Coffee Maker Recommendation

Here is a thorough review of “bean to cup” machines by James Hoffman, an all things coffee expert known for great reviews. He reviews each for quality of coffee, quality of coffee drink, and functionality. He is really unimpressed with the expensive miele, especially the quality of the coffee, which he found to be the worst of the bunch.

His comments on the miele hint at a larger issue when considering spending big bucks on one of these do everything, super-auto machines. If you want to be able to make a excellent espresso or espresso based drink – the kind you might get at a quality shop and just say WOW, that is incredible! – then IMO fresh quality coffee, a traditional machine (for brewing and steam), and a separate quality grinder (sometimes as expensive as the brewer/steamer) will give you much better bang for your buck.

On the other hand, chasing a consistently great espresso drink can be a rabbit hole, and some people just don’t want to deal with it, and so they gravitate toward machines that will do a good job with (somewhat) less hassle. Hopefully the reviews above will help you sort some of these choices.

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