Consumer Reviews of the Jura-Capresso ENA 5

All of the following reviews and evaluations have been gathered from Amazon.com, Macys.com, and KitchenKapers.com.

A very mixed bag of reviews for the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 espresso machine. On the plus side everyone really liked the small footprint of the machine, and that it didn’t take up lots of room in the kitchen. On the minus side there seems to be a lot of issues with long-term reliability.

So that you can increase your confidence in your purchase decision we have now gathered a lot of data in the form of owner reviews that we feel represent a very fair and balanced overview of the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 Espresso Machine.

We think you are likely to concur with us that opinions expressed by real owners of the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 are the most useful source of genuine, reliable feedback, which you will find very helpful when choosing a home espresso machine of your own.

By doing the background work and collecting a wide variety of assessments for this generally very popular and easy to use espresso machine, we hope that we may also help save you many hours of time scanning the web yourself to be able to assemble this information.

Jura-Capresso ENA 5 Reviews from www.Amazon.com

Review By Chris P.

Have had MY NEW Jura-Capresso ENA 5 for about 3 weeks now and so far the machine is doing great. Got it refurbished for $599. To get a $1200 machine (brand new) for $600 (pre-brewed) is a great deal and can’t even tell it is previously used.

Very good machine and has several of the bells and whistles that more expensive machines have. Jura Capresso is a very reliable brand and I am very happy with the performance of the machine. Some areas for improvement, but they are very tolerable in the overall scheme of things. Sorry for the long review but wanted to make it as helpful as possible. It took me a lot of research to finally land on this machine.

What I like:

• Easy to use.

• Makes great pressure brewed coffee and good espresso. Espresso won’t be as good as a manual machine but still quite good if you use the right settings and quality beans. This is the same for all super automatics.
• Has some basic programmability to remember default settings for 1 cup.
• Several ways to customize drinks (water output, grinder fineness, amount of coffee for strong, normal or mild).
• FrothXpress system is good if making multiple drinks and looks nicer as the default wand on the machine. Although, I prefer the Dual Frother Plus (traditional wand) for making one cup (more control over temp, froth, etc). TIP: make sure to rinse out the Dual Frother Plus and the FrothXpress after EVERY use. Otherwise, milk will cake up and can cause a steam explosion. Poor reviews based on this from others is user error, not the machine.
• Auto self rinsing cycle (when turned on and off) and easy to read indicators for filling water, emptying grounds, fill beans, cleaning, etc.
• Relatively quiet operation
• 1 or 2 spout dispenser
• Bypass doser
• Tall cup height
• Custom Auto off timer (1 hour, 2 hour, etc) to save energy. Zero energy pull when off.
• Slim and nice design, quality construction. But still as deep as other machines.

Areas for improvement (tolerable drawbacks):

• The temperature of drinks is somewhat inconsistent. Second drink always seems hotter, even after doing the right warm up steps. TIP: Make sure to pre warm the cups with hot water dispenser, this helps a lot.
• FrothXpress system does not heat the milk quite as good as the normal wand. TIP: If using the FrothXpress, you can do the steam only feature afterward to heat the frothed/steamed milk a little more.
• No cup warmer. Need to use hot water dispenser. Using the hot water will actually make the cups hotter than a warming tray anyway, but it’s just an extra step.
• Need to adjust cup size during processing and can’t before brewing (if different than the programmed amount).
• Small water tank (37 oz). Even for a 2 person home and a few shots per day, you will refill often. Not a big deal really. But heavy users may want to take note.
• No Auto On feature for the mornings, no clock and no usage stats. Auto on would be great, but only takes a minute to warm up.
• Water filters are expensive ($20, recommended every 2 months). I’d only use if you have hard water or you absolutely feel the need to have filtered water or you don’t ever want to descale. Cheaper to descale every few months. Although, with the filter you never have to descale (supposedly).
• I wish the steam wand had more range of motion.

Review By DSM Webb

I bought my Jura-Capresso ENA 5 in February and followed that up with the purchase of a two stage frothing nozzle.

All was well for a couple of days, when the nozzle flew off into the milk, splashing it everywhere and blasting steam out as follow up.

