Jura S8 Review

Quick Verdict: Although the Jura S8 is a superb super-automatic espresso machine, I can’t help but feel that it’s a bit overpriced. You get better value for money with the Jura E8 than the Jura S8.

The Jura S8 is Jura’s most “affordable” coffee machine with a touch screen.

I use scare quotes around “affordable” because the machine still costs over $2,500.

In this Jura S8 review, I’m going to answer the following questions:

• Whether the Jura S8 is worth the money?

• Whether the Jura S8’s touchscreen makes it easier to use than cheaper, button-operated Jura coffee machines?

• What drinks you can make with the Jura S8, and how well each of these drinks is executed?

Let’s get started.

Do I Recommend the Jura S8 (Quick Verdict)?

I’d only recommend the Jura S8 if you are absolutely wedded to having a touch-screen-operated espresso machine, or if you intend your machine to regularly be used by lots of people.

The main benefit that the Jura S8 offers over cheaper Jura machines is that you can overwrite its menu with your own customized drinks.

This is only useful if your machine is going to be used by several people who all want their coffee made in a slightly different way. 

In situations like this, the Jura S8 would allow everyone to make their coffee just the way they like it with one button press, whereas with other machines you’d have to fiddle around with customizations every time you made a coffee.

Jura S8 Pros

It makes the best espresso of all super-automatic espresso machines (this is true of Jura machines generally).

Its toggle-controlled milk frother allows you to make layered milk drinks (most Jura machines do not allow this).

You can add your own custom drinks to the Jura S8’s menu.

Jura S8 Cons

It’s overpriced – there are similarly performing super-automatic espresso machines for cheaper.

It takes over a minute to clean its milk frothing system and you need to do this after every coffee you make.

If you’re buying a coffee machine just for yourself, or don’t think you are going to make loads and loads of different coffee types, then the Jura S8 is overkill.

The Jura S8’s touch screen in itself does not make it more user-friendly than other Jura machines, and I think you can find better value with the button-operated Jura E8.

The Jura E8 makes just as good espresso and almost just as good as milk-based drinks as the S8. The main disadvantage of the Jura E8 compared to the S8 is that you cannot save your customized drinks to its menu.

If this doesn’t seem like a big miss to you then I’d save the $500 and go for the Jura E8 instead of the Jura S8.

Overview of Jura S8

The Jura S8 is a super-automatic espresso machine. 

This means that all you need to do to make your coffee is put whole coffee beans and water in the machine, and press the button of the drink that you want.

The machine will grind the coffee beans, dose up the coffee and water, and brew the coffee for you.

The Jura S8 also has a built-in milk frother. You do not put milk in the machine but rather attach a container full of milk to the machine via a rubber tube.

The rubber tube comes with the machine, but you will need your own milk container. 

My Jura E8 uses the same system and I just put the rubber tube in a glass of milk. The other end of the tube is attached to the coffee machine itself.

Below is a table of the Jura S8’s key specifications:

Jura S8: Key Features

Here is a breakdown of the Jura S8’s key features. I’ll explain how you operate the machine as well as why it brews such good espresso.

Touch Screen Operation

The Jura S8 is controlled by a 4.3-inch touchscreen.

This is in contrast to cheaper Jura automatic coffee machines that are operated with a smaller button-controlled LCD screen.

The Jura S8’s touchscreen allows you to access all the coffee machine’s functionalities including:

• Selecting a drink off the machine’s menu
• Customizing the strength, size, and temperature of a drink
• Altering the machine’s menu and default customizations
• Turning on the machine’s rinse, clean, and descale modes

I did find some evidence during my research that suggested that the Jura S8’s touch screen was a bit jumpy and oversensitive.

Some of the touchscreen controls are triggered by tapping them and some are triggered by swiping them. Unfortunately, the Jura S8 does not make it clear which controls should be tapped and which should be swiped.

You can see someone complaining about the S8’s unintuitive touchscreen in this Jura S8 review on Reddit.

The touch screen interface is like from an old Android 2.3.x phone. Like, its 2020, and you’re putting in a system that has 5 fps animations at most? And the UX of the interface.. oh god, took me 3 days to understand i have to swipe and not tap to change various settings. This is so counter intuitive.. If I would be the PM or QA of this thing, every run I would do I would bring up this as a major UX painpoint.

u/rabus

You can see a clip of someone struggling with the tap/swipe problem on the Jura S8’s touch screen below (note how sensitive the screen seems to be from (9:31 – 9:36):

I’m sure that once you get used to which setting is controlled by which movement then the Jura S8’s touch screen will be easy enough to use. 

However, this learning curve does beg the question as to whether the coffee machine actually benefits from having a touch screen instead of a button-operated screen.

