17 Best Bean to Cup Coffee Machines of 2022

In this post, I’m exploring the 17 perfect bean to cup coffee machines of 2022 in the UK.

This includes comparisons of features, however also my own thoughts on each machine based on my understanding of bean to cup coffee machines, and based on the experience I’ve had with each machine.

I’ve used the majority of of these machines myself, usually rather widely for my individual blog article reviews and YouTube reviews, and any that I’ve not yet got my hands on as of yet, I will do soon and I’ll update this post accordingly. 

So if you’re shopping for a bean to cup coffee makeking equipment and you wanted some ideas and comparisons by someone who knows a little about the machines in matter, then this is for you. 

I don’t know about you, but when I’m shopping for anything, and I’m searching Google for “the perfect <whatever>”, I get slightly frustrated when I come to the realisation that I’m reading a scraped together list of sales blurb that I could have found myself, and the article doesn’t in fact help me in any way. 

So this isn’t one of them – this is, hopefully, the the majority of helpful guide on the web for when it comes to the best bean to cup coffee machines available in the UK. This article also contains a big bean to cup coffee makeking equipment FAQ, so scroll down to the bottom of this article for that.

My aim is to provide the reader with real insight into which of these bean to cup machines may be perfect for you, including reviews from my own experience every time possible.

I’m working my way through these machines in terms of very having them in my kitchen for a week or so, to help me to give even more helpful insight than would be possible with science study alone. 

I’ve used an increasing number of these machines, there are only a few bean to cup coffee machines I’ve not yet used, and when it comes to these I’m going purely from scientific research study, but I do put quite a little of time into doing this scientific research study. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you basically how long I spend researching these machines…

So all of this info must be useful and insightful even if the machine in issue isn’t one I’ve personally reviewed as of yet.

Perfect Bean to Cup Espresso machines.

Basically to point out, I’m specifically referring to the perfect bean to cup espresso coffee machines, and doesn’t include bean to cup drip coffee machines, for these machines, see:

Best American coffee Machines

Why Buy a Bean to Cup Machine?

If you want true espresso at home, or in the workplace, or both if you work from home as the majority of of us do at the moment, you only basically have two options, a semi-automatic traditional espresso coffee machine with a mill, or a bean to cup espresso coffee machine (primarily known as fully automatic or super automatic espresso machines across the pond).

Going the traditional route with an espresso coffee machine doesn’t literally mean buying a coffee makeking tool, it likewise indicates developing the needed home barista skills.

There’s no doubt about it, if you want to be able to produce drinkable espresso coffee and espresso-based coffees utilizing a classic espresso coffee machine, this indicates embarking upon the home barista hobby, which is fantastic if that’s what you’re setting out to do.

But if all you want is a coffee makeking tool capable of espresso-based coffees at the touch of a button, then it’ll be a bean to cup coffee makeking device you’re after. 

If you’ve landed on this page searching for a coffee brewing tool, and at this point, you’re not sure which is the best type of coffee brewing tool for you, I’d advise this post:

How To Choose The Perfect Coffee machine For Any Budget

Something often overlooked when it comes to buying a coffee machine is the importance of the quality of coffee that you choose to utilize. It doesn’t matter how good or expensive the machine is, you need to work with decent coffee beans if you want decent coffee. Another way to put this is, put crap in, get crap out ;-).

I buy coffee beans from loads of different sources, all freshly roasted high-quality coffee of course, and we’re basically lucky in the UK with the sheer number of small-batch coffee roasters here now, most of which you’ll find in my UK coffee roasters directory. 

However a while back, I was helped by my fellow coffee botherers (this is what I refer to my readers as, so that’s you now since you’re here reading this) to put together a small range of special coffee beans, just for them, focusing on the flavour profiles that were requested the most. This grew into The Coffeeworks, which is now a thriving business supplying a range of (at the time of writing) 16 freshly roasted coffees. 

