Table of Contents
Coffee machine FAQs
What type of coffee machine is best?
Pod (or capsule) coffee machines tend to be looked down upon by espresso enthusiasts, but they are the easiest and most convenient way to make coffee at home. They use one sealed capsule of fine-ground coffee for each drink. All you have to do is put it in the machine and press one button. In the long run, pods can be expensive, and you’re limited as to what kind of coffee you can make. They’re also not always recyclable, although there are more and more eco-friendly pods popping up on the market.
Manual espresso machines require a little bit more skill to use – but the results are worth it. They’re the kind you see in a coffee shop and use a scoop of ground espresso to produce a barista-standard coffee. The downside is that they can be tricky to get the hang of, are more expensive than pod machines and create a bit more mess.
Bean-to-cup coffee machines handle every part of the process at the touch of a button – from grinding the beans, to making the coffee, to frothing the milk. The downside is that they tend to be expensive and more tricky to clean.
Filter machines offer ease and value for money. It simply presses water through ground coffee into a jug or receptacle, providing an easy and cost-effective way to make coffee for multiple people at once. As these are a different kettle of fish entirely – they just produce black filter coffee, not espresso – I haven’t included them in my list of the ‘best’ below.
Cafetières / French press coffee makers are not actually ‘machines’ but represent another, more affordable way to make great-tasting coffee at home. If you want to dip your toe into coffee making without investing in a machine, it’s worth reading the Telegraph guide to the best cafetières.
Coffee glossary
- Crema: The fine, aromatic froth that sits on top of a shot of espresso.
- Portafilter: The handle and holder for the ground coffee filter that’s used with an espresso machine.
- Extraction: The process of drawing flavour from coffee grounds to make a shot of espresso.
- Espresso: A coffee made by forcing hot water through coffee grounds at high pressure.
- PID: Proportional-Integral-Derivative – a digital temperature control mechanism. Where a traditional thermostat simply turns the heat off when a set temperature is exceeded, a PID system uses a sophisticated algorithm to ensure coffee is extracted at the optimum temperature.
What factors should you consider when choosing a coffee machine?
“It’s a massive rabbit hole – I’ve been in the industry for 10 years, but I still have to play around with recipes to get it right,” says specialty coffee trainer Jon Townsend. “There are a lot of variables in coffee, and you can either take control of those and change them how you want, or you can make it easier for yourself.”
To be honest, we hadn’t previously given much these variables much consideration. It may sound obvious, but factors including the the coarseness of the grind and water filtration make a big difference to the taste of the cup you end up with.
In fact, Ewelina Kania, general manager of a personal favourite coffee shop of mine – Prufrock, in Farringdon, London – tells me you should never put tap water in any coffee machine. Yikes. There’s a gadget that can help called Peak Water, which is a specialist water filter jug for coffee. High-end coffee machines should have an inbuilt water filter.
The other (perhaps unexpected) piece of kit you need for great coffee is a kitchen scale. “The two key things are water quality and the kitchen scale – one of the most under-appreciated pieces of equipment,” Wilson Jimenez, founder of speciality coffee company Piqant, tells me. “Weighing your coffee will mean you get consistently good coffee – rather than relying on a tablespoon or eyeballing.”
To make things more complicated still, the recipe ie. the amount of ground coffee per shot varies depending on who you ask. Baristas tend to use between 15 to 26 grams, depending on the machine, the roast of the coffee and the type of drink they’re making.
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