★★★★★ 5
Delightful little device now that I've had a practice run with it
Color: Silver
I just picked this up to make my own cappuccino and breve and I must say that I've fallen in love with the thing. My first use was a bit of a misfire owing to my inexperience with it, but the second time worked like a champ. The trick is to ensure that you have plenty of empty head space in the container to develop a good vortex and foam volume while still having a tall enough fluid column to keep the mixing head mostly submerged while generating the vortex.
My first attempt involved using about half a cup of half and half in a small saucepan. I had more than enough head space, but I was only barely able to keep the mixing head (it comes with two: a single turn coil and a 3-turn coil of coil) submerged and that went poorly, leaving me with a bit of a mess to clean up on my rangetop as the lack of fluid column ended up slinging the fluid around and out of the saucepan.
The second attempt went far better, as I transferred the barely-simmered half and half back into the Pyrex two-cup mixing cup in which i initially measured the 4 fl. oz. This time it worked beautifully. There was just enough unfoamed column height to keep the mixing head well covered prior to powering up and it just barely kept me sufficiently covered while powered up to maintain a very vigorous yet controlled vortex. This method also had the advantage of telling me exactly how much total foamed volume I had generated. The resulting breve had a wonderfully thick and frothy head in my mug and resulted in a delightfully topped beverage which, if anything, had a bit too much foam and a bit too little liquid. That's on me, however, since I wanted to get a feel for the device under better conditions to build my own experience; I'll just run the frother for less time next time.
Cleanup of the device itself is quite easy: simply detach the mixing head and shaft from the motor base and rinse. I always hand-wash my dishes, so I'm not in a good position to speak to its machine wash compatibility, but I suspect that it would come out just fine, provided that care is taken not to bend the shaft or coil head out of shape.
The device itself is small enough to fit in a purse and should travel quite nicely, though you'll need to commit to a single mixing head, which will almost certainly turn out to be the smaller one.
It's really nice to be able to make cappuccino/breve at home any time I see fit now. It's going to make a well-loved addition to my kitchen.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2018
