BeanScene Magazine

As of late, countless large espresso machine manufacturers like Astoria are releasing into the market new espresso machines with ambitious ideas and innovative technology. This trend has come about as more and more café and restaurant owners are looking for machines with points of difference, leading roasters to look for similarly outstanding machines to attract these owners’ business. 

The newly released ‘Plus 4 You’ has attracted a lot of this kind of interest, especially with the ability to use almost half the energy of traditional machines. As such, I was pretty excited to check out these claims by playing around with a machine at the machine’s distributor in Australia, Service Sphere.

At first glance the Plus 4 You looks great, but being a techy kind of guy I was more interested in what’s on the inside and what the machine produces in the cup. The first aspect of the machine that struck me was control of brewing temperature.

The Plus 4 You is a multi-boiler machine with one designated steam boiler and separate boilers for each espresso brewing group head. This concept on its own has been used on other espresso machines, but Astoria has added the multi boiler system. Most impressive, however, is the green-line technology which appeals to my environmentally-conscious side. The way this machine delivers hot water to the hot water tap is an ingenious solution to an age-old problem. For me these three are the biggest advantages of this machine and I will go into them in more depth shortly.

Among the machine’s most notable features is the USB programmable technology. With the USB socket and computer technology, you can program the machine with predetermined settings. By inserting the memory stick into the USB port, you can automatically upload volumetric espresso brew length, brewing temperature, group head temperature, boiler pressure, and so on. This feature is fantastic for sales reps and technicians when installing a new machine into a new account, as they can upload consistent settings for particular blends, saving the time of doing them all manually while also ensuring consistency. In the past, setting these parameters on an espresso machine could take hours. With this feature you can get it done in a few minutes.

A few simple yet practical things include the retractable trays, which are a great solution for the old Demitasse verse large 12 – 16 ounce TA cup problem. Leave the trays in and you can put a large TA cup under the spouts, pull out the very solid retractable trays and it is the perfect size for your espresso cup. Your shot won’t cool down, make a mess in the cup, or lose crema. The hot water tap above each group head enables the baristas to work without getting in each other’s way. The machine can prompt you to change the water filter when a certain volume of water has been through the machine (the café owner or roaster can program what that volume is). It has a ‘total coffees made’ count and an ‘individual keypad count’ so the café owner or barista can know the use of each group head. It even counts the number of espressos, ristrettos or single doubles poured. 

Each flow meter has its own master water control tap, so the flow meter can be replaced without the machine being turned off. This translates into less down time during a service if the flow meter needs replacing. On the LCD screen you can have either the brewing temperature, pump pressure, or shot timer displayed. The LCD also displays current humidity, date, time and the amount of power that is being used.

The machines also offers old favourites like a cup warmer and cleaning program, you can program the machine to tell you when to clean, such as every 24 hours, 12 hours, or how often you like. You can also program the cleaning cycle itself so that when you put the cleaning products in, you can simply hit a button and the machine will run the cycle that you have pre-programmed.

The machine also offers old favourites like a cup warmer and cleaning program. You can program the machine to tell you when to clean, such as every 24 hours, 12 hours, or how often you like. You can also program the cleaning cycle itself so that when you put the cleaning products in, you can simply hit a button and the machine will run the cycle that you have pre-programmed.

The green-line technology is absolutely fantastic for café owners wanting to save on their power bill, while also being great for the environment. With this technology, the machine will remember when it is busiest and quietest during the day and will power itself up and down accordingly. For instance, if you are regularly busy between 8am and 11am, and then start to quiet down for a few hours, the machine will remember this and power itself up and down accordingly. This allows you to have maximum power when you need it and not waste unnecessary power when you don’t. This may prove especially helpful if the carbon tax gets through!

The way this machine delivers hot water to your tap is a simple and innovative solution to an age-old problem. Espresso machines have a hot water tap at hand, and most baristas use this for long blacks and occasionally heating cups and hot water for tea. The problem with this is that on most machines this water is coming from the steam boiler, and when you take too much at once it depreciates the performance of the machine’s steam pressure and brewing temperature. For this reason, for years barista trainers have said: “its an espresso machine not a tea machine.”