Why not give them a go, and work with the discount code below if you do:

Work with discount code CBNC25 for 25% off your first order at Coffeeworks

What Type of Bean to Cup Espresso coffee Machine?

The main types of bean to cup machine are manual milk frothing, and auto milk frothing. The latter are often called “one touch” bean to cup machines or “one touch cappuccino” machines.

The difference is that the standard, manual milk frothing machines come with a steam wand, and the user has to steam and pour the milk themselves.

Auto milk frothing “one touch” bean to cup machines do everything for you including steaming and pouring the milk, you just press a button. 

There are pros and cons for both, nevertheless the main pro for fully auto one-touch machines is ease of use, and for semi-auto the main pros are cost (they’re cheaper), and you have more control over the quality of milk drinks.

With some practice, humans can create way better milk texture and pour much better cappuccino & latte, and particularly flat whites, than is possible with a machine.

Some of the better one touch machines do a fairly good job of cappuccino, latte & latte macchiato at the touch of a button, however I’ve not come across one as of yet that will make a proper flat white. Then again, many baristas can’t make a proper flat white either, but that’s a topic for a future article ;-).

So let’s get on with it, beginning with the lowest price bean to cup machines and moving our way upwards from there. If you want more info on bean to cup coffee machines in general, very scroll to the bottom where you’ll find my FAQ.

Check Price - Amazon UK

Features:

• 1 touch bean to cup (coffee only, not 1 touch milk drinks)
• Front loading easy access water tank: 1.2 litres
• 13 grind settings
• Large dishwasher safe drip tray
• Decent steam power

This has been one of the best selling bean to cup machines on Amazon for numerous years, and as a result, there are a massive number of answered questions.

So this machine has a lot going for it in terms of the user being able to find out all of its quirks & advantages and disadvantages before deciding whether it’s the right bean to cup machine for them. By the way, by far the best answered question in my modest opinion, is this one:

Personalise Your Coffee

Easy to work with control panel for you to literally adapt the coffee strength and length to your preference.

Double Delivery

Prepare two drinks with a single touch of a button, or prepare hot water for tea infusions.

Traditional Milk Frother

Produces a smooth and silky milk foam to create your favourite beverages such as Cappuccino, Caffe Latte, or Latte Macchiato.

Notes about the blurb:

What is mentioned here as a traditional frother is a pannarello wand / turbo steam wand, which most bean to cup coffee machines have.

These are literally a steam pipe with a sheath around it with air holes on the side, intended to foam milk without the learning curve associated with learning to steam milk with a pro steam wand. 

See my video on steaming milk:

Pro steam wands that you’d find on commercial machines, and traditional espresso coffee machines such as the Gaggia Classic Pro & Sage Bambino Plus, take some getting used to, even though the Sage Bambino Plus likewise has an auto steaming role which is extremely impressive for a machine at this price!

Sage Bambino Plus Review

Panarello wands like this one make it much easier to foam milk, nevertheless don’t give you any control over the foam, you simply get whatever the machine wants to give you, which is usually dry, firm cappuccino foam. 

The only Panarello I’ve used which is the exception to this is the De’Longhi Dedica EC685 which has a Panarello which is capable of steaming milk for latte art.

Nevertheless with the ECAM 4200, and with most other bean to cup coffee machines with panarello wands, you can just pull off the sheath and use the steam wand as a basic steam wand.

It takes a little bit of practice to steam milk this way, and you may find you’re happy with the foam produced with the panarello wand, and if you are then wonderful.

My Review

My Observations:

This is one of the lowest price bean to cup coffee machines available.

Very, as far as I’m aware it’s the cheapest bean to cup espresso coffee machine available in the UK right now, and in fact, on paper at least, this machine as more going for it in terms of shot quality, than some of the much more expensive bean to cup machines. 

While some of the more expensive machines have some excellent features, especially when it comes to practicality – the ESAM 4200 has as most grind settings as the more expensive De’Longhi machines, and double the number of grind settings of some much more expensive bean to cup machines.

