Ninja has introduced its most exciting coffeemaker yet: the Luxe Café Premier Series It is a barista-grade coffee maker that can brew drip coffee, espresso, and even Rapid Cold Brew

The Ninja Luxe Café Premier Series is the first Ninja machine to feature a built-in conical burr coffee grinder It is extremely difficult to create a grinder that can handle coarse grinds for drip coffee to ultra-fine grinds for espresso

Perhaps the most exciting element of this announcement is that the Ninja Luxe Café Premier Series is priced at only $499 While this is still quite expensive compared to many of the best coffee makers on the market, it is a truly competitive price for a top espresso machine with an integrated grinder

While it is clearly a capable machine, the Ninja Luxe Café Premier Series is only 132 inches deep, 136 inches wide and 146 inches tall, so it is obviously larger than most Keurig machines, but it doesn't take up too much counter top space

Not content with simply being a barista-style coffee maker, the machine offers “3-in-1 versatility” with settings for drip coffee, espresso, and cold brew Sound a little too complicated? Ninja has developed “Barista Assist Technology” to help you navigate the grind size and extraction adjustments based on the drink you choose The milk steamer also combines steaming and frothing and can be pre-set to produce four types of milk: steamed milk, thin foam, thick foam, and cold foam

As for coffee, it can make cold brew and drip coffee in 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 ounce sizes and has the following settings:

Ninja's products always impress me, but as someone who has tested many espresso machines, I am a little apprehensive about Luxe Café's integrated grinder Most coffee grinders specialize in either the extra-fine grind needed for espresso or the coarse grind needed to make a good drip coffee, but it is difficult to do both in one grinder If Ninja has developed a grinder that can do both and put it in a sub-$500 machine, I would be greatly impressed

I'm always first in line to try out Ninja's new gadgets, but the Luxe Café Premier is especially exciting because it is Ninja's first foray into the premium coffee scene The brand's previous flagship espresso and coffee barista system is half the price at $24999 and targets the single-serve market, using capsules to extract espresso similar to Nespresso and Keurig

The Luxe Café is an assisted espresso maker in the style of Breville or DeLonghi that maintains the appeal of manual machines but with features such as hands-free frothing, weight-based dosing, and assisted tamping for evenly compressed packs join the ranks

For features alone, the Ninja Luxe Café Premier system is comparable to market-leading machines such as the De'Longhi La Specialista Maestro, which can make cold brew, offer assisted tamping, and adjust extraction settings to obtain the correct extraction But can they offer this at half the price? We will review this latest machine as soon as we get it, but if the Luxe Café lives up to its claims, it could be an unbeatable machine