This despite stripping down the nozzle after each use and cleaning it with the brushes provided.

After this happening several times, I returned the unit to the “Coffee Shop”. I was informed after a week that it was a cleaning problem. There was nothing wrong with the machine!!!

They would return the machine to me on payment of £128.

accept that part of this charge is supplying a container since I had made the error of destroying the original (who has space for all that sort of stuff?)

They won’t budge on this and despite having a lot of customers they informed me who had experienced the same problem.

It would seem to me to be yet another design fault since the fit of the nozzle onto the machine is by a soft rubber connector.

But it seems the customer is in the wrong and all these customers had not cleaned their nozzles sufficiently well. I don’t think so!

Best not to buy the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 if you intend to use this frothing nozzle.

Review By Sir

We switched from a Nespresso machine to the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 some weeks ago, because we loved the sleek compact design, and felt that the Nespresso system was wasteful.

The Ena 5 has been a huge disappointment in terms of reliability and usability – less so the quality of the espresso.

Reliability: after only *19 days*, the machine failed on us. When set to “2 cups” it started to dump the coffee in the internal tray, instead of in the cups. The Jura hotline confirmed that the machine was faulty and should be replaced. However, after receiving the machine and confirming that it was probably a production error, they insisted rather obnoxiously on a repair rather than replacement since the machine was older than 14 days. The arrogance with which Jura treats its customers is typical of businesses that enjoy a strong market position.

Usability: due to the extremely small repositories for coffee beans and water, the machine is continuously prompting to be refilled or emptied. The position of the tap switch directly above the tap is unfortunate.

Quality of taste: In the short time that the machine was working we experimented with a number of quality beans and ground settings, but felt that the coffee was good, but didn’t quite come close to the quality of the Nespresso machine (which was still working after 4 years!). I am also not convinced that the TCO of the Nespresso system is so bad after all, and the customer service was always excellent.

I would strongly recommend AGAINST anyone purchasing the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 machine.

**Update October 2009**

After repair the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 worked for a further 6 weeks before failing again with the same failure mode!! Jura again refused to replace the machine. We received it back again today, and are just waiting for it to break once more.

You have been warned!

Review By Dee H. Simon

The Swiss made Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is the low end of high end coffee makers $1,200. As perfectos (coffee snobs) call it,”super-automatics”. The ENA 5 makes good, rich coffee. Great crema! Nice, frother. It’s easy to use. The only drawback, and it’s a BIG one is that the coffee isn’t as hot as most people would like it. If you linger over your coffee, your out of luck. Short of paying $3,000 plus to get perfection (with NO guarantees) I’ll give this ENA 5 a fair chance. I absolutely love the slim look. Doesn’t take up a lot of space on the counter. Very easy to use & maintain. American coffee machines are super inferior in every way.

Update: I’ve had my Jura-Capresso ENA 5 for a year & a half and absolutely love it. Can’t wait to have my coffee each morning. If it broke tomorrow, I would have to order a new one asap.

Review By Bruce D. Johnson

I have years of experience making my own lattes. The frothing wand is poorly designed on this Jura-Capresso ENA 5. It has a weak connection and can come off mid froth. Beware.

Review By rnddude

This Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is at the bottom of the price range for Jura Super automatics, and as such there are some compromises compared to their $3000+ machines, as you would expect. This is my second Super Automatic machine, the first, a Gaggia Titanium failed after 6 weeks, hence the Jura. I have owned the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 for about 6 months, it gets multiple daily use, and has been a great machine.

The minuses: smallish bean hopper and water reservoir, requiring more constant filling. The instruction manual could be improved, needs a good index so that you know where to look for specifics instead of having to scroll through all of the pages.

The pluses: the rotary dial system, once you learn it, it is great! You can pre-program your usual coffee settings (size, strength, temp) but can override the coffee cup size while brewing (very nice).

Smaller overall size, a definite plus for me. Water reservoir is easy to remove and replace. Machine has LOTS of feedback on the LCD screen….such as: water low, beans low, empty grounds container, tray not fully inserted, time to clean, time to descale, etc.

