The Saeco Odea is a super automatic espresso machine from the Italian company of Saeco. If you’ve visited this site for some time, you know that we talk about Saeco and DeLonghi a fair bit. Both Italian manufacturers of coffee machines and cappuccino machines. Saeco is headquartered near Bologna, Italy, and has only been around since the early eighties. Though if you’ve read some of the other posts you’ll appreciate that they started out strong and continue on strong, now that they have been bought out by Philips in 2009.
Now the first thing you’ll likely notice about the Saeco odea is its style. It is a very stylish espresso machine. One of the most stylish in my opinion that I have seen in recent memory. This is thanks mostly to its giro face as they call it. This is the large, prominent round dial on the front, that makes brewing your espresso very easy. From the headline you might have thought I was joking, but I’m not. BMW really did design this espresso machine. And a great job they did of it too.
General info on the Saeco Odea
I’d classify the Saeco odea as a mid-range espresso machine. You can get your hands on one of these classy looking cappuccino machines for anywhere between $500 to $1000 depending on where you buy it and what kind of sales are on or not. I’ve included a picture of the Saeco odea to the left so you can see exactly what I’m talking about.
The Saeco odea is actually a line that includes 2 espresso machines. The Saeco Odea Giro and the Saeco Odea Go. The Saeco odea giro is the slightly more expensive one. The Saeco odea go is the entry level machine. At first glance it is hard to separate the two machines by just looking at them. They both have the very voguish front face with that big round dial and long elegant nose containing the espresso spouts.
As with all of the new generation of Saeco espresso machines, or should I say their automatic espresso machines, they are now including the ceramic grinders as standard. I’ve gotta say, I’m a huge fan of these ceramic grinders. I’d like to find one as a stand alone for my next burr grinder. As Saeco says, the ceramic grinder is inert and longer lasting than its metal counterpart. It is also somewhat quieter too. Allegedly, a ceramic grinder will give you more consistent grind fineness and quality to your coffee beans, but I have not seen a noticeable difference to my naked eye. However, I think this is a great innovation.
Cool features of the Saeco Odea
The Saeco line also offers their Pannarello wand which is supposed to help you make perfect foam each and every time. It’s a good wand, and deep too, but it does take a little bit of getting used to. Just like every wand has its own personality. I just don’t think any wand is going to make perfect foam the first time you use it unless you’re a trained and skilled barista. But the Pannarello wand sure does have a short learning curve.
A nice thing about the Saeco odea line is that they come with a movable drip tray. Rather than having the group head or what would be the portafilter rise up and down, the drip tray in this instance moves up and down to accommodate the different sizes of you cups or espresso shot glasses. The Pannarello wand also makes use of Saeco’s Rapid Steam technology, so that the delay between pulling espresso shots and being able to use the boiler to steam milk is diminished and shortened considerably. Also, with other Saeco machines, the water tank is removable for ease of cleaning and refilling, but it is smaller than some of the other water tanks on other espresso machines. Holding only 50 ounces or approximately 1.5 liters, it is still plenty big enough for most uses but not as large as some of the other espresso machines which will hold over 2 liters. Nevertheless, this is a small complaint. My bigger complaint, and my ongoing rantings if you’ve read much of my blog, is the relatively small size of the bean hopper in most of these espresso machines from most espresso machine manufacturers. Saeco is certainly not bucking the trend here. Their bean hopper is a small 6 ounces. Not even half a pound let alone the full pound that I’d like to see considering that the default size that most of us buy our coffee beans in is the one pound bag.
From what I’ve seen of this machine, I think the BMW inspired giro face design is excellent. Easy and intuitive to use, let alone sophisticated to look at, I like this espresso machine. The one difference I was able to find between the Saeco odea go and the Saeco odea giro was that the giro makes use of Saeco’s OptiDose technology. This allows you to vary the amount of coffee beans that the espresso machine will use to pull your espresso shot. With OptiDose, you can choose from a decent 7 grams all the way to a very hearty 10.5 grams to keep you going throughout your day.
Well folks, there you have it. BMW inspired espresso thanks to the Saeco odea. Who woulda thunk it. But I like the looks of it, and if I was buying one, I’d be sure to get the Saeco odea giro. You all know how much I like to play with my coffee aroma and flavor profile. The OptiDose allows for just that. Now you can have your BMW and your coffee too with the Saeco Odea!