The Lavazza Blue is an Italian espresso machine from the well known and very large Italian company called Lavazza. Although Lavazza blue is mostly used to refer to the cappuccino machine or single serve coffee maker, Lavazza blue can also be used to talk about the different coffees that Lavazza puts out under their blue label.
As always though, I want to start a discussion about Lavazza with a little history. I think without knowing some history you don’t know where you’re going and so the future looks precarious. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit too philosophical for coffee, but I enjoy coffee lore and history and I think it adds to the aroma of the story of coffee by knowing some of its history. So let’s begin at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
Lavazza is a long established Italian coffee company based in Turin, Italy. It was founded in 1895 by Luigi Lavazza and hence it owes its name to the family name of the man who founded it. It is a huge company, as one would imagine, especially considering that it has been around for over 100 years. And it is especially impressive when you consider that Lavazza is still privately owned and operated by the third and fourth generation Lavazzas. Their reported revenue for fiscal year 2006 was over $1.1 billion United States dollars. That’s big by any standards but incredibly so for a private company.
Understanding Lavazza Blue
Lavazza is primarily a buyer of coffee and a reseller of roasted coffee, claiming that more than 75% of Italian families choose Lavazza over other brands. Like Starbucks, they also operate a chain of commercial coffee houses where folks can enjoy traditional Italian coffee. And recently they have entered the market of providing and manufacturing coffee machines, which is where we continue our story and what Lavazza blue is all about.
As you can probably tell from spending just a little bit of time here at Coffee Sensei, design has become increasingly important in coffee machines as folks are looking beyond just plain old function and to the actual visual lines of the appliances and coffee makers that they use in their homes. Lavazza is no different, wanting to use modern design to appeal to the end user. As you saw in our Saeco inspired BMW design, the Lavazza blue also has a unique design heritage. This machine is designed by Pininfarina, a well known design firm that has lent their skills to Porsche amongst others.
The Lavazza blue coffee machines take Lavazza pods, and from what I can tell there are no third party manufactures of these Lavazza blue capsules yet. So you are stuck with a proprietary system. Now that’s not the end of the world. At least not with Lavazza, because their coffee roasts are renowned for their excellence, but it is something that you should be aware of.
Lavazza Blue is not a K cup
The capsule Lavazza offers for their Lavazza blue espresso machines, looks very similar to the Keurig K-cup, though I don’t believe that the 2 are interchangeable.
The Lavazza blue comes in a few different models, there is the Lavazza blue LB 800, the Lavazza blue LB 1000 and the Lavazza blue LB 2000 models available depending on your needs and requirements. As you go up in numbers, so does the price and the features that you get. The Lavazza blue is similar to use as the Keurig K-cup and Senseo coffee pod machines, except that with the higher Lavazza machines you get a wand so that you can froth milk for your choice of espresso based beverages.
The Lavazza blue line also offers over 6 choices of coffee roasts for their machines as well as over 6 choices of tea that you can use with these same machines. A couple of the features I should note as they are of benefit over other single serve coffee makers, is that the capsule tray will hold 25 Lavazza capsules and the water tank will hold a gallon or 3.78 liters of water. This is large by any standards and not something that is too common on most espresso machines or single serve coffee machines.
The Lavazza blu can also refer to coffee offered by this same company. In fact, they have a line of pre-ground coffee called Lavazza blu which is an espresso coffee that can be used in your manual espresso machine.
Anyway, if you are a coffee purist and you love the coffee made by Lavazza then I can see that the Lavazza blue coffee machine would be a great choice for you. If not, I would consider either the Senseo coffee machine or the Keurig coffee machine. They are both cheaper but they don’t come with wands to steam milk. If that is what you are after, you might want to take a look at an automatic or manual espresso machine if not then by all means take a look at the Lavazza Blue.