There’s nothing like having a coffee shop in your own home—or having a coffee machine that makes you feel like you have a whole café right next to the kitchen. The De’Longhi La Specialista Opera Espresso Machine with Cold Brew is a gorgeous coffee and espresso maker with a premium feel. It makes gorgeous, dreamy coffee beverages that are a breeze to pull off, and it can help you create everything from espresso to cold brew.
The De’Longhi La Specialista Opera in action
What’s in the box of the De’Longhi La Specialista Opera?
In the box of the La Specialista Opera, you’ll find the espresso machine itself along with everything you’ll need to make a basic coffee drink. It comes with a pressurized single and double filter, which are designed for use with the machine’s cold brew and cold espresso functions. It also comes an unpressurized single and double filter for making hot coffee drinks. Also included is a stainless steel milk jug.
For maintenance and operation of your Opera, De’Longhi has also included a cleaning brush, a small amount of descaler, and a water hardness test strip. This model does not include a water softener or water filter. Its water tank comes pre-installed on the back of the machine. It’s removable for easy filling and cleaning.
The Opera’s main features
De’Longhi has been releasing very nice, premium coffee makers recently, and the La Specialista Opera is no exception. It does an excellent job of making coffee at home. More than an espresso maker, it’s an all-in-one manual machine that’s great at making all sorts of different coffee beverages.
With the Opera, you have every tool that you need to make a great cup of coffee. However, you execute every step of the process yourself. It’s great for coffee traditionalists. The Opera is a super smooth machine to work on if you’re a coffee expert, but it’s an easy learning curve for beginner baristas, too.
Here are a few of the De’Longhi Opera’s main features that go into making a great cup of coffee.
Active Temperature Control
One feature that I don’t notice on a lot of at-home espresso machines is the ability to control your extraction’s temperature. (This is even a feature that I’ve noticed some commercial equipment lacks. The assumption is that you’re aiming for a hot extraction every time, and any temperature control is just to keep your extraction at an even level within that hot temperature range.)
This is, in my opinion, the defining trait of the De’Longhi La Specialista Opera reviewed here. This machine’s ability to extract (and extract well) at different temperatures really sets it apart from the crowd. It features 3 infusion temperature settings for use with different bean varieties and drink aims. The brand’s quick start guide helps you pair up the correct dose size, burr setting, and water temperature for every type of bean.
With cool and cold extraction, you can not only make cold brew and cold espresso, but you can also make iced drinks that don’t water themselves down immediately. Cold espresso and cold milk are a great way to make an iced latte that can comfortably sit in an air conditioned room for 30-60 minutes; cold espresso is also perfect for extracting straight into your iced Americano. The results are strong, creamy, and not watered down.
Built-in burr grinder and smart tamping
With 15 size settings, the La Specialista Opera’s built-in burr grinder helps keep your coffee station compact and tidy. It grinds directly into your portafilter, then tamps with a smooth lever that tamps with 20 kg of pressure every time. This Italian-made grinder uses De’Longhi’s Sensor Grinding Technology to keep your dose size consistent when you change grind sizes. It also adjusts its dose size to make one or two shots of espresso at once. You set your dose size with the dial on the left hand side of the machine, and then it’s multiplied by either 1 or 2 based on which button you press to begin dosing.
19 bar pressure
La Specialista Opera features a 19 bar Italian pump to deliver perfect pressure for every extraction. It uses low pressure during the machine’s pre-infusion, then reaches the optimal 9 bars of high pressure during extraction itself.
Powerful steam wand
The La Specialista steam wand has great range, both up and down and side to side. It makes it easy to steam a hot, creamy micro-foam into your cow’s milk or non-dairy alternative. (I usually find that a thick oat milk foams up best). I’m not proficient at all at latte art, but that’s exactly what De’Longhi has designed this for—so get ready to let your inner artist go wild.
Hot water spout
Hot coffee and tea lovers, unite! The Opera includes a dedicated hot water spout, which is a feature that I always look for in an espresso machine. It’s great for pre-heating your mug or brewing a cup of tea.
