The Rancilio Invicta espresso machine made its debut at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Boston. Photo by Howard Bryman / Daily Coffee News
Italian espresso equipment company Rancilio Group has revealed the second commercial espresso machine in the five-year-old Rancilio Specialty line, the Rancilio Invicta.
Introduced to the United States earlier this month at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Boston, the Invicta joins the RS1 in the Specialty line, maintaining the RS1’s modern styling and large touchscreen interface.
(Find DCN’s complete 2022 SCA Expo coverage here.)
Photo by Howard Bryman / Daily Coffee News
Where the Invicta differs is by forgoing the RS1’s multi-boiler system and temperature profiling capabilities in favor of the company’s Steady Brew single-boiler heat-exchange system.
Photo by Howard Bryman / Daily Coffee News
The Steady Brew technology maintains precise group temperatures through the addition of an upper third circulatory tube that further stabilizes water delivery.
T-switches at each group allow for temperature variability between the groups through the adjustment of valves. A flushing feature called Smart Purge runs the precise amount of water through the group before a shot to ensure the specified temperature of brew water is ready.
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“We found that this is more accurate than a lot of double boilers that are on the market,” former Rancilio North America Marketing and Development Manager Andrew Bettis told Daily Coffee News in Boston. “A heat exchanger is really driven by physics, so it’s going to do the same thing every time.”
Shot profiles — including variable pressure for soft pre-infusion, full-pressure extraction and then a lower-pressure post-infusion — are all digitally programmable through the Invicta’s touchscreen.
Photo by Howard Bryman / Daily Coffee News
The machine is named after a historic Rancilio model that boasted Rancilio’s first horizontal boiler when it was introduced in 1950. The 2022 Rancilio Invicta carries the baton of innovation for the brand with its novel heat exchanger and shot profiling technology.
The appearance in Boston, where the Invicta was the official espresso machine of the inaugural United States Latte Art Championship, marked the official launch of Invicta sales.
Available with black, white or stainless steel exteriors, a 2-group Rancilio Invicta starts at $11,700.
Photo by Howard Bryman / Daily Coffee News
[Editor’s note: This story has been updated. A previous version of this story included quotes and technical information received from a Rancilio source that were later determined by the company to be inaccurate or misleading.]
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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