What Drinks Can the Jura S8 Make?

The Jura S8 can make the following drinks (descriptions are taken from Jura’s own website):

Overall I really like the Jura S8’s menu. It pretty much allows you to make all the common specialty coffee drinks.

I particularly like the fact that the machine does not make too many non-espresso-based coffees. 

More expensive Jura machines like the Jura Z10 and Giga 6 have non-espresso-based drinks like cold brew and iced coffee on their menu.

Super-automatic espresso machines just aren’t designed to make these types of coffees well and I think that Jura’s most expensive machines tend to have bloated menus just to try and justify their price tags.

The only fault I have with the S8’s menu is that it does not have “extra shot” items. 

I like my milk-based drinks to be made with a double espresso. Many other Jura machines have menu items that are made with a double shot by default “cappuccino double shot” for example.

With the Jura S8, you have to add this extra shot of espresso manually by selecting another shot and adding it to your drink.

Drink Customizations

The Jura S8 allows you to customize your drinks in the following ways:

• Three settings for brewing temperature

• Eight settings for coffee strengths (ranging from5 grams – 16 grams of ground coffee per shot)

• You can adjust the volume of coffee by the nearest 5 milliliters.

• You can change the volume of milk in your drink by the second dispensed

• You can change the proportions of milk and milk foam in your drink.

• You can change the length of time that your machine lets your hot milk settle before it adds milk foam.

This is an incredibly impressive level of customization that allows you to do anything you can with a semi-automatic espresso machine with the Jura S8.

Menu Customizations

The Jura S8 allows you to add a customized drink to the machine’s menu. This will then replace an existing item on the menu.

You can see a video of how this works on the Jura S8 below (watch from 12:05 – 15:05):

You can also only have two versions of each drink (like the two latte macchiatos in the video). You cannot just add new drinks to the S8’s menu ad infinitum.

I see this being very useful if you have lots of people using the coffee machine and they all like their drink made in a slightly different way. 

Jumping back and forth between customizations is annoying, so I like how the Jura S8 allows you to do this less often.

Greater control over the Jura S8’s menu can also significantly speed up how long it takes to make each coffee. This makes the S8 particularly suitable for offices where lots of people will want a coffee as quickly as possible.

Espresso Brewing System

The Jura S8’s high-quality grinder, pre-infusion, and (in particular) its use of Jura’s patented “Pulse Extraction Process” means that it makes the best-tasting espresso of all super-automatic espresso machines.

Aroma G3 Grinder

The Jura E8 uses a conical burr Aroma G3 Grinder with six grind size settings.

Although six grind sizes don’t seem like much, bear in mind that since super-automatic espresso machines cannot tamp your coffee grounds, they cannot brew with the range of grind sizes that a portafilter-driven espresso machine can.

The Jura S8 grinder can grind finely and evenly enough to get the most out of its brewing system.

I really like how the bean hopper’s lid is tinted and seals around the size. This means that you can keep your beans in the machine’s hopper without any loss of aroma or flavor.

Intelligent Pre Brew Aroma

The Jura S8 soaks your ground coffee puck in a small amount of water before its main brew.

This causes the coffee puck to swell, exposing more of its surface area to your brewing water. This results in better extraction and a stronger final drink.

In all honesty, “Intelligent Pre Brew Aroma” is just Jura’s fancy term for pre-infusion – something that the vast majority of super-automatic espresso machines do.

It’s more a negative if a machine does not do this, rather than a big positive if a machine does do this.

Pulse Extraction Process

Jura’s patented Pulse Extraction Process is the main reason why Jura machines make better espresso than all other super automatics.

Pulse Extraction Process is where Jura machines (including the S8) brew your espresso with short pulses of water rather than with a steady stream of water.

This slows down the brewing process.

Super espresso machines tend to brew too quickly because they cannot tamp your coffee grounds properly.

This lack of tamping means that there are larger-than-ideal gaps between each coffee ground. Water, therefore, passes through it more easily than a bed of coffee that has been compressed by tamping.

Shots brewed too quickly tend to taste sour. Jura slowing down brewing through its Pulse Extraction Process allows it to make espresso with a better-balanced flavor than other machines.

It’s worth remembering that every Jura espresso machine brews using its Pulse Extraction Process, so they all create a similar (very high) standard of espresso.

Milk Frothing and Steaming

The Jura S8 uses an automatic milk frother that connects to your container of milk via a rubber tube.

The machine froths milk really well. Its milk foam is better than any non-Jura super-automatic espresso machine.

The milk frother has a toggle on it that you can use to change it from dispensing hot milk to frothed milk (and vice versa). You can see a video of someone doing this below.