What can the De’Longhi Espresso Machine with Cold Brew make?
The feature that sets this machine apart really is its temperature functions. This espresso machine is absolutely amazing at making cold coffees—from cold brew to espresso. It can make cold brew in under 5 minutes with the brand’s Cold Extraction Technology, which uses precise pressure and water flow to create a smooth, cold cup of coffee. Given that cold brew usually takes all night to make in the fridge, 5 minutes is nothing to laugh at!
Similarly, I think this machine does a fantastic job of making cool espresso with its Espresso Cool setting. It’s designed to deliver a velvety, rich shot that tastes lighter than a traditional espresso, with less bitterness as well. These extra-cool settings are perfect for using in the Opera’s 5 pre-set coffee recipes, which include Espresso, Americano, Cold Brew, Espresso Cool, and Coffee.
My experience creating this De’Longhi La Specialista Opera review
I really enjoyed using the De’Longhi La Specialista Opera. It’s a hands-on machine that involves the user at every step, but it’s still easy to use and offers you a lot of guidance. As someone who doesn’t like having to use an LCD touchscreen in the kitchen (the lag drives me bonkers), it was a pleasure to just be able to turn a few dials, push a few buttons, and have my cup of coffee ready and waiting. I think the Opera offers an excellent mix of tradition and modernity in one simple, compact machine.
If you want a completely hands-off experience, I recommend trying a product like the De’Longhi Rivelia Automatic Espresso Machine, which I recently reviewed here. The Rivelia comes pre-programmed with customizable beverage recipes and offers unparalleled customization. Where the Opera walks you through each step of making a great cup of coffee, the Rivelia does it all for you—which is a benefit for some and a bummer for others!
The feature that I felt made the De’Longhi Rivelia really special is its interchangeable bean hoppers. They’re great for switching from decaf to full caf, or from light roast to dark. The feature that makes the Opera stand out, however, is totally different. Its Active Temperature Control technology is amazing for people who love drinking coffee all year round, but switch (as I do) from hot coffee in the winter to iced coffee in the summer, spring, and fall. In fact, I thought the Opera’s Espresso Cool was one of the best shots of espresso I’ve ever tasted—its creaminess and lack of bitterness worked perfectly with my decaf beans. (I was so proud of having pulled such a delicious shot of espresso all by myself!)
A note on decaf
As any coffee lover knows, decaf beans are where the real struggle lies. It’s hard to make them taste… well, good. Any machine that pulls a gorgeous shot of decaf will also pull a gorgeous shot of full-caf, but the opposite does not apply.
The De’Longhi espresso machine with Cold Brew made both fantastic decaf and fantastic full-caf. For the medium-body decaf beans that I used for this review, I found the Opera functioned best on a grind size of 7. I used a larger dose level than recommended (I set my dial to 25) and achieved the best results with a cold extraction using a pressurized filter. If you’ve been struggling with making decaf espresso at home that doesn’t taste sour and weak, I definitely recommend trying the La Specialista Opera.
In conclusion
The De’Longhi La Specialista Opera was such a fun product to review—and a great way to make an authentic, barista-quality coffee at home. It’s a compact, beautiful machine that’s easy to use and clean up. (De’Longhi’s portafilter, filters, and milk jug are all dishwasher-safe!)
With a precise burr grinder, Smart Tamping arm, and Active Temperature Control, I really like the Opera as a way to make different kinds of drinks from the ground up. It doesn’t just make one great shot of espresso that can be used in a bunch of different drinks. Instead, it makes a number of different “base products” (like espresso, cold espresso, coffee, and cold brew) that can be used to craft your perfect coffee drink. You can taste the difference, and it’s worth a try if you love both hot and cold coffee.
Shop the De’Longhi La Specialista Opera Espresso Machine with Cold Brew online at Best Buy today.
This content is created in collaboration with De’Longhi. All opinions expressed are our own.
