22
OBSESSIONS
FEBRUARY 2020
THE HIGH-TECH TREAT
Vitamix A3500
($620, vitamix.com)
The newest addition
to the Vitamix family
comes with all of the
bells and whistles—
there’s a touch screen
and a timer that turns
the machine off when
you’re done blending,
and it can sense con-
tainer sizes. And while
it’s fairly loud on its
highest settings, it pro-
duced the thickest and
creamiest smoothie
of the bunch. The
self-clean function is
thorough, but for extra-
tough juice stains,
don’t be afraid to give it
an extra rinse.
THE PRECISION PICK
Breville Super Q
($500, breville.com)
With 12 surprisingly
quiet speed settings
and five preset options,
this blender allows for
lots of customization,
whether you’re making
a juice, dip, or soup.
Our smoothie turned
out quite frothy, so
we’d call this result the
opposite of the Vitamix
in terms of texture. The
best part? It comes
with a personal blender
cup that you can
mount directly onto the
machine, which means
there’s one less thing
to clean at the end of
the day.
THE STRAIGHT SHOOTER
KitchenAid K400
($250, kitchenaid.com)
Although this blender was the loudest option we
tested, the adjustable knob makes for a straight-
forward user experience (no touch screens here!).
The smoothie was also refreshingly chilled after
blending. That, plus the very efficient 13-second
self-clean cycle that requires minimal follow-up
rinsing, made this blender our favorite overall.
The new class of blenders can detect con-
tainer sizes, churn out steaming-hot soups
without the use of a stove, and whip even
the gnarliest greens and roots into sub-
mission with ease. We pitted some of the
category’s newest offerings against one
another in a smoothie taste test and took
note of noise levels, ease of cleaning, and,
of course, the blended results. —OSET BABUR
The Whiz Kids Our
favorite new blenders
EDITORS’ PICKS
photography by CAITLIN BENSEL