You can see a video of this in action below (watch from 5:07 – 5:17):

Although I cannot fault the Jura S8’s milk frother’s performance at all, I do find its design quite unwieldy.

I particularly don’t like how it’s impossible to remove the connecting rubber tube from your milk container without it dribbling a bit of milk on your counter. 

For the amount you pay for the machine, it would also be nice if it came with an insulated milk container. These are sold separately for around a whopping $200.

Shape, Size, and Design

The Jura S8 is a large machine that will dominate most kitchen countertops.

The machine is wider than most super-automatic espresso machines, so if you have limited width on your counter then it might not be the machine for you.

The machine comes in three colors: black, silver, and chrome. I always recommend black as this hides smudges the best.

Intelligent Water System (Water Filters)

The Jura S8 has what Jura calls an “Intelligent Water System”. The machine uses its own brand of filters which, if you change them as directed, means that it will not need descaling.

While this is a nice idea (descaling espresso machines is annoying) Jura’s Claris filters are very expensive and need to be replaced as frequently as you would need to descale other coffee machines.

The filters are far more expensive than a dose of the descaling solution, so the Intelligent Water System is kind of a ploy by Jura to increase the amount you have to spend with them when you buy a machine.

While the machine can still be descaled, Jura advises that you still use their filters. 

I am not sure if this is just something Jura says to get you to buy the filters, or if it actually affects the machine negatively if you don’t use them, so I’d stick to the safe side and use them.

Now that I’ve covered the Jura S8’s basic features, I’m now going to assess the machine across the following criteria:

• Quality of espresso
• Quality of milk-based drinks
• Functionalities
• Ease of use and cleaning
• Design and build quality
• Value for money

Quality of Espresso

The Jura S8 makes the best-tasting espresso of all super-automatic espresso machines. The quality of the espresso is matched by all other Jura super automatics, however.

All Jura machines have the same espresso brewing system which uses Jura’s patented Pulse Extraction Process.

This means that all Jura machines brew espresso to the same standard.

In his roundup of the best bean-to-cup machines, barista and YouTuber James Hoffmann concluded that Jura makes the best espresso of all coffee machines tested. Although he was testing the Jura Z10, its espresso quality is the same as the S8.

You can hear his thoughts on Jura’s espresso quality below (watch from 11:50 – 14:45):

Jura machine’s superior espresso is why I think they justify their large price tag. 

Just bear in mind that all Jura’s brew a very similar standard of espresso, so don’t go for a pricey model if you are only going to use it for black coffee.

It’s also worth noting that although the Jura S8’s espresso is excellent by super-automatic standards, it’s still quite a long way off the quality you’d get from a high-quality portafilter-driven espresso machine.

Quality of Espresso: 8/10

Quality of Milk Based Drinks

The Jura S8 can make excellent milk-based drinks by both Jura standards and super-automatic espresso machine standards.

Again, all Jura espresso machines use the same basic milk-steaming system. James Hoffmann said that Jura espresso machines make the best-frothed milk of all super-automatic espresso machines by quite a distance.

You can hear his thoughts on the Jura Z10’s steamed milk below (watch from 22:20 – 24:50):

The Jura S8 can make better milk-based coffee drinks than most Jura machines for two reasons:

• Its milk frother has a switch that allows you to toggle between hot and steamed milk. This increases your precision when making milk-based drinks.

• You can set how long the machine will let your drink settle before it adds milk. This allows you to create layered drinks.

In short, the Jura S8 is one of the best espresso machines if you are going to be drinking a lot of milk-based drinks.

Quality of Milk-Based Drinks Rating: 9/10

Functionalities

The Jura S8’s customizations allow you to make any espresso drink that you want.

The fine control you have over your milk means that you can make layered drinks. This is something that not a lot of super-automatic espresso machines offer.

Although it would be nice to have a double shot feature, it’s easy enough just to add another espresso shot to whatever drink you’re making.

Functionalities Rating: 9/10

Ease of Use and Cleaning

The Jura S8 is very easy to use especially once you have customized its menu to your liking. Cleaning the milk steaming system is a bit annoying, however.

Despite its occasionally jumpy touch screen, the Jura S8 is very easy to use thanks mainly to its streamlined workflow.

Once you have added your favorite customizations to its menu you can make your coffee with a couple of screen presses.

Although the coffee machine is supposed to be self-cleaning, the process of cleaning its milk frother is cumbersome, especially since you have to do this after every milk-based drink that you make.

You can see someone cleaning the S8’s milk-steaming system below. Compare how long this takes to wiping down and purging a steam wand:

The Jura S8’s rubber pipe that connects the coffee machine to external milk is the part that particularly needs cleaning after every use (it gets disgusting otherwise). 

