Water filters

The importance of pure water for your espresso

To make a great espresso at home every day, you also need to pay attention to the details.

One detail many home baristas overlook is water quality. When buying their machine, they often receive a DeLonghi or Sage water filter – but then leave it in for far too long or never replace it.

Hard water can negatively affect the taste of your coffee, which after all is made up of 98% water.

Over time, it can also damage the inside of your machine. Your boiler, for example, may not heat up properly if there’s too much limescale build-up.

That doesn’t mean you need to run to the store to buy the purest spring water. That would be a waste of money, since tap water works just fine for making delicious espresso.

Simply use a coffee machine water filter. This neutralizes the water. We offer water filters for both machines with a water supply hose and machines with a water reservoir (such as Sage and DeLonghi barista machines)

Sage water filter

With your Sage coffee machine, you should have received a Sage water filter – a small cartridge that clicks into the reservoir. This filter keeps your water limescale-free for about 3 months. After that, you’ll need to replace it with a new one or with a Sage water filter alternative.

Most Sage barista machines have a built-in water reservoir instead of a water supply hose. Our Sage water filter fits perfectly into the adapter at the bottom of the reservoir, making it a great alternative to Sage’s Claro Swiss cartridges.

DeLonghi water filter

Whether you have a fully automatic or a manual DeLonghi machine, keeping it free from limescale is essential. That way, you’ll enjoy delicious coffee from it for much longer.

Just like Sage water filters, most DeLonghi water filters come in the form of a small cartridge that you secure in the water tank of your machine. This keeps your DeLonghi free from limescale for about 3 months.

If you’re looking for a good alternative to the DeLonghi water filters sold by the brand itself, take a look at our DeLonghi water filter from AlaPure. They’re super easy to use: simply rinse the pouch and place it in a filled water tank.

Now you’ll once again have a limescale-free machine for 3 months without any hassle. And you’ll save money too, since the original DeLonghi water filters are fairly expensive

How do you know if you need a water filter?

Every home barista who uses tap water for extraction benefits from having a water filter in their espresso machine. Depending on where you live, your water may contain more or less limescale. But one thing is certain: it’s always there.

This can affect the taste of your espresso. If you use your coffee machine for a long time without a water filter, the internal mechanisms will suffer. Your boiler can break down or heat less effectively, and your brew group can become clogged.

Do I need to descale my coffee machine?

If you consistently use a coffee machine water filter and replace it every 3 months, you can prevent a lot of limescale build-up in your machine.

Still, we recommend descaling your machine at least once a year. This is important because limescale build-up can also cause blockages in your brew group and steam wand. The result: less tasty, lukewarm coffee and a machine that won’t last as long.

If you own a Sage machine, it will tell you itself when it’s time to descale, either by lighting up the Descale button or showing it on the display. Read more here about descaling and cleaning your Sage coffee machine.

Add descaling and cleaning to your calendar or planner to make sure you don’t forget it.

For descaling your machine, we recommend Cafetto espresso machine descaler. Simply dissolve it in 1L of water and run it through the different parts of your machine

Different types of coffee machine water filters

Barista-Essentials offers four different water filters for your espresso machine. So make sure to choose the right water filter for your machine.

A spout filter can only be used with espresso machines that have a water supply hose. You’ll see this with brands like ECM, Bezzera, Rocket, and Expobar. It works very easily: just connect the coffee machine spout filter to the water supply.

Then, submerge it in the reservoir. Let your machine draw in some water and wait about half an hour so the filter can fully saturate. After that, you’ll be brewing espressos with wonderfully pure water.

As a second option, there are filter pouches that you place directly in the water reservoir. These are universally compatible with almost any machine.