While the 7 grind settings which half step increments doesn’t come close to what you’d expect to find on a stand alone espresso grinding machine, it does give you a little bit more ability to dial in (find the grind that produces the perfect espresso from the beans you’re utilizing).

I used the Esam 4200 as my main espresso machine for a week or so, in order to write my Delonghi Esam 4200 review. And I was really impressed with this bean to cup machine for the low cost, there’s literally nothing offensive about this machine.

I can’t say “oh yeah it’s the cheapest bean to cup machine however here’s why”. Actually, it produces extremely as good shot quality and milk texture as numerous much more expensive machines. 

It’s a fairly compact machine, and everything is well thought out. I enjoy the front loading water tank.

Plenty of steam power and the steam pipe with the Panarello removed works perfectly well for producing decent milk texture, as you can see from a couple of photos of my latte art attempts above.

The only niggle I found with this machine is that it’s difficult to get back to the exact same settings.

The volume and strength dials are like volume knobs without any numbers for reference, which I found a little of a pain, but not a deal breaker for such a bargain priced machine.

Check Price - Amazon UK

Check Price – Amazon UK

Features:

• Easy access front loading water tank: 1.8L
• Adjustable brew group height for different sized cups
• Steam wand doubles as hot water tap
• Fairly quiet grinding with 13 settings.

Blurb:

The ECAM22 will create you the wonderful espresso coffee at the touch of a button as well as giving you the opportunity to make cafe style milk based drinks such as cappuccinos and lattes.

Beautifully brewed, this wonderful piece of engineering will allow you to start the day with the great coffee consume to suit you and will look stunning on your kitchen surface.

The machine has a silent integrated coffee grinder with 13 settings so that you can tailor your coffee to your exact taste buds.

Espresso coffee. The simple rotation of the dial lets you increase or decrease the coffee intensity. By pressing the corresponding buttons you can choose between short or long coffees.

Cappuccino. Cappuccino System equipment is ideal to produce a rich, creamy froth for perfect cappuccinos

Latte. Cappuccino System device is perfect to produce a rich, creamy froth for excellent lattes

Notes about the blurb:

“Cappuccino system device” – is just the Panarello wand. It does irritate me when manufacturers try to make up cooler sounding names for bog basic implements… 

My Observations:

In my simple opinion, this is quite the majority of machine for the money.

It doesn’t cost a fantastic deal more than the ESAM 4200, and it does have rather a few more features and refinements, which would make me tempted by this machine vs the mildly cheaper choice, if I was on the market for a bean to cup machine.

It has a ridiculous number of Amazon reviews, which are really positive overall.

Obviously, there will always be negatives, but several of them appear to be rating the supplier rather than the machine.

For instance, there are multiple reviews referring to the machine having been sent to a UK address with an EU plug, and of course, this is a rating of the supplier, not the machine. 

By the way, the reason this may happen is if you’ve (possibly unknowingly) purchased from a third party seller. Sometimes there is more than one supplier option available, and some may be cheaper than others.

The problem with just choosing the cheapest supplier is that there are a number of firms that sell coffee machines in the UK from Italy and other countries.

Machines purchased from these firms are likely to come with an EU plug, and they may come with a return to Italy warranty too, so it’s worth doing some due diligence and just checking who you’re buying your machine from if it’s not a machine that is dispatched and sold by Amazon. 

Check Price – Amazon UK

Simply a quick update re the Ecam E22, readers have pointed out to me that there’s a new version of this, which is about the same price but has been released more recently. A few people have asked me if I can explain the difference. 

Best Delonghi Machines

Check Price – Amazon UK

DeLonghi actually likes using numbers ;-), 21.110, 21.116, 21.117, just keep in mind that the first part of the number, in this case, ECAM 21, is the main model number, and the B or S is the colour (black or silver), and the final number is the specific variation, which is purely aesthetic differences as far as I’m able to tell. 

