Miele CVA 3650 ST Coffee Machine hands on Review
The nice people at foreverbetter.co.uk have furnished me with a Miele CVA 3650 ST coffee machine for the last three weeks. I’m a caffeine-pumped twitching freak at the best of times so the prospect of graduating from supermarket brands to the proper stuff set my taste-buds throbbing!
So here’s a review of my three-week experience with the Miele CVA 3650 ST:
The Package
The machine came in a box containing the following
- The coffee machine itself
- 2 x medium size coffee cups
- 2 x small espresso cups
- Paperwork including instructions warranty etc.
- Tools for carrying out maintenance and cleaning
- 8 x packets of coffee grind capsules
- Glass milk jug
- Milk steamer top for jug
Assembling everything was pretty simple and from opening the box to producing my first ‘Real’ cup of coffee was about twenty minutes.
Things To Do
There were a few jobs to do which you have to get used to doing on a regular basis as a 3650 owner.
- The machine uses a small water container deep within it’s bowels to create the coffee and this needs to be replenished at least daily.
- As the coffee capsules are used the empty containers are dispensed into a waste bucket which needs to be emptied when it fills up. It holds about forty used capsules so for occasional coffee drinkers this will probably be a weekly task. For the rest of us: daily!
- The ground coffee bean capsules need to be loaded into a carousel in the right compartment so they agree with the selection menu on the front of the door. When the door is open the menu disappears so you need to write down the compartment number for each coffee type before trying to do this.
- Overflows and clean-outs result in water being collected in a tray in the base of the machine. This needs to be emptied whenever it fills — again, a daily job.
The CVR 3650 also needs to do a few jobs of its own:
- When switched on the 3650 enters a ‘heating up’ phase which takes about a minute or so. You have to wait for this to complete before you can begin to select your order.
- On an infrequent basis (I never got the logic) the 3650 feels a need to clean itself (often when you switch it on or off and sometimes in between). This takes about a minute and again, you cant do anything while it’s busy.
- On top of these day-to-day tasks I discovered at that there’s at least one bug in the software installed in the 3650: After emptying the waste collector for the first time the instructions on the door told me to switch the on/off switch off and on. Doing this reset the machine and all my customized settings were lost!
Using the Miele CVA 3650 ST
Once the machine has done its jobs and you’ve done all yours you’re ready to start making coffee!
The 3650 can make espresso or normal coffee and in addition add frothy milk to your beverage. The menu on the front of the machine allows you to select from six coffee types (if you arranged them correctly in the carousel). It’s a pity Miele chose such a limited display for the controls of the 3650 as only two lines of information are ever shown. In an age when mobile phones can display 400 x 600 pixels in full colour this just seems primitive and I found it awkward and time-consuming to use.
To start the coffee-making process Just place your cup under the nozzle and select your choice of coffee. You then have about ten seconds to select a double portion if you wish before the option disappears. After some brief whirring and grinding in the machine the hot coffee will then slowly pour into the cup.
If you wish to add frothy milk you have two choices:
- You can heat up some milk and have it automatically dispensed into your cup of coffee.
- You can have the milk heated and frothed in the milk jug and then pour it into the coffee yourself (the milk is hotter this way).
Add your choice of chocolate or cinnamon sprinklings if you’re into that and you have a delicious cup of coffee that’s the rival of any high-street fancy coffee outlet.
Larger Servings
But all of this assumes you’re only hankering for a modest refreshment. I, personally, favour a 3/4 pint mug with a Winnie-the-Pooh motif on it — which unfortunately does not fit between the coffee nozzle and the splash cover of the unit (it’s over-sized by about an eighth of an inch). But I’m happy to say a solution was found by removing metal-topped splash cover from the base of the unit and placing the cup on the base beneath. Frothy milk was added by using the nozzle on the milk pourer turned out from the unit and placing the cup directly on the kitchen work surface. The milk was then heated and poured directly into the cup.
Summing Up
If you’re not used to this kind of coffee machine the extra work over more mundane forms of coffee-making takes some getting used to but the result is work the effort. The quality of the beverages you’ll enjoy from the 3650 cannot be denied. But despite the quality of the coffee, the CVA 3650’s abilities are let down by problems of usability of the machine itself. If you can live with its foibles you’ll be a very happy coffee consumer!
This story on other sites
- Miele: CVA 3650 ST Coffee Machine
- Miele Australia - Built-in coffee machine - CVA 3650 ST
- Miele CVA 3650 ST ss Built In Coffee Maker - Marks Electrical
- Miele CVA 3650 ST Coffee Machine Reviews Australia www.miele.com.au - 5:36pm
- Miele CVA 3650 ST
- The Designer Magazine