One Caveat….you must be rigorous about cleaning the steam wand EVERY time you use it to prevent dried, caked milk from causing the wand to blow off as experienced by several reviewers. Keep it clean and there is no problem here. Also, get some coffee cleaning wipes and learn how to remove the tray and get your hand up inside and clean the bottom of the ground press part of the brew unit about once a week. This was told to me by a Jura technician, and indeed you do get a lot of grounds debris out of this area.

The most important thing of all: the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 makes coffee as good as my daughters top of the line Jura, which is to say…excellent!

I give this machine 4 stars, not 5, not because I find any faults, but the fifth star for me requires it to be working as well, without problems, for several years, and that remains to be seen.

Review By MB in KC

Pros: Very easy to customize your cup of coffee – controls are intuitive and user friendly; FrothExpress is an awesome feature for steamed or frothed milk; self-cleaning process is very nice, and the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 overall is very low maintenance; makes a consistent, tasty cup of your favorite coffee beverage with excellent crema each and every time!; small footprint takes up less space than just about any coffee maker out there; less than 2 minutes from the time you press the “on” button until you have a fresh brewed, custom coffee drink; the water tank, bean hopper, and dregs box are easily accessed.

Cons: When you set the “auto off” feature, be sure to keep a cup under the coffee nozzle – when the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 turns off, it rinses the nozzles, and will splash the machine and counter otherwise (this is a minor annoyance); the water tank and bean hopper will need to be refilled often, because you WILL hit this machine a lot (since this is a function of the small machine footprint, I don’t really mark it down on this basis, but wanted readers to be aware); the FrothExpress spews a little water before the steamed/frothed milk flows; That’s it!

My wife and I bought this for ourselves for Christmas, and we have absolutely no regrets. The only question remaining for me is the longevity of the machine. We’ll have to see on that one.

Set up was very easy, and the included CD made it fun to set up and use. I know the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is a major investment, but in my opinion all coffee lovers will get much use and enjoyment out of this machine.

Review By S_A

I’ve had it for about a year now and so far (knock on wood) everything has been smooth. I’ve been doing all the regular maintenance and the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 runs without problems so far.

I only use it to make coffee, I do not use the milk frother attachment and as such cannot attest to quality or ease of use.

Coffee quality depends heavily on the beans that you use and you will have to experiment a lot with various roasts.

Overall I am quite happy with the machine, the only reason I knocked off one star is because I only had it for a year and a half and I cannot attest to its long-term longevity. If it lasts for at least 2 more years then I would feel that I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of it (I am a realist and this is a complicated device with many mechanical parts).

Review By Ben Miller

For the first frustrating week or so, the frothing nozzle flew off almost every time I used the Dual Frother Plus on my Jura-Capresso ENA 5, but it has not happened since I realized that the heat was baking the milk and clogging up the sleeve and tip of the wand. So now I disassemble the frother and soak the parts for 15 minutes in a cup of hot water with a cap of Rinza Urnex Rinza Milk Frother Cleaner 12-MILK6-32 32oz. Bottle. I do this each and every day, and it keeps the frother scrupulously clean and completely trouble-free. Now that I have learned the ropes with the frother, I think I may try the frothXpress system that came standard with my machine, because I have the as-yet-unused Jura Cool Control milk chiller Jura 67083 Cool Control Milk Cooler sitting on the counter. But because of my memories of the hot, splattered milk with the Dual Frother, I may wait a few weeks longer before I try any new tricks.

And the coffee I make, with Illy beans illy Caffe Normale Whole Bean (Red Top) Coffee, 8.8 Ounce Tins (Pack of 2), is delicious. I never had a cup of black coffee in my entire life, not even when I lived in Rome, believe it or not, until I tried making a 1-ounce ristretto with my Jura-Capresso ENA 5. (I bought the machine to make cappuccinos, but I hadn’t yet solved the frother problem.) I was shocked at how tasty it was, even from the very first sip. Now, maybe because of the small, 1-ounce sizes that I like, the first cup is not very hot, but the second cup always is. When I forget to turn the dial down to the 1-ounce setting, though, the larger volume of coffee that most of you will opt for will be hot from the very first cup.