The 21.117 appears to differ from the first version of this model (21.110) literally with the colour of the Panarello wand and other slight colour differences, I can’t find any meaningful differences in specs, and I think there are unlikely to be as they’ll usually release a new model truly to change something humble like the steam wand. 

This leads me to the other variation of the Magnifica S, the ECAM250 which as far as I can see, other than slight aesthetic differences only differs due to the steam wand. 

Check Price – Amazon UK

As I’ve simply explained, they’ve given this a different model number, the Magnifica S Smart 250, but other than a few changes in the format of the controls, and very slight aesthetic differences, it appears (I’ve used both) to be the same machine except for the steam wand. 

Personally, although, even though a steam wand might not seem like a reason to go for a different model, I’d go for this one over the other similar versions of the machine, as long as the prices are similar, basically because I think this is the perfect Panarello steam wand that I’ve ever come across.

Panarello is the name for the sheath over the steam pipe which automatically injects air into the milk or milk alternative, and while I’m not a huge fan of these milk frothers, they are really, extremely simple to utilize, which is why so numerous domestic coffee machines feature them. DeLonghi came up with this particular version of Panarello steam wands with the DeLonghi Dedica EC685 traditional espresso machine (at least I think that’s the first machine this wand featured on, please correct me if I’m wrong), and I was basically surprised the first time I used it. 

It enables the same almost automatic frothing as with the standard Panarello, where the position of the tip of the wand relative to the surface has little impact, but it likewise has a literally clever little feature that I think is really underrated, which is the ability to switch it from stretching to just heating. 

Basic Panarello wands give you no control over how far you stretch the milk, which is why utilizing wands like this tends to give you in fact stiff old school cappuccino foam. With this one, but, you’re able to decide when you’ve pulled enough air into the milk, and at that point, you can simply change the setting so it’s only heating, and you’ll end up with microfoam.

This is a great feature, though you don’t have to utilize it. With both this type of Panarello and the basic one, you can slide it off and use the pipe underneath as a pro steam wand. There’s a knack to this, but once you’ve got it, you’ll be able to produce a excellent milk texture which is just as stretched, and just as hot as you prefer it.

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

Features.

• Dimensions: L25.5 x H33 x D42.5 cm
• Thermoblock boiler
• Steam wand doubles as hot water tap
• Auto Cleaning
• Ceramic Burrs
• Removable Brew Group
• Digital display
• Removable Water tank: 1.2 litres
• Coffee Bean Capacity: 250 grams
• Dump Box Capacity: 8 servings
• Adjustable Cup Height
• Panarello Steam/Hot Water Arm
• Adjustable Coffee Dosage

Blurb:

The Gaggia Brera is a compact bean-to-cup espresso coffee machine in a stylish, modern design. The Brera is humble to use and allows easy access to the water tank and coffee ground waste via the front of the machine.

The Brera allows for customisation of your preferred ingest. The easy to use controls provide control over the grind of the coffee, the amount of coffee used in each espresso shot, and controlling the length of each shot.

My Review

My Observations:

I think this is a brilliant little bean to cup coffee brewing tool for a relatively low cost.

I used it for a week or so every day, as my home machine in order to write my Gaggia Brera Review, and I was extremely impressed.

It’s relatively quiet, it’s really easy to use, the steam power is nice & strong, and FAST, plus steam is ready really quickly. Removing the Panarello wand leaves a fairly long steam pipe which works rather well as a fundamental steam wand.

My only niggles are that I wish it had more grind settings (the two De’Longhi machines above are slightly cheaper, and have more grind settings), and I found the grind adjusting a little bit stiff.

Although to be fair, the difference between 5 to 10 grind settings isn’t literally going to make much of a difference, and I do realise that several bean to cup users won’t be touching the grind much anyway, so for a lot of people, this probably won’t question. 

If you’re especially fussy about dialing in (getting the grind spot on with each bean) you’re probably not going to be going for a bean to cup machine. 