I think that this overly complicated cleaning process is a consequence of Jura’s milk system’s design just not being very well thought out.

Ease of Use and Cleaning Rating: 8/10

Design and Build Quality

The Jura S8 has a really high build quality and rarely succumbs to technical faults.

The Jura S8 (like all Jura coffee machines) is really well-built. It has no flimsy external parts, nor has Jura cut any corners with the machine’s coffee brewing or milk steaming systems.

I looked through negative reviews of the product to see if there were any recurring “known issues” with the Jura S8.

The only recurring issue I could find with the Jura S8 was that changing its grinder settings without the machine being on could cause it to clog up.

Although the machine’s instruction manual does warn you not to change its grinder settings when it’s off, it’s easy to not realize that you can’t do this. Since you cannot remove the machine’s grinder, having it clog up can render the whole machine unusable.

Like all Jura coffee machines, you cannot remove the brew group from the Jura S8. This concerns me as most super-automatic espresso machines need to have their brew group manually lubricated to keep them at peak performance.

Despite this non-removable brew group, I can find very few reports of the Jura E8 losing pump pressure (this is what usually happens when the brew group needs lubricating), which makes me think that Jura has found a way around this problem.

Design and Build Quality Rating: 9/10

Value For Money

The Jura S8 offers ok value for money. It’s not a complete rip-off but you can definitely get better value elsewhere.

The main reason why I don’t think that the Jura S8 offers brilliant value for money is because of how it compares to the Jura E8.

The Jura E8 is basically the S8 with a button-operated screen rather than a touchscreen…the Jura E8 is also $500 cheaper than the Jura S8.

As I said earlier I don’t think the Jura S8’s touchscreen is one of the machine’s better features so I certainly don’t think it justifies a $500 price bump.

Still, I think that mid-priced Jura machines like the Jura S8 and Jura E8 offer the best value for money of all the manufacturers’ offerings, so the Jura S8 certainly is not terrible value for money.

Value for Money Rating: 6/10

Jura S8 Alternatives: Jura E8 and Jura Z10

I often see people asking whether they should buy the Jura S8 or the Jura E8 or Jura Z10 on the super-automatic espresso machine subreddit so I thought I’d give my thoughts on how these three machines compare to finish my Jura S8 review.

Jura S8 vs Jura E8

The Jura E8 offers better value for money than the Jura S8.

As I said earlier, the Jura E8 is basically the same as the Jura S8 except it is controlled by a button-operated screen rather than a touch screen and it doesn’t let you change its menu.

The Jura E8 is typical $500 cheaper than the S8.

I think that the Jura E8 offers better value for money than the Jura S8 and is a better buy for the majority of people.

The only exception to this is if you know there are going to be a lot of people using the coffee machine, and that you’d therefore benefit from being able to change the machine’s menu.

Only the Jura S8 lets you do this. 

The Jura E8’s menu is fixed and any customizations will overwrite existing menu items rather than add new items to the menu.

If you want to find out more about how these two machines compare please see my comparison of Jura E8 vs S8.

Jura S8 vs Jura Z10

The Jura Z10 is worse value for money than the Jura S8.

The Jura Z10 has two main advantages over the Jura S8:

• It has a larger menu with the addition of non-espresso drinks like cold brew, iced coffee, and pots of filter coffee.

• It has a dual boiler so it can brew espresso and dispense milk at the same time.

In my mind, these are barely advantages at all.

Super-automatic espresso machines cannot make non-espresso coffee drinks well. Cold brew, for example, should be steeped for 12 hours. The Jura Z10 brews this in under a minute.

I just don’t see how this works.

The same goes for iced coffee. This is brewed at a lower temperature so it does not melt your ice. 

Lower-temperature brewing results in bland coffee, so I cannot see how the Jura Z10 does this well.

Regarding the dual boiler, how often do you actually think you’ll need to pull an espresso shot and steam milk at the same time?

This is just overkill for a domestic machine.

The Jura Z10 is well over $1,000 more expensive than the Jura S8. I cannot see how it is worth this extra money.

Final Verdict

The Jura S8 is an excellent super-automatic espresso machine, however, I can’t help but feel that it’s a bit overpriced.

Jura S8 Pros

It makes the best espresso of all super-automatic espresso machines (this is true of Jura machines generally).

Its toggle-controlled milk frother allows you to make layered milk drinks (most Jura machines do not allow this).

You can add your own custom drinks to the Jura S8’s menu.

Jura S8 Cons

It’s overpriced – there are similarly performing super-automatic espresso machines for cheaper.

It takes over a minute to clean its milk frothing system and you need to do this after every coffee you make.

At $500 cheaper, you get better value for money from the Jura E8.

Please see my Jura E8 review if you’d like to find out more about this machine.