De'Longhi Rivelia Review (2026): Two Bean Hoppers, One Grinder, and the Mix Nobody Mentions

Quick Answer: The De’Longhi Rivelia (EXAM44055) is a $1,299.95 super-automatic whose real selling point is Bean Switch: two swappable 8.8 oz hoppers on one 13-setting grinder, so you can switch between, say, a dark blend and decaf without dumping beans. It makes 18 one-touch drinks with an automatic LatteCrema Hot milk carafe and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen with 4 user profiles. Buy it if two people in your house drink different coffees. Skip it if you want cold foam included (that’s a $129.95 add-on) or a big water tank (1.4 L).

The Rivelia reached Europe in late 2023, per Expert Reviews, and De’Longhi’s US store has listed it since spring 2025. Its price has since dropped from the $1,500 retail figure Popular Science quoted in its May 2025 review to $1,299.95 today. It hadn’t been reviewed on this site before. This review is built from De’Longhi’s US product specifications and instruction manual, its US warranty terms, current US retail prices, and hands-on reviews by Popular Science, Expert Reviews and CHOICE. Where those sources disagree, we say so.

The Rivelia, by the numbers

The number that matters is the 9.75-inch width. At under 10 inches wide, the Rivelia is narrower than the Eletta Explore (10.25 in) and lighter (21.39 lb vs 26.89 lb machine weight, per De’Longhi’s US specs). Expert Reviews lists the same 245 x 430 x 385 mm footprint for the UK model. Most of that is depth, so measure your counter front to back before you order.

The De’Longhi Rivelia, reviewed

Setup is quick. Popular Science’s Stan Horaczek timed roughly 15 minutes from opening the box to the first cup of coffee. The touchscreen walks you through filling the tank, setting water hardness, checking that the grinder dial is on 5 and fitting the first hopper. After that, every drink is one tap. The standard espresso is 40 ml (1.35 fl oz), programmable from 20 to 180 ml, and the Americano goes up to 480 ml, per De’Longhi’s drink-quantity table.

Coffee quality is good super-automatic coffee, not café espresso. None of the reviewers we read measured brew temperature. Popular Science’s testers found the standard strength “slightly weak”, and Expert Reviews found the standard Americano too weak. Both are fixable: CHOICE lists 5 strength settings and 3 coffee-temperature settings, and there’s an Extra Shot option for any drink. De’Longhi’s own manual says temperature changes matter most for long drinks.

Milk is the weak point, as on most bean-to-cup machines. Expert Reviews’ Jayne Cherrington-Cook, who used a Rivelia for more than a year, said it heats milk to around 60°C (140°F), “cooler than I like”. She also said cappuccino fans might want denser foam. The LatteCrema Hot carafe runs an automatic clean after each milk drink, and the manual tells you to clean the carafe after every use.

It is not quiet, and the tank is small. Expert Reviews called it “notably loud during brewing” and said the 1.4 L tank “needed frequent refilling”. The tank holds 47.3 oz, about 22% less than the 60.9 oz De’Longhi lists for the Magnifica Evo, Magnifica Duo and Eletta Explore. Popular Science and Expert Reviews both noticed that the matte finish shows fingerprints and dust.

Bean Switch: what swapping hoppers actually does

Bean Switch is the reason the Rivelia exists, so it’s worth knowing exactly how it works. There are two hoppers but only one grinder. Each hopper has a closing base, so when you lift it off, the beans stay inside instead of spilling. De’Longhi’s instruction manual describes the swap:

1. Turn the hopper to the unlock position. The screen opens “Switch mode”.
2. Choose “Choose a drink” to use up the beans still sitting in the grinder on one last drink (intensity is locked for that cup), or “Grind & Empty” to grind them away.
3. Lift the hopper off, drop the other one in, and turn it to lock.

The catch is in step 2. The manual is blunt: if you change the hopper “without emptying the grinder, the coffee brewed will be with a mix between the old and new blends.” So swapping from regular to decaf for an evening cup means one drink or one Grind & Empty cycle of the old beans first. For a household where one person drinks a dark espresso blend and another drinks a lighter or decaf coffee, that’s still much easier than emptying a single hopper by hand. But it’s a swap, not two grinders running side by side.

Bean Adapt pairs with each hopper. For a new bag, you tell the machine whether the beans are 100% Arabica or a blend, tap the roast color, pull a test espresso and answer how it tasted. The Rivelia then suggests a temperature, intensity and grinder setting, and you can save the result under the bean’s name. The manual’s fine print: Bean Adapt only applies to espresso, it stores up to 6 bean profiles, and you should make at least 3 coffees after any grinder change before judging it. The grinder dial itself is manual, and you turn it only while the grinder is running, so a bean profile can remind you of the right setting but can’t move the dial for you.