If shot quality is the the majority of important thing to you, and you want to be able to perfectly dial in every time, even the likes of the Sage Oracle & Sage Oracle Touch which in my opinion are the really best bean to cup machines when it comes to shot quality, won’t get you as close to perfection as a representative espresso coffee machine in the hands of a competent home barista. 

By the way, I usually find Amazon to be the perfect source of deals for coffee machines, but in this case – and with many Gaggia machines literally, Gaggia Direct, (the UK distributor for Gaggia) usually offers the best deal.

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

Also see my review on youtube:

Check Price – Amazon UK  Check Price – Currys

Features:

• Auto pre-infusion (for enhanced shot quality).
• Compact & stylish
• Easy cleaning
• Cappuccinatore system for one touch milk
• Humble to use

Blurb:

The Melitta Caffeo Solo & Excellent Milk bean to cup coffee machine is the great combination of compact design and feature-packed technology that steeps creating a great tasting coffee cup quick and easy.

Easy Operation.  The Melitta Caffeo Solo & Fantastic Milk has an intuitive operating panel with a pared-down LED symbol display to keep things modest and straightforward.

There are two pre-programmed coffee settings plus special programmes for both lattes and tall coffees. Coffee strength and descaling and cleaning programmes can also be accessed by selecting the appropriate symbol.

Auto Cappuccinatore. Makes indulgent creamy coffees and light work of preparing hot water, warm milk, and light, frothy milk. You can set the desired amount manually using the dial.

Aroma Extraction System. To increase your coffee satisfaction the Melitta Caffeo Solo moistens the freshly ground coffee prior to brewing which releases the subtle flavours of the coffee. The ability to fix the grind size and coffee strength in three stages will allow you to learn your best taste.

Height Adjustable Coffee Outlet. The height adjustable coffee outlet can easily accommodate latte macchiato glasses or mugs. The coffee outlet likewise allows you to make two cups at once using the double cup mode.

Cleaning and Maintenance. The Melitta Caffeo Solo & Wonderful Milk features a removable brewing unit that can be rinsed clean under running water. It likewise allows the interior of the coffee makeking tool to be cleaned with a damp cloth. The Melitta Caffeo bean to cup coffee brewing equipment will alert you if cleaning and descaling are required.

Melitta Companion App. This app features tips and tricks on how to get the perfect from your machine and make the excellent coffee plus illustrated step-by-step instructions for maintenance programmes and help with understanding the status of the coffee makeking equipment via the diagnostic tool.

My Observations:

This is an auto frothing bean to coffee makeking tool, and this is one of the lowest-priced options.

For the price, which at the time of writing is cheaper than the De’Longhi Magnifica S Ecam E22 above, and only slightly more expensive than the ESAM 4200, this is an impressive looking machine. 

The Solo uses a cappuccinatore for frothing the milk, vs a carafe system, which is one of the reasons (I think) for the lower cost of this machine, but literally, I think the cappuccinatore system has a lot going for it.

Instead of having to take out a milk carafe and put it in the fridge, or wash it out each time – you simply put the cappuccinatore pipe into your milk bottle, the milk is then sucked up the pipe, frothed, and delivered into your cup.

Again, auto milk frothing whether delivered with this system or via a carafe isn’t going to give you much in terms of control of your milk texturing, however for the majority of people who appreciate ease of utilize over anything else, I think this machine has a lot going for it at this price. 

It has the majority of Amazon reviews, which is always handy, as it indicates you can spend some time going through them and looking for recurring benefits and drawbacks.

By doing this, you can determine whether there may be some cons that would make a genuine difference to whether or not this would be the best bean to cup coffee brewing equipment for you.

In particular, I like to spend time going through the mid star ratings.

I find if you look at the one star reviews you’re usually looking at faults or people reviewing the supplier. 

in the middle of the stars, around 3 & 4  are where you tend to find the interesting comments that may help you to determine if the advantages and disadvantages according to hundreds of users, suit your particular requirements. 

If you spend some time reading the reviews, you’ll see that there have been a fair amount of faults, which have led to the replacement of parts or the entire machine.

