Playing with the Philips Saeco Intelia

As you may have gathered through my Breakfast Indigestion series, I am totally addicted to all things breakfast related which of course includes coffee…and lots of it! So when I was contacted to try out the new Philips Saeco Intelia, I was both thrilled and intrigued to learn about this fully automatic espresso machine. I’ve never taken up an offer to do a kitchen type product to review but considering the Intelia is pretty damn relative to what I blog about the most, I thought I’d give it a go. I’ve been using it daily for exactly one month now and am now comfortable writing about my experience.

The first thing I did notice was the simplicity and the lightness of the machine. I assumed that it would be heavy as a few barbels but you could easily move it from one room to another with ease. There weren’t too many buttons and other unnecessary options to confuse an egg head like me.

Having used these types of machine’s from one’s that have traditionalists in mind requiring abit of manual labour i.e. tamping to the capsule driven machines like the Nespresso – I can safely say that the Intelia was much better than the latter. There’s something about drinking coffee created from a capsule that is NQR. Don’t get me twisted, though it doesn’t actually taste that bad, I could just never appreciate it. The fact that I was able to go out and buy my favourite bean in the whole wide world – St Ali –  and being able to grind it and fill the house with its aroma made me smile as wide as Brandy does. It does have a ceramic grinder which helps to preserve the aroma. 

St Ali SO need to make their own cologne!

REview of the Philips Saeco Intelia

the Philips Saeco Intelia

8 steps to making it all happen every morning

Step #1 Fill the bean tray at the top with some of your favourite beans ready for bumpin and grindin

St Ali blend

Step #2 Fill the left container with some water


Step #3  Drop the milk extractor tube in a cup of milk


Step #4 Select the strength of coffee (between 1 – 3 beans) then hit the relevant espresso cup button according to how much you want

coffee strength indicator Philips Saeco Intelia

Step #5 Watch it pour whilst you smell the incredible aroma. Smell it real good…

crema using the Philips Saeco Intelia

oh so bloody good crema

Step #6 Move your cup to the left under the milk frother/cappuccinatore for the next stage to begin

Philips Saeco Intelia frothing stage

Step #7 Press the got water/steam button and select the amount of milk you desire by pressing the espresso coffee brew button

Philips Saeco Intelia reviewStep #8 Once it has filled to your desired level, hit stop.

Drumroll…………….

Ta da! A cuppucino made from the Philips Saeco Intelia

And there you have it. A Cappuccino. Boom! Sorry, I took a few sips to wake me up..it was 7 am people!

Key Features I like:

+        1.5l water tank capacity

+         300 gram coffee bean container

+        Approx 10 servings of coffee grounds capacity – I’ve been able much more as I tend to go from weak to standard shots

+        Automatic coffee circuit rinsing and descaling – anything to avoid cleaning it myself...

+        One-touch Espresso

+        Color-coded icons…much like traffic lights!

+        Low temperature grinding so not to overheat the beans – don’t burn my coffee!

The +’s

+         It didn’t bastardise my favourite beans

+         No damn complicated menus

+          Watching the crema form and breathing it in like my life depended on it – my favourite moment

+         Hardly any day to day cleaning or mess

+         Compact. Works well despite the crammed space at home with no other fiddly bits to worry about

+         Aesthetically pleasing and not too modern. I was actually relieved it wasn’t all stainless steel – hate smudges

+         Surprisingly quiet – even more so than my dishwasher LOL

+         The beautiful smell of the house from freshly ground beans. I should so put some beans in cups around the house!

preparing the Philips Saeco Intelia

The -‘s:

–          Tends to pour out a little water with each option which can be annoying. I assume this must be part of their cleaning system

–          No stainless steel milk frothing jug included

–          The cappuccinatore/wand is a wee bit short and spurts out abit of a mess at times so it would be wise to hold the cup up to ensure no milk is wasted