The learning curve for the super-automatic was a little longer than I had expected. It looks so easy on the DVD, and it is, but that’s only after some practice. I still go back to the instruction manual and video to pick up some subtle points that I might have missed.

Update: I just hooked up the Jura Cool Control milk chiller to the frothXpress steamer, and they both worked to my complete satisfaction. The instructions were easy to understand, and I made a fine cappuccino. As you can tell, I am really happy with my Jura-Capresso ENA 5 espresso maker, and I hope that you will be too!

Review By Andy

This thing is great. I read reviews and labored over this purchase for weeks because of all of the mixed reviews and the suggestions that none of these things are reliable. My Jura-Capresso ENA 5 makes great coffee and the milk steamer is too easy. I’m now addicted and can’t go back to sleep if I wake up because I’m now like Pavlov’s dogs. My mouth waters for a cappuccino as soon as I wake up.

Who knows, maybe this thing will break and I’ll be disappointed, but so far, i have only good things to say about this machine.

As a maker of complicated mechanical and electrical devices and as the guy who writes the owner’s manuals and provides customer service for problems that get escalated, I suspect that many of the complaints are from those who don’t read manuals and have no patience for maintenance of any kind. Keep the steamer attachments clean, make sure you dry out your oily beans and use the filter or good water and the results are fabulous. I highly recommend this machine to careful users. If you can’t or refuse to give it the attention it deserves, buy a Mr. Coffee or ask for Starbucks gift certificates for Christmas or your birthday.

Review By Nathan R McKim

I’ve owned the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 for about a month and love it. It delivers great tasting espresso drinks with almost no effort.

The Good: Brews consistently; easy to setup and adjust; very easy to clean; clean lines and simple user interface; relatively (compared to peers) small footprint; heats up quickly, but isn’t hot to the touch…or too warm near bean hopper.

The Meh (no bad to report): The amount of coffee it grinds has three settings…mild, normal, and strong…wish it were more specific to the grams it actually grinds; the milk heated through the siphon system isn’t hot enough for my taste if it came directly out of the fridge…a quick trip to the microwave prior to steaming fixes this easily though.

The Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is worth every penny.

Review By Srpawski

This is my first super-automatic machine. I started getting into drinking espresso and cappuccino about 3 years ago and found myself at the coffee shop 3 or 4 times weekly. I do wished the machine would get the water hotter than it does, even at its hottest setting, but can tell a night and day difference in the quality of coffee this machine produces over a Bunn coffee maker.

Review By Amateur Baker

The Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is a well built machine that looks handsome in the shop but when you use you discover a bunch of silly design mistakes that make your experience of using it quite deceiving, I’ll try to list them:

Rinsing: the Jura has a rinsing program, it’s fine it has this! the problem is that it is badly designed: when you stop the machine it will automatically rinse, fine! when you start the machine it won’t rinse automatically it will tell you to touch the button so that it rinses, why? It is very irritating to start the coffee machine in the morning, go to wash your teeth and when you go back to the machine it’s not ready, it’s asking you to push a button to get it rinsed.

Energy savings: it’s also badly thought. You can ask the machine to automatically get in a saving mode so that it’s on but it doesn’t consume so much electricity. That’s a very good idea but it’s not well implemented. When it’s in saving mode you can’t make coffee, you have to wait to get it hotter, that’s OK except that you don’t know if it’s in saving mode or not, you see that it tells you it’s “ready” you push the button and then… it doesn’t make your coffee, it tells you “please wait while i heat up”, then you have to wait and push the button again. It’d be fine if it made the coffee directly after heating up, but it won’t, you have to push again. In the end I don’t use the energy savings.

Spit in your coffee: every time it makes a coffee it spits a little bit of (dirty) water before making the coffee why? irritating anyway.

The rotary switch: this machine pretends to work as a sort of iPod, I would like best to have several buttons and know what it is for each one, because that only button may be a little puzzling.

Cappuccino: I don’t like cappuccino so I don’t care much, I only tried once to make one and the result had nothing to do with what you see in the video.

I think the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is designed to make coffees in pairs, I only made two coffees at a time once, and they looked better, it’s probably a bad idea to make a home machine so that it can make two coffees at a time as most of the time you make only one coffee.

