One minute review
Smeg is a concept that has been around for years and is a favorite of ours. Inspired by their Italian heritage, they use bold colors, unique designs and innovative new materials to differentiate themselves from the crowded home appliance market and therefore compete with others to make the best juicer. (opens in new tab) on the market.
The Smeg CJF01 citrus juicer is no exception. With its retro 50s styling and beautiful pastel blue hue (also available in other colours), it looked great on our kitchen counter.
It does exactly what it’s supposed to do; the citrus juice. It’s also incredibly easy to set up with minimal assembly, and it’s clear how to use it just by looking at the instructions and device.
Smeg claims it has an anti-drip, pop-up spout that allows easy dispensing of liquid in a clean manner. In addition to the design, the universal cone and sieve ensure that you can squeeze both large and small fruit.
At $199.95 / £139 / AU$206, this is what we consider a high-ticket item. Yes, it does what you need, but you can squeeze lemons in a much cheaper way with a little more manual work – although it takes less effort with the Smeg CJF01 citrus juicer on hand.
Smeg CJF01 citrus press: price and availability
- MSRP: $199.95 / £139 / AU$206
- Widely available
The Smeg CJF01 costs $199.95 / £139 / AU$206 and is widely available through resellers. You can’t buy it directly from Smeg, but you can find out where to buy it through their website. (opens in new tab)
It is the only citrus juicer from Smeg in all available regions. They also have the Smeg slow juicer (opens in new tab) which is a more versatile option – it just doesn’t do citrus.
- Price and availability score: 3/5
Design
- Beautiful colours; pastel blue, pink, cream, pastel green & white
- Retro 50s Styling
- No buttons, switches or dials
The Smeg CJF01 citrus juicer is a very nice device. If you already own one of the brand’s 1950s-style refrigerators, coffee makers, or kettles, it feels like a natural choice to use in your kitchen.
In Smeg’s own words, it’s a device that’s “designed to show off,” and it does. It has smooth curved lines and everything you need to juice a variety of citrus fruits. It measures 1.86 x 7.8 x 6.2 inches / 29.5 x 20 x 16 cm (HxWxD), so this is also a stand-up juicer – some might even say bulk. There are no buttons, switches or dials to press or hold, adding to its appeal, not to mention ease of use.
The 70W motor with integrated on-off sensor does all the work that is activated by pressing half of the fruit down until it is dry. The juice flows from the anti-leak spout, and while this channels the liquid very well, we found that, unfortunately, it drips – even after you remove your barrel underneath.
It comes with a removable cover to protect it when not in use (which can also be used as a bowl to hold the peel), and all components are removable for washing, making the device easy to use from start to finish. is quick and easy to use.
Performance
- Easily squeeze the citrus fruits
- Very easy to use
- No built-in sieve for pulp or small kernels
We found the Smeg CJF01 citrus juicer very easy to assemble, very user-friendly and equally easy to clean. We squeezed every citrus fruit we could find at our local greengrocer – grapefruit, orange, nadorcotts (a type of clementine), lemon and lime – and even a kiwi, which had some logic behind the decision.
The spout is not adjustable, so we were quite limited to what glass/barrel to use. Fortunately, we had a pair of the same glasses that worked well for juicing all the citrus fruits in line — and for the purpose of this review. The height to the base of the spout is 120mm, so a barrel of this height is what you need to drip the juice comfortably.
We started big with the orange. We cut it in half (widthwise), placed it meat side down on the juicer and applied some pressure. The engine started and started spinning the juice cone in the orange half. It only took a few seconds for the juice to start dripping through the drip spout into the glass.
Then we squeezed a few nadorcotts. Juice extraction was good, but the rind of this particular citrus is not as thick or waxy as the lemon and it started to fall apart in our hands. When he started to do this, I stopped juicing, the motor turned off automatically and I could see that he had quickly eaten away at the fleshy fruit.
The lemon and lime juice was extracted efficiently and the peels were intact after all the juice had been extracted. The larger pips were collected on the sieve, but with the lime in particular, smaller pips ended up in the glass, so you want (also) a small sieve (opens in new tab) to filter out anything you don’t want in the juice.
Squeezing grapefruit with the Smeg CJF01 was by far the easiest way to do this. Grapefruits are large and often have a tough skin, so use a manual citrus press (opens in new tab) took a lot more effort (in this case) to extract the juice – we did try, for comparison.
The juice cone worked quickly through the pulp and a lot of fruit came out on the sieve, but some seeds came through.
I decided to try juicing a kiwi purely out of curiosity. The logic was that I could easily cut it in half and it contains soft fruit for the juice cone to work its magic on. However, pressing a kiwi with a citrus press is not recommended. The skin is very thin and the pulp doesn’t make juice – we thought it was a good experiment, though.
While juicing all the fruit we mentioned above, we measured a consistent noise level of 54 dB, which, for context, is only a little louder than moderate rainfall, so it’s super quiet. This device isn’t going to be the early morning wake-up call we’re all afraid of — that could be something else.
| attributes | Comments: | Rating |
| Price & affordability | It’s what we consider a high ticket item and while it looks and works beautifully, there are more affordable ways to juice citrus. It’s nice that it’s available everywhere. | 3/5 |
| Design | The smooth lines, ease of assembly and ease of use make this a very attractive device, but it is voluminous. | 4.5/5 |
| Performance | The citrus juice very well. Just a pity that small seeds and pieces of fruit ended up in the glass. | 4.5/5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
- First assessment: July 2022
