded coffee, between 6-9g, is dispensed, to give you a stronger of weaker cup of coffee. You can also choose to pre-brew, this is where the grounded coffee is prior to the brewing process, to give a better flavour. If you like red hot coffee or much cooler, you can decipher this too, by choosing between five temperature options. You can even choose to warm your cup by turing on the cup warming plate. In all its digital glory, the Titanium also analyses the hardness of your water, and adjusts accordingly to make it the optimum hardness for making coffee. However, if you think it needs altering still, you can choose from one of four settings. With a digital display, you can choose to have a clock screen saver, which is a handy addition to any kitchen. The screen does become your new best friend very quickly indeed, telling you everything you need to know, like when a problem occurs and how to overcome it. You can set a timer to put the Titanium into energy saving mode to save energy. The factory settings put it at 3 hours but you can increase this time in 15 minute increments from a minimum of 15 minutes up to 3 hours. A cup count to date is also kept, for some unknown reason, or maybe it’s for people trying to cut down, almost like a caffeine counter rather than a calorie counter.
Making Espressos
It takes 20 seconds to get a full bodied, hot, and good tasting espresso from the Titanium. All you are required to do is place your cup on the tray underneath the dispenser and press the button. Coffee dispensing head retracts into the machine giving you the option to determine the distance the coffee travels before hitting the cup. Freshly ground coffee is provided with every cup, so you’ll hear the grinder kick in when you ask for a cuppa. The Titanium has a 15 bar water pressure, making the coffee production process very quick indeed. It also has dual boilers to heat the entire machine, to guarantee a good, hot cup of coffee. For making cappuccinos, or heating milk , the steam output nozzle swivels 180 degrees, and provides rapid steam to really speed things up. Hot water is also provided too. You can choose to make one or two cups simultaneously, which is handy for dinner parties, rather than standing in the kitchen all night, making each individual cup.
Cleaning
The Titanium is ultimately easy to clean, due to its fantastic design. The removable brewing unit comes out easily and just requires a rinse. The coffee remains container is also removable, so you’ll just need to tip the bean remnants into the bin before giving it a quick rinse. It has the capacity to hold up to 13 cups (depending on the amount of coffee you programme it to use) worth of coffee, before it requires emptying. The drip tray does get rather splodged upon, so you’ll need to give that a wipe every time you use the machine. A digital cleaning cycle is advised once a week, just to give the machine a bit of a refresh. Gaggia also recommend a descaling cycle every 3-4 months, or you can wait for the screen to instruct you that it’s due. For the descaling cycle, you’ll need to purchase a descaling product before following the easy step-by-step instructions. Every time the machine is used, it automatically flushes out the unused stagnant water, to ensure you only use fresh water in your coffee. When this is happening, the machine will indicate this by showing ‘rinsing’ on the screen.
Performance
Gaggia’s Titanium espresso machine is a high-class coffee maker, and in our opinion, is worth its weight in gold. With so many features on offer, we expected a complex set-up procedure, so when we fond it to be exceptionally easy, we were overjoyed. If a setting could be adjusted, we adjusted it, but we ended up choosing the option to restore the manufacturer’s settings, as they gave us the optimum coffee outcome. Using Starbuck’s 2006 Christmas Blend coffee beans, with its strong, full-bodied taste with a slight piquancy, we attempted to make a cappuccino, which was successful, with a heavy froth and perfect colour. Even though the coffee production was quick, with thanks to the 15 bar pressure, there was no spray or splashes around the edge of the cup or on the tray. Between uses, the energy mode kicked in, but once we instructed it to make another cup, we only had a one minute wait. We would definitely recommend utilising the pre-brew option, as we found it gave the finished product a much smoother taste. Making changes to enhance the whole experience was a pleasure as the menu is so well designed, and easy to navigate. The worst part of making coffee has also been made ultimately easy to do, which improved our experience further.
Overall Opinion
If you can afford to spend the same amount on a coffee machine that some would spend on a car, we would recommend the Gaggia Titanium over every other machine. Making coffee needs to be easy, but not necessarily simple, and Gaggia have taken this into account, by giving you great options to choose from easily