So my conclusion is that despite this coffee machine makes a correct coffee its processes (start up, rinse, energy savings etc.) are not well thought so it causes you a lot of very silly problems when using it in a home, probably all day long started without savings (an office and not caring for the electricity bill) would be acceptable but for a home user that tries to save electricity is a nightmare.

I don’t recommend you this coffee machine.

Review By K. Farrell

Seriously, this is one fine machine. After my third trip to France, I finally went ahead with this purchase. I just couldn’t get that FLAVOR from other machines that I love to experience while in France. My Jura-Capresso ENA 5 takes away my longing for the French cafe, right down to the “Americana” size I so desire.

Only drawback if you could call it one is having to fill the water tank frequently.

My husband can even work it—that says a lot about the ease of use. Watch the CD that comes with the machine and keep your manual handy. You will be a pro in no time.

Review By Carrie Jones

I love that the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 doesn’t take up any counter space. It’s small, sleek, very compact, and makes any kind of coffee drink imaginable. I also appreciate its energy-saving features.

Review By Debby H

My husband and I use our Jura-Capresso ENA 5 every morning. I look forward to excellent coffee every time I use it The only flaw is this. When I steam milk, I need to turn the steam setting on into a cup before I actually steam my milk. This is because is spurts out a tablespoon or a bit more of water into the cup. The milk tastes diluted and doesn’t froth as well if I don’t do this. Of course the other issue with this I need to be careful so as not to get splattered with steamy water. This is not enough of a problem for me to not recommend this machine. I love it. I also love the compact size of this machine. It does not over power my kitchen.

Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 to a friend

Review By Konagal

I needed a unit that fit below my cabinets. This fit perfect with room to reach the on/off button. The rubber feet held tight on the granite, making it difficult to move, so I found that by putting it on a small flat metal(no sides)cookie sheet, it was simple to pull out to access the water reservoir. It took me a long time to justify the cost of such a machine, now my husband & I regret not buying one sooner. We have just started harvesting our own Kona Coffee beans here in Kona, Hawaii and our beans deserved to be used in this excellent machine.

Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend the Jura-Capresso ENA 5 to a friend

Review By Gwen H.

The Jura-Capresso ENA 5 makes great cappuccino and latte. I believe that this is the newest model from Jura Capresso automatic centers. I was deliberating between Impressa Z5 and the Ena 5 but decided to go with Ena because it is just two of us and the economy is bad.it!…

Review By Klaus D.

Great little automatic coffee machine this new Jura-Capresso ENA 5 is. I love Capresso products and used to own C1000 few years ago. The new ENA surpasses the C1000 in both quality and simplicity of programming.

Jura-Capresso Impressa ENA 5 Reviews from www.macys.com

Review By Anonymous

The Jura-Capresso ENA 5 gives me a good reason to wake up every morning.. It makes the perfect cup of latte, cappuccino, mocha or just plain regular coffee. All in just minutes.

I was reluctant to spend the $$ for this and was thinking of going with the ENA-3. But glad I did get this one. It is fully automatic and very intelligent. Cleaning is a breeze and the running maintenance cost is very low. Get the cleaning tabs and de-calcifying tabs from amazon.com, they are cheap and you can buy it in bulk.

Overall, one of the best coffee maker I have ever owned.

Review By Swiss

We have the E90 in our office and I tried to find something for a small apartment, in the same quality. It was recommended to me to buy the Jura-Capresso ENA 5. No regrets. Awesome coffee on small space, easy tom handle.

Jura-Capresso ENA 5 Reviews from www.kitchenkapers.com

Review By Theresa

Our Jura-Capresso ENA 5 makes a very good latte and is easy to use. Be sure to follow the directions to get the settings where you want them. Fits nicely on the counter and slide under the cupboard. The disadvantage of the small size is you will refill the water often…to me it’s worth it to have the counter space that larger machines would require. My only negative is that sometimes the steamer wand shoots off while steaming. I’ve found that the trick is to be sure it’s on snug and be sure it’s not at an angle. Heats quickly and very convenient to use.