–          With an RRP of $999, it ain’t exactly cheap but after using for a month, I can’t leave the house without using every morning. If I saw this in the shops for the first time, would I have purchased it? No. I don’t spend that much on gadgets to begin with let alone coffee machines. In saying that,  I swear I was never a weekday morning coffee drinker until the Intelia came into my life. It’s like a drug! Wah.  My acupuncturist did say I lacked calcium so a daily fix will do the trick. *INSERT CHEEKY SMILE HERE*

My most recent experiment with the Philips Saeco Intelia

Video

Cap Off

Overall, I was impressed with the Philips Saeco Intelia. Although nothing beats the taste via the traditional method of tamping coffee, I know for a fact that my humble little pack of precious St Ali beans would have been gone by now if it had been done this way. I’m not much of a traditionalist so I can’t imagine myself taking the time to make coffee that way every morning anyways, so being that the Intelia is fully automated and customisable, it makes this stress free option the clear choice for those who want a quality cup of coffee without having to worry about cleaning up afterwards. Can you tell I’m not a morning person?

Honestly, I was pleased with the consistency with zero leftover coffee grind at the bottom of each cup plus you can’t beat that lovely crema – I even went without milk a few times to fully appreciate its glory. I still have a couple of other favourite blends to try out from Axil Coffee and Sensory Lab so watch this space for more updates.

Food Rehab received and tested the Philips Saeco Intelia courtesy of Philips. For further information, visit their website at http://www.philips.com.au/c/espresso/182451/cat/

Check out Not Quite Nigella if you wanna WIN one of these babies.

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Keep eating,

Adrian

23 thoughts on “Playing with the Philips Saeco Intelia

  1. Oh my heavens, if I ever came across a man wearing St Ali cologne, I would smell HIM real good. So real good. Mmmm….

    (I almost didn’t take my St Ali coffee to work so that I could use it as air freshener instead, but unfortunately I’d already told my work-friend I’d bought it, so I had to.)

    Also… squeee! So much fun to be given and play with fancy kitchen equipment! You’re a star, sugar twin. Sadly, with the $999 price, methinks I’ll be sticking to my French Press for the time being!

  2. Oh this looks heavenly.

    I just bought a Nespresso machine (prettier with even less fuss and cleaning) with the only downside being I don’t get the romance of real coffee beans.

    Maybe a second machine is required.

    Cheers to good coffee 😀

    1. Gasp! Really?! At least some of us are caffeine free- keep it up. Love the aromas too!

      Thank you for the link, you had me at bacon salt! You rock

  3. Wow pretty snazzy looking coffee machine 🙂 definitely not cheap $999 RRP ~ but if you say you can’t live without it…then maybe it’s worth the investment hehe
    Now I thought my Nespresso was good enough…now i’d love to try out the Intelia!

    1. Yes, I can attest to its wonders. You’ll be hooked in no time especially when you can try out beans from your fav cafes.

  4. You lucky duck, what a fun experience to enjoy such a fancy schmancy coffee machine ! Mostly, though, I’m still laughing about the size of Brandy’s smile. Hah:P

  5. You’re right… Why HAVEN’T they started selling a St Ali cologne… GEEEEZ! I can only continue to rub beans on myself for so long…! I kid… Anyway, interesting claim for saying that you prefer this over the Nespresso machine, but I totally get what you mean! Sounds like you get the full experience with this one from bean to cup. But dayum… $999 lol. Will pester other people to get this instead so I can help myself to it next time lol… Congrats on your first product review, you did a great job!

    1. I’m serious. Why hasn’t anyone made a St Ali cologne yet????? I’m happy to spray that on everyday.

      Thanks Winston.

  6. Hi Adrian (and everyone else),

    Great review! My wife and I own the same machine (3 weeks now) but have been a bit disappointed… The coffee has been consistently bitter/burnt despite trying coarse through to fine grind and also reducing the temperature in the menu from ‘high’ to ‘low’. Our water tested at a hardness of 1-1.5 on the test strip and I have modified that in the settings too (hardness setting 2). We have tried about 4 different beans from specialist grind shops to your supermarket fare with the same problem. Managed to try a friends Saeco intelia (he had the model with the milk container add-on – I assume the extraction parts are the same) and that tasted amazing… any ideas?

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