Nitro coffee used to mean a café tap and a nitrogen keg. Then coffee became content.
Dalgona, dirty matcha, shaken espresso, cloud coffee. They sound like cocktails, but they’re coffees, and they were made for the camera.
I usually say no to coffee machine reviews because they are a lot of work.
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But when Jura offered me a short-term loan of the Z10, I said yes for one simple reason: I wanted to make one of those ridiculously Instagrammable nitro coffees at home.
With its creamy cascade and thick foamy top, nitro was the one I had to try.
But for a whopping $4,499 at David Jones, is it really worth forking out thousands? Here’s everything you need to know before splashing the cash.
So what’s nitro coffee actually?
Basically cold brew, but dressed up a bit. The real deal gets pumped with nitrogen from a keg, that’s what gives it those tiny bubbles and that creamy, almost Guinness-like head.
Jura does it a different way though, no gas involved. There’s a little attachment that whips normal air through the coffee as it runs down into your cup.
Not exactly the same as a proper nitro tap, more nitro-style, but it looks great and tastes even better. Smoother than a normal iced coffee, with that same soft, creamy finish.
It starts with the cold brew
Worth knowing, that attachment isn’t actually making the cold brew, the Z10’s been able to do that for years already.
Most machines just brew a hot espresso and pour it over ice and call it cold coffee. This one actually pushes cold water through fresh grounds from the start, so it’s properly brewed cold, not just cooled down after.
The grinder also adjusts itself depending on what you’re making, so it doesn’t matter if you go from an espresso to a cold drink, it just handles it.
Sweet Foam adds the fun part
It can also mix flavoured syrup straight into the milk foam instead of just dumping it in the bottom of the glass.
Tastes more even, feels more like something you’d actually order at a café. The one I tried, cold brew, vanilla, ice, almond milk, genuinely tasted like a proper café drink.
Most of the work happens automatically
Convenience is the whole point of this machine. Just pick the drink on the screen and it does the grinding, brewing and milk, espresso, flat white, cappuccino, latte, plus all the cold stuff.
There is no need to know anything about coffee. Only real effort is cleaning, the milk system, the syrup bits, and now this kit adds a few more pieces to wash. But making the actual drink is easy.
Where it sits in the market
The Z10 sits firmly at the luxury end of home coffee machines priced at $4499. There are much cheaper ways to make cold coffee at home.
The Ninja Luxe Café offers espresso, filter coffee and cold brew in a more hands-on setup, while De’Longhi’s Eletta Explore is a cheaper fully automatic option with a range of hot and cold drinks.
The Jura is really for someone who wants the widest choice of drinks with the least effort and is prepared to pay for that convenience. I started out not really understanding the appeal of nitro coffee.
After trying it, I get it. The biggest difference is not the flavour. It is the texture. It is smooth, creamy and just unusual enough to make a home coffee feel like something you would normally go out and buy.