What the Rivelia really costs

Even with the Cool set, the Rivelia costs $1,429.90, which is still under the $1,500 Popular Science quoted at launch and $570.05 less than the $1,999.95 Eletta Explore. Target listed the Rivelia at $1,299.95 to $1,299.99 on October 31, 2026, with a 4.79-out-of-5 average from 345 ratings, so De’Longhi’s list price is the street price for now. Buying direct also registers the machine automatically, which gets you De’Longhi’s third warranty year without filling in a form.

Rivelia vs. Magnifica Evo vs. Magnifica Duo vs. Eletta Explore

The Rivelia’s toughest competition comes from De’Longhi’s own lineup. All four prices and specs below come from De’Longhi’s US store on October 31, 2026.

Magnifica Evo ($899.95): The same grinder and the same LatteCrema Hot milk system for $400 less, with a bigger tank. You lose the second hopper, the color screen, the profiles and 11 of the 18 one-touch drinks. If one person drinks one bean, the Evo is the better buy. Our Magnifica Evo review compares its three US versions and the cheaper Magnifica Start.

Magnifica Duo ($999.95): This is the awkward comparison for the Rivelia. For $300 less, the Duo includes LatteCrema Hot and Cool, 20 recipes and Cold Extraction cold brew that De’Longhi says takes under 3 minutes. The Rivelia with the Cool set costs $429.95 more than the Duo. What that money buys is Bean Switch, the color touchscreen, a fourth profile and Bean Adapt. If you want iced lattes and only use one bean, get the Duo.

Eletta Explore ($1,999.95): De’Longhi’s cold-drink flagship, with 52 one-touch drinks, cold foam and cold brew built in, and app control. It’s $700 more than the Rivelia and, at 26.89 lb, about 5.5 lb heavier. Our Eletta Explore review covers its cold brew and two milk carafes. For iced-drink households, see our best espresso machine for iced coffee guide.

Outside De’Longhi, our best super-automatic espresso machine guide covers Philips, Jura and Gaggia, and our Jura vs De’Longhi comparison explains how the two brands’ approaches differ.

Who should buy the De’Longhi Rivelia

Buy it if two people in your home drink different coffees, or if you keep a decaf on hand. The second hopper turns switching beans into a quick swap instead of a hopper-emptying chore. It also suits anyone who wants a touchscreen super-automatic that fits under 10 inches of counter width, and households where up to four people each want their own saved drinks.

Skip it if you drink one bean and a couple of drinks. The Magnifica Evo does that for $400 less. Skip it, too, if cold foam and cold brew are priorities (the Magnifica Duo includes both for $999.95), or if you want café-hot milk: Expert Reviews’ 60°C finding matches the usual complaint about automatic milk carafes. And if you want to learn real espresso technique, a semi-automatic from our best automatic espresso machine guide, such as the Breville Barista Touch Impress, keeps a real portafilter in the loop.

Whatever you buy, budget for descaling. The Rivelia has programmable water hardness and a charcoal water filter, and our espresso machine descaling guide covers how often to run the cycle. Fresh beans matter more on a bean-to-cup machine than people expect; our best espresso beans guide covers the roasts that suit De’Longhi’s grinders.

The bottom line

The De’Longhi Rivelia is the best super-automatic for a household that drinks two different coffees. Bean Switch genuinely makes swapping beans easy, Bean Adapt takes the guesswork out of a new bag, and at $1,299.95 it now costs about $200 less than at launch. Know what you’re paying for, though. It has one grinder (so a swap means one drink or a Grind & Empty cycle of the old beans), a 1.4 L tank, milk that Expert Reviews found lukewarm at around 60°C, and cold foam only with a $129.95 add-on. If you only need one bean, the Magnifica Evo or Magnifica Duo gets you most of the way for $300 to $400 less.

Sources, checked October 31, 2026: De’Longhi US product pages and specifications (Rivelia EXAM44055, Magnifica Evo ECAM29084SB, Magnifica Duo ECAM33080SXB, Eletta Explore ECAM45086S, LatteCrema Cool set DLSC032, bean hopper DLSC403); De’Longhi Rivelia instruction manual; De’Longhi America warranty terms for automatic espresso machines; Target US listing; Popular Science review (May 2, 2025); Expert Reviews review (December 29, 2024); CHOICE Rivelia EXAM440.55 product listing. CPSC’s recall database lists no De’Longhi espresso machine recalls.