The biggest complaints I’ve seen are about milk temperature and the quality of the milk foam.

It does appear to be a trending niggle, so if milk temperature and/or quality of the milk texture are especially important to you, this may not be the perfect machine for you. 

Having said that, I would never expect any one touch milk frothing machine to deliver an incredible milk texture.

So if you’re someone who drinks many milkies, and if you want great milk texture, I’d go for a manual milk frothing bean to cup coffee makeking equipment.

Take off the Panarello to utilize the steam pipe as a steam wand – or look at the likes of the Sage Oracle, or Sage Oracle Touch which have pro steam wands, and can create brilliant milk texture, but I’ll speak about these machines shortly.

Check Price – Amazon UK  Check Price – Currys

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

Features:

• Professional steam wand
• Fully customised coffees including temperature
• Espresso coffee, Espresso coffee lungo, Coffee, Americano, hot water & hot milk (via steam wand)
• 1.8 Litre water tank
• Stainless steel drip tray
• Automatic pre-infusion
• Removable brew group for easy cleaning.
• 250g hopper capacity.

Blurb:

Adjustable Espresso coffee Tray
The adjustable cup tray ensures the perfect height for producing stunning espresso with minimal disruption to the crema, and reduced splashing. 

Pre-Brewing
Pre-brewing, also discussed as pre-infusion, improves the quality of espresso coffee by pre-wetting the grounds before the commencement of espresso brewing.

Removable Brew Group
The brew group, or brewing unit, is the heart of the machine. This auto-doses and auto-tamps the coffee for all your espressos, and keeping it clean of coffee oils is a needs to. Being able to literally remove the brew group and rinsed under a tap, and easily slotted back in place, makes this important maintenance super easy.

Bypass Chute for Pre-Ground Coffee
In addition to the coffee beans choice, an easy solution to brew different ground coffee blends, included decaffeinated

Quick Heat Boiler
The Quick Heat boiler ensures hot beverages from the first cup without the waiting. Its secret lies in its body brewed in light aluminium and stainless steel, which can reach hot temperatures fast.

My Observations

If you mainly ingest milkies, and if milk texture is important to you, this may just be your great bean to cup coffee brewing equipment. 

As far as I’m aware, this is the first non-commercial bean to cup coffee brewing device available in the UK other than the £1500-£2000 Sage Oracle and Sage Oracle Touch, which features a proper steam wand.

At the price of this machine (currently £550 at Gaggia Direct) given the level of control you have over shots, including shot temperature, and given it comes with a pro steam wand, I think this is an extremely interesting bean to cup machine. 

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

Features:

• Professional steam wand
• Fully personalised coffees including temperature
• Espresso, ristretto, lungo, coffee, Americano, hot water & hot milk (via steam wand)
• 4 separate custom profiles
• 1.5 Litre water tank
• Stainless steel drip tray
• Automatic pre-infusion
• Removable brew group for easy cleaning
• 300g hopper capacity

Blurb:

Italian Excellence 
Proudly brewed in Italy, for premium quality and a never ending passion for espresso creating.

Up to 6 Beverages
Find out the 6 beverages available, all at your fingertips and try the ultimate barista experience at home: ristretto, espresso, espresso coffee lungo, coffee, americano & hot water (for teas and infusions). 

Brand New Wide Screen User Interace
High technology made it even more simple, thanks to a widescreen control panel providing all settings and functions at a glance.

4 User Profiles
4 different user profiles to memorize all beverages, personalised to your heart’s content, easy to alter & easy to save.

Stainless Steel Pro Steam Wand
The must-have tool to unleash your inner barista, the stainless steel steam wand dispenses steam to texture milk to a high – latte art worthy basic, and will likewise deliver hot water for teas and infusions.

Adjustable Espresso Tray
The adjustable cup tray ensures the best height for producing stunning espresso coffee with minimal disruption to the crema, and reduced splashing. 

