The drinks made by the Varianza
The Varianza has the concept of direct buttons (with a basic, but modifiable drink recipe behind them). Quick functions if you like, the Espresso button is shown in the photo below. A larger list of beverage functions sits under a recipe button, there are many drink recipes stored within the Varianza, but I will concentrate on a more limited selection
- Espresso
- Latte
- Latte Machiato
- Warm Foamy Milk
- Hot water
- Americano
1. Espresso – the base for making almost all coffee beverages
They only vary in the amount of water or milk and the order you add it. It is water passed at high pressure (approx 9 bar) through correctly ground coffee for about 25s at around 93C -95C. The coffee itself sits in a perforated basket, the carefully regulated grind gives a syrup like pour and crema using no artificial devices. If you want ONLY this type of Espresso and drink little else …move on, the bean to cup machines are not for you. Get a grinder costing minimum £280 and an entry level prosumer HX machine costing around £1099 and be prepared to learn about flushing to try to get the right temperature (don’t forget the tamper, knockbox and shotglasses etc..).
There are some basic rules that any BTC machine needs to follow, oddly enough, they should not make coffees too quickly. It might seem like a good thing for a machine to make a coffee rapidly, but it’s not. I timed the production of what I would call the single Espresso shot and the Varianza takes:
- 10 sec for the grind
- 25 sec for the brewing process
- 15 sec to reset/clean ready for the next shot
Critical for me was the 25s for the brew process, much shorter and I wouldn’t have been happy. Even better, when a double Espresso is selected, performs the single shot process twice, rather than try and put twice as much water through the coffee!
The Espresso from the Varianza is pressurised and crema enhanced (through a small shaped orifice) to make crema. Although not made to quite the same formula as in a prosumer machine, it does have many of the desirable qualities of an Espresso. It is not an Espresso as I personally would make on the expensive prosumer kit I have at home, but it’s quite drinkable. I can’t say the same for most espressos I have had from major high street chains. All too often, the major high street chains with expensive commercial Italian Espresso machines pull forth some sort of horrible gusher from inferior beans. This may seem unbelievable, but there are some valid reasons for this.
- It all starts with the coffee, you can buy fresh fantastic artisan roasted coffee (not used by major high street chains). This has a huge influence on flavour.
- Your coffee is ground just before drink preparation. When you hear the “thwak” “thwak” of the doser in the coffee shop…when was that coffee actually ground, 5 minutes ago 2 hours ago?
- You can buy coffees that you specifically like e.g. Colombian, Nicaraguan, Dominican Ethiopian, Sumatran…there are more than 50 varieties.
- Even with expensive equipment as used in some high street chains, all too often, it’s not used correctly.
- Your personal barista (BTC machine) tries to keep the whole system as clean as possible…..I have seen horrors in commercial machines. Cleanliness has a huge influence on taste.
- Your personal Barista (BTC machine) at the press of a button, always makes the beverage your way every time, never gets tired and doesn’t ask you for £2.50 or £3.00 per drink.
2. Latte
One of the staples of the coffee world. it’s just espresso topped up with steamed/foamed milk to taste. The Varianza uses the “sucky tube” to make this and the steam it produces “sucks” the milk out of the supplied container and warms/foams it as it is dispensed into the cup.
It’s definitely not warm enough, but the drink can be handily rescued with a quick 15s or so blast in a Microwave. This gets it up to a more than acceptable temperature for drinking. If your not happy to do this and I know some people won’t be, then perhaps this machine is not for you and an alternative model with a manually controlled steam wand might be better. I and my family had absolutely no problem with a 15s blast in the microwave
My wife also likes a Frappe (basically a latte you put in the fridge). I asked her why not just cold milk to espresso and she said, the texture is not the same…..I tested it and she’s right. Chilling down a latte gives the milk more mouth-feel and a better texture when cold.
The Cappuccino which is distantly related to the Latte is actually a lot hotter, because the milk is a much smaller foam layer on the top of the coffee and doesn’t cool it down so much.
3. Latte Machiatto
This is one of the drinks to impress (if you have the correct glasses) and it’s a nice looking drink. You use a thinner taller glass and It’s a layer of foamed milk a layer of espresso and another distinct layer of foam. It looks good, but when drinking it, pretty similar to a Latte, great at Dinner parties.
As with a latte, you do need a 15s blast in the Microwave to get it up to what I feel is an acceptable drinking temperature.
4. Warm Foamy Milk
This one is a favourite with my Kids, they run a glass of this out and then add some hot chocolate or malted drink, again a quick 10-15s in the Microwave a stir and you have an excellent hot milk drink. A handy feature is the ability to press the foamed milk button if you want more milk and stop it part way through it’s measured dispensing cycle at any time with a second press.
With this and any other milk drinks, there is a milk cleaning cycle that you can invoke immediately or after further drinks have been made and you don’t want to make any more. It’s all controlled on screen and it tells you what to do. It rinses the milk tube and system and finally blows steam through it to sterilise and dry the tube etc.. off. It takes about 15 seconds. I really like it, because it keeps everything nice and clean and prompts you to put the milk container back in the fridge.
5. Hot Water
it seems strange to discuss the hot water function, because it seems so ordinary. I never advocate the use of expensive espresso machines as kettles and in a sense this is also true for the bean to cup machine. However, there is one notable exception the hot water function has water exiting the spout at approximately 84-85C. My wife is Chinese and we drink a lot of Chinese tea as well as green tea and other specialist teas, including loose leaf such as earl grey etc..
Although there are some very specific temperature ranges for different teas (enter the swivel eyed tea fanatics), 84-85C is a very good catch all temperature for brewing these teas, as it’s quite important not to have boiling water. One of my favourites is rolled dragon pearls jasmine flavoured tea and this, handily, extracts best at 85C.
The Varianza is ideal for brewing our green, Chinese and speciality leaf teas (but not tea bags…don’t get me started on tea bags 😉 ). The water is absolutely freshly flash heated and just the right temperature and comes from a completely separate spout from the coffee (so no chance of taint). It saves a lot of mucking about with a kettle to get the temperature down to 85C.
5. Americano
lastly the good old Americano, this is just water added to espresso (to taste), or espresso added to water…it really doesn’t matter. It gives you a black coffee, or have with a little milk. I think of it as every day coffee or “all the time” coffee. I sometimes precede it with an espresso or follow it with an espresso chaser.
The Americano is one drink where I think the kettle is a good option, because I don’t want to keep filling the tank on the Varianza (I drink a lot of Americanos) and a kettle only costs £20-£30. I have milk in my long drinks and a kettle ensures it is really hot when I get it…as I don’t always drink it straight away. Made purely from the Varianza, it can be a little cool for my tastes when milk is added.
Coffee Equipment Reviews 