Astoria with the Plus 4 You have inventively bypassed the steam boiler and this water now comes directly from the mains tap and is heated with a steam mixer just before the tap. The steam mixer uses the steam from the steam boiler to heat the cold water coming from the mains via a steam valve. You can control the temperature of the hot water coming out of the tap via another tap that adjusts how much cold water is coming into the mix.

The features I was most keen to play around with were the controls over the coffee boiler temperature and group head temperature. Over the last few years we’ve seen a trend in new machines where each group head has its own coffee boiler, with a programmable brewing temperature or coffee boiler temperature in these boilers. So one coffee boiler can be set at 92°C, and the next can be 94°C and so on.

So while this feature isn’t specific to the Plus 4 You, what really got my attention was that you can also set the group head temperature via an element sitting in the group head. Again, while this is not unique to the Plus 4 You, this is the first time I’ve seen a combination of the two. You can set one group head with the coffee boiler at 92°C and the group head connected to that boiler at 94°C and on the same machine the next group head coffee boiler at 93°C and the group head at 90°C and so on. I’m not saying these are the ideal settings – you can experiment to find out what combination is right for your blend or single origin. If you have that same blend or origin in another café, you can simply copy the settings onto the USB and transfer them onto another Plus 4 You.

Upon learning these characteristics, the next step was the road test. I wanted to do the tasting with a coffee I knew, so I brought some of my coffee roasted at Belaroma with me. When I arrived the group head temperature was set at 88°C and coffee boiler temp was 92°C.

My first espresso dosing 16 grams astringent was bitter and not very good, likely over extracted. So I increased the dose to 18 grams and as expected it tasted better; cleaner with little sweetness and more body.
From what I tasted I thought the brewing temperature was too cool so I decided to see what impact different purge lengths had on the flavour. From experience, I know that how long you run water off the group head before you insert and brew your coffee (purging) has a large impact on brewing temperature and flavour. So I decided to purge for longer (this increases the brewing temperature on some machines) before the insert and brew to see what that does to the taste.

I prepared my coffee in the basket and then purged for eight seconds. Then brewed my espresso and it was better still – sweet, clean and much more balanced, with some interesting apple and rock-melon coming through.

With the coffee boiler at 92°C and the group head set at 88°C, an 18 gram dose and an 8 second purge, my coffee was tasting beautiful. So what if I changed some of the temperatures? To see what happens to the coffee when I make some changes I increased the coffee boiler to 94°C and for now left the group head setting where it was. I still needed to give it a long purge to get up to the brewing temperature I wanted and the espresso improved slightly but was very similar.

Next I increased the group head temperature from 88°C to 94°C. This was a drastic change, but I wanted to see if by making this change I could do a shorter purge to get the flavours I wanted. After adjusting the group head temperature and giving the machine a shorter purge, the flavour of the espresso changed drastically from sweet, fruity and delicate with the original settings, to rich beautiful cocoa, choc and nutty.

The change in flavour blew me away and from what I tasted I had not only changed the need to do a long purge to a short purge (saving on water), but by increasing the group head temperature I had clearly changed the thermal activity of the water in the group head. The brewing temperature of the water from the beginning of the extraction till the end was drastically different. The exciting thing here is that with more time on this machine you can really manipulate your brewing temperatures to get some exciting flavours out of the coffee you are working with. You can also make the same coffee taste very different between group heads.

And the price point? The technical components of the Plus 4 You puts it in the same category as the high end espresso machines, with similar controls to other multi-boiler models, but this machine comes at a much more competitive cost.

While it took me a while to get my head around this machine, needless to say I am impressed. With companies as large as Astoria getting behind the growing needs and desires of café owners and baristas with equipment like this, the future of espresso coffee is getting very exciting indeed.