Men’s Journal on the $500 Keurig Alta: Great Lattes, Hard to Justify

Men’s Journal has reviewed the $500 Keurig Alta, and while reviewer Tercius Bufete calls it Keurig’s best machine yet, his answer to whether it’s worth the money is a polite no.

What he liked: the milk drinks. The built-in frother does hot milk and cold foam quietly, and his wife rated a latte from it very highly. He found the drip-style coffee richer than a regular Keurig but nowhere near pour-over, and the espresso only okay, short on the body you’d get from a real espresso machine. He also counts it as a plus that the Alta still takes ordinary K-Cups alongside the new plastic-free AltaRounds.

The gripes are practical. Purging the steam wand sometimes sprays past the drain hole, you can’t pull a shot and froth milk at the same time, and iced drinks come out watered down because the brew is still hot enough to melt most of the ice. He’s hoping a firmware update fixes that last one.

Then there’s the running cost. By his math, AltaRounds work out to about $1.25 to $1.37 a cup (boxes of eight at $10 to $11) versus roughly 50 cents to $1 for K-Cups, before milk. He notes Keurig’s AutoRefresh subscription knocks $1.50 off a box. For the same $500 he points to the Ninja Luxe Café Mini Plus, and for better espresso for less, a Breville Bambino.

Our take: that lines up with most of the Alta reviews we’ve rounded up. It’s a latte machine first. If you mostly drink plain coffee, you’re paying a lot to keep using the K-Cups you already have. Our AltaRounds explainer and Keurig cost-per-cup breakdown will help you run your own numbers.