Description
The Ninja ES601, sold as the Luxe Cafe Premier, is an unusual machine because it refuses to pick a category. It has a portafilter, a tamper and a group head, which makes it an espresso machine. It also brews drip coffee in seven cup sizes and runs a rapid cold brew cycle, which makes it a coffee maker. And it has a conical burr grinder, a built in scale and a milk system on board, which makes it something closer to a bean to cup appliance.
Machines that try to be three things usually do none of them properly. What makes this one worth taking seriously is the automation layer Ninja has built around the espresso side, which is aimed squarely at the part of espresso that defeats most people at home: getting the grind, the dose and the tamp consistent enough that the shot is the same twice in a row.
Brewing Modes and Sizes
Three brewing paths are offered. Espresso comes in two styles, described as double shot and quad shot. Drip coffee comes in three styles, classic, rich and over ice, in sizes from 6 to 18 ounces. Cold brew comes in two styles, cold pressed espresso and cold brew coffee, in the same size range.
The rapid cold brew is the claim that deserves the most scepticism and the most explanation. Traditional cold brew steeps coarse grounds in cold water for twelve hours or more, and the low temperature is what produces the characteristic low acidity. A machine that produces cold brew in minutes is doing something different, usually by combining pressure, agitation and a very fine grind to accelerate extraction at low temperature. The result is a cold extracted coffee rather than a hot brew poured over ice, but it is not the same drink as an overnight steep. Anyone who wants the traditional version can get it far more cheaply from the cold brew makers we cover.
Grind and Dose
The integrated grinder is a conical burr with 25 settings, which is a real burr grinder rather than a blade chopper and a meaningful number of steps for espresso work. Whole beans go in the hopper and the machine grinds to order.
The more interesting part is the dosing. Ninja states that the machine uses weight based dosing from a built in scale, and explicitly contrasts that with machines that grind for a set number of seconds and leave you to weigh the result. That distinction is real and it matters. Timed dosing drifts as beans age, as the hopper empties and as the burrs warm up, which is why consistency is the hardest thing to achieve on a home espresso setup. A scale removes that variable. This is the single strongest feature on the machine and it is genuinely uncommon at this level.
Barista Assist and Brew Control
Ninja groups several behaviours under the Barista Assist name: grind size recommendations, the weight based dosing described above, and active adjustments to brew temperature and pressure during extraction. There are also three selectable brew temperatures.
Selectable brew temperature is worth having, because different roast levels extract best at different temperatures, with darker roasts generally preferring slightly cooler water. The active pressure adjustment is harder to assess without knowing what the machine is adjusting from and to. An assisted tamper is included in the box, which addresses the other classic home espresso failure: an uneven tamp produces channelling, where water finds a path through the puck and the shot runs fast and sour.
Milk and Steam
The Dual Froth System combines steaming and whisking at the same time, with four presets: steamed milk, thin froth, thick froth and cold foam. It is described as hands free and as working with dairy and plant based milk.
Combining a steam injection with a mechanical whisk is a sensible engineering answer to a real problem. A steam wand produces fine microfoam but requires practice and a feel for when to stop. A whisk frother is foolproof but produces a drier, bubblier foam. Doing both at once is aimed at getting wand style texture without wand style skill. The cold foam preset is the one that dates the machine to the current market, where iced drinks with a foam cap have become standard. Against a manual machine such as the Breville BES870XL Barista Express, you trade the ability to learn wand technique for consistency you do not have to earn.
Size, Weight and What Is In The Box
The recorded dimensions are 12.99 inches deep, 13.39 inches wide and 14.57 inches high, with an item weight of 31.7 pounds. That is a large and heavy appliance, and the height figure does not include the clearance you need above it to fill the bean hopper.
The included accessory list is long and unusually complete: portafilter, milk jug, double basket, luxe basket, assisted tamper, cleaning brush, cleaning disc, funnel, descaling powder, cleaning tablets and a hard water testing kit. The hard water testing kit is the item worth noting. It tells you that Ninja expects scale to be the failure mode, and it lets you set a descaling interval based on your actual water rather than a guess, which is more than most manufacturers provide. The descaling products we cover will handle refills once the supplied powder runs out.
What the Specifications Do Not Settle
No pump pressure figure in bars is published anywhere in the data, which is the number most people look for first on an espresso machine. No portafilter diameter is given, which determines whether third party baskets and tampers fit. No water tank capacity is stated. No bean hopper capacity is stated. No boiler or thermoblock description is given, and no heat up time.
The attribute table also records the operation mode as Fully Automatic, which is misleading. A fully automatic machine grinds, doses, tamps, extracts and discards the puck without you touching it. This machine has a portafilter you fill, tamp and lock in yourself, so it is a semi automatic with a great deal of automation layered on top. That is a meaningfully different ownership experience from a super automatic such as the KitchenAid KF7, and the difference is whether you handle a portafilter every morning.
Who It Suits
This suits somebody who wants to make real espresso at home, is willing to handle a portafilter, and wants the machine to remove the two variables that most often ruin a shot: inconsistent dosing and an uneven tamp. The fact that it also covers drip coffee and cold brew makes it a plausible only appliance for a household where not everyone drinks espresso.
Look elsewhere if you want a machine that does everything without you touching a portafilter, in which case a super automatic is the format you want. Look elsewhere too if espresso is the only thing you care about, because a dedicated machine at this price will put more of its budget into the boiler and the group rather than into drip and cold brew modes. The espresso machines we cover include both directions.
