I have an espresso maker at home, but I haven’t totally sworn off the coffee shop experience. For one thing, my iced lattes never turn out quite right. While drip coffee makers are fairly ubiquitous, most people still head to Starbucks if they want almost anything else, even iced coffee.
“When the consumer wants a genuine coffee experience, they need to go to a coffee house, and it isn’t something they can readily do on their countertop at home,” SharkNinja president Mark Barrocas tells Digital Trends. “Coffee today in North America is much more than just drinking a cup of hot coffee.”
The company just introduced its Ninja Coffee Bar — which sounds like a really cool/dangerous place to hang out, but is in fact a drip coffee maker that also handles the fancier fare.
The machine is sort of a java-of-all-trades. It makes regular coffee, a “richer” version of the hot brew, iced coffee, plus speciality coffees like lattes and flat whites. The best part? You don’t need a burr grinder for your espresso drinks. If your whole family loves Dunkin Donuts coffee, you can use the same grounds, straight from the bag, for a cup of drip and a latte, says Barrocas.
You add water to the reservoir, select your size (cup, travel mug, half-carafe, or full-carafe), then choose your brew. The iced coffee setting is more concentrated to accommodate dilution as the ice melts. The speciality drinks produce an even more concentrated brew from the coffee grounds. The device adjusts the amount of water used based on the brew type selected. The machine also comes with a Ninja Easy Frother for any milk-based drinks.
The machine is a little larger than a standard coffee maker and will alert you when it needs cleaning. When it goes on sale in September, it will start at $140 for a model with a glass carafe, and will cost $200 for the version with a thermal stainless steel carafe.
