De’Longhi hosted an exclusive media briefing in Melbourne ahead of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) to officially launch the La Specialista Maestro with Cold Brew manual coffee machine.

The latest machine in the De’Longhi line-up features new cold extraction technology to deliver cold brew in under five minutes and an exclusive De’Longhi recipe, Espresso Cool, for a creamy cold espresso.

De’Longhi training manager, Cheryl Giles and De’Longhi coffee ambassador and three-time Australian Barista Champion, Craig Simon delivered a demonstration of the new La Specialista Maestro with Cold Brew.

“At De’Longhi, we have seen a massive rise in the number of people drinking cold/iced coffee at home. But they don’t want to replace their hot coffee, they want it as an addition, which is why La Specialista Maestro with Cold Brew is so relevant because it allows consumers to do both,” Giles said.

“We haven’t changed any of the usual functions on the machine such as Sensor Grinding technology with eight grind settings, five temperature profiles to create the optimum temperature for hot coffee extraction, and our Smart Tamping Station that ensures mess-free tamping by delivering a flat and even tamp every time. With the MyLatte Art steam wand, users can choose between manual or automatic milk preparation.

“We have added two new coffee recipes – cold brew and espresso cool – the latter has been exclusively designed by De’Longhi for a cold extracted espresso. Traditionally cold brew takes between 12 and 15 hours to make, but the La Specialista Maestro with Cold Brew is all about making cold brew on demand – in under five minutes,” she added.

Simon went on to explain: “The exciting thing about this innovation is being able to quickly make cold brew off a machine in four minutes – it makes it very practical and achievable in a home environment. It is effectively bypassing the Thermoblock in the machine so the cold water from the reservoir goes straight through the coffee and into the cup.

“Around one-third (33%) of people say they enjoy cold brew and it’s a coffee beverage that is expanding and influencing preferences. Households can also use cold brew or espresso cool as an ingredient when making other drinks. Normally when you use coffee as an ingredient in other beverages, you need to cool it down, but it changes the flavour significantly and dilutes it when using ice.

“I’ve made old fashioned and whiskey sours with cold brew and espresso cool is the most interesting new coffee beverage I’ve tasted. It has a unique flavour profile because it extracts with cold water, and I can see it combining with other ingredients for smoothies and thickshakes because of its creamy component rather than a watery component.”

Giles added: “The difference between cold brew and espresso cool recipes is that you change from having virtually no pressure to changing the basket to a dual wall pressurised basket combined with nine-bar pressure of the machine so we can simulate the crema on an espresso. Normally heat helps extract crema but for espresso cool so it won’t use any heat at all.”

Feature image: De’Longhi CEO Paolo Albertoni and De’Longhi marketing director, George O’Neil with the new La Specialista Maestro Cold Brew.