Lavazza dives into budget barista-ing with $399 machine

Lavazza’s style of instant espresso has generally been focused on the budget market that were happy to add milk themselves and forgo the froth, but a new machine coming from the company could just bring textured coffee drinks to back to the kitchen for not too much cash.

The machine doing this is called the “Fantasia”, a machine that has nothing in common with the Disney movie focused on classical music and whimsical animations, and instead has everything to do with making cappuccinos, lattes, and espressos for a price and skill set that are both fairly simple.

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Lavazza’s Fantasia takes on the look of a mid-sized plastic espresso machine, and should sit nicely on the kitchen bench, providing a water tank, heating tank, and Lavazza capsule system to produce the espressos, while a milk frother is built into the system and sits on the right, removable from what we can see, with the possibility of storing it in the fridge.

Milk can apparently be textured both hot and cold, and there are three settings for the milk and two for coffee by itself, with the machine producing your drink for you without much hand holding, or any at all.

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As far as we can tell, Lavazza’s Fantasia seems built to take on people eyeing the Nespresso Lattissima, though the price point is much, much different, with this one coming in at $399 compared to the Lattissima, which is closer to double that.

We should note that both of the instant espresso (or what we call “inspresso”) machines are very different, and both take very different styles of pods with again very different varieties, but if you’re at all interested in what Lavazza has produced, you’ll find it in stores shortly for a recommended retail price of $399, with pods available at supermarkets (and we should have a review soon, too).

We haven't made this image to demonstrate size comparison, but rather to show you look and feel, with the Lavazza Fantasia on the left, and the Nespresso Lattissima Pro on the right.
We haven’t made this image to demonstrate size comparison, but rather to show you look and feel, with the Lavazza Fantasia on the left, and the Nespresso Lattissima Pro on the right.