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Rival your local barista and pour the perfect at-home brew.
Going to a café is great – any fictitious member of the Friends ensemble will tell you that, given that the six of them practically propped up Central Perk for a decade. But, sometimes, you just want to kick back with a cuppa at home. The solution: it's high time you bought one of our best affordable coffee machines.
These at-home marvels can deliver delicious espressos, cappuccinos and more at the touch of a button or two. Could it BE any easier? There is a slight snag, though. With so many options on the market nowadays, finding the right one for you (at the right price) can be a handful.
Luckily, Digital Spy has cut through the noise and tested some of the best value coffee machines on the market to bring you our top picks.
Here are our favourites:
We focused our testing on three of the most popular types of at-home coffee machine: pod, espresso and bean-to-cup. Each one has pros and cons, and finding the right type for you will depend on your beverage of choice, budget, knowledge, time constraints and personal preferences.
Here's a quick overview of each machine's strengths and weaknesses.
Pod: These machines are the kings of convenience, perfect for whipping up a quick ad break cuppa. They make single-serve drinks from a predetermined quantity of coffee grounds, sealed in a pod.
All you have to do is place a pod in the designated slot and shut the lid of the machine, piercing the capsule. Press go and water will be pushed through the coffee grounds, extracting the flavour. An espresso is made from the resulting mixture in a matter of minutes. You won’t have too much control over your coffee, but if it's ease and convenience you're after, look no further.
Espresso: If you know your ristretto from your lungo, this is the machine for you. You'll need skill and knowledge to get the most out of an espresso machine, but the personalised results are well worth the extra effort.
Similarly to pod machines, they draw flavour from coffee grounds. However, this time around they're loose, so you'll need to measure the correct amount out then tamp them down with the appropriate pressure to make your ideal bev. This process takes a little longer than pod machines, but gives you a more authentic coffee-making experience. Most also come with a steam wand, a handy tool if you favour milk-based drinks or fancy perfecting your latte art.
Bean-to-cup: As the name suggests, these machines can turn coffee beans into a steaming cup of espresso faster than you can say 'Miss Chanandler Bong' (well, almost anyway).
Their greatest strength is the fact that they have an in-built grinder for reducing beans to coffee grounds. They're also surprisingly simple to use, and will carry out most elements of the brewing process autonomously; grinding, extracting and pouring. You'll have plenty of control over variables such as drink size, coffee strength and extraction time, too, so you can adjust each one to make your perfect drink.
Much like Ross, Rachel and co, our dedicated tester made their way through hundreds of coffees. But, instead of just having a quick catch-up, they set out to find which machines gave the best results.
The top models provided consistency and efficiency, able to deliver different drinks with the desired flavour profile time and time again. If they had an automatic milk frother or steam wand, we also made sure these were able to create the sought-after, velvety texture that cappuccinos depend on with both milk and dairy-free alternatives.