Pre-Brewing
Pre-brewing, also called pre-infusion, improves the quality of espresso by pre-wetting the grounds before the commencement of espresso brewing.

Removable Brew Group
The brew group, or brewing unit, is the heart of the machine. This auto-doses and auto-tamps the coffee for all your espressos, and keeping it clean of coffee oils is a ought to. Being able to just remove the brew group and rinsed under a tap, and easily slotted back in place, brews this important maintenance super easy.

Bypass Chute for Pre-Ground Coffee
In addition to the coffee beans option, an easy solution to brew different ground coffee blends included decaffeinated

Quick Heat Boiler
The Quick Heat boiler ensures hot beverages from the first cup without the waiting. Its secret lies in its body brewed in light aluminium and stainless steel, which can reach hot temperatures fast.

My Observations

Released in the UK in November 2021 the Cadorna Barista Plus is Gaggia’s second latest bean to cup coffee machine to be crafted available with a professional steam wand.

The steam wand on the Cadorna is mildly bigger than on the Magenta plus, other than that as far as I can see, it’s an exceptionally similar machine nevertheless it has a mildly smaller (1.5L vs 1.8L) water tank, It will produce ristretto, it’s about 3.5cm wider, 2cm taller and about half a cm deeper. It has a bigger display, and it has four personalised user settings.

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

Check Price – Amazon UK Check Price – Currys 

Features:

• Cappuccinatore milk frother
• 21 pre-set coffees
• 1.8 Litre water tank
• Dual hoppers (sort of, nevertheless see my note below on this)
• Connected coffee brewing device – via Melitta Connect app.

Blurb (paraphrased):

• 21 different coffee presets which can be personalised via the Melitta connect App.
• Produces a huge range of coffee shop favourites including Café Crème, Espresso coffee & Latte Macchiato.
• Patented tech including “best aroma system plus”, “Intense Aroma” and “Whisper Grinder”.
• Features two airtight coffee hoppers
• TFT touch screen display
• Automatic cleaning and descaling
• Engineered and manufactured in Germany

My Observations:

This is an interesting machine from Melitta, and the general consensus from people who own the machine is that it’s fantastic when it comes to the coffee side of things, people are mainly impressed with the espresso and Americano this machine will produce, and the huge number of recipes, particularly if using the app. 

The 8 customizable user profiles with personal usernames instead of basically a colour system, for example, is something that people are often extremely impressed by, and the majority of people seem to be impressed with the app, except for those who aren’t… ;-).

Those who’re not impressed with the app, but, I’m uncertain if it’s people with a particular phone or people with a particular version of the firmware, however there seems to be two schools of thought here, either the app connection is truly easy and works well, or it’s awful and doesn’t work adequately. From what I know this is a firmware issue, and models from 2020 and onwards ought to be fine with Android or IOS however don’t quote me.

Talking about the app, I think it’s really a simply clever thing when it comes to the ability to create and edit so the majority of different profiles and the various different coffee recipes you can select via the app, nevertheless there is one part of it that strikes me as a little bit of a mistake, which is the fact that you can do all of this wonderful stuff remotely, including creating coffee – but you have to physically walk up to the machine to turn it on. 

I know, you’d have to walk up to it to put the cup on the drip tray, nevertheless the reason I’d want a smart coffee machine like this would be so I can order my first coffee of the day while I’m still arguing with my alarm clock. There’s no reason you couldn’t put a cup in place the night before, then wake up in the morning and order a coffee via your phone, other than the truth that there’s no way to turn the machine on from the app.

A quick note on the “two hoppers” feature. This machine essentially has a hopper which is split into two sections, and I do think that’s in fact clever, but it’s not best, particularly not if you’re planning to work with one of the hoppers for Decaffeinated. 

The first reason for this is actually that hoppers are the worst place to store coffee beans. I think you’re better off just chucking in roughly the amount of coffee beans you’re about to work with, and keep your coffee in airtight containers, and if you’re doing this then the dual hopper system is neither here nor there. 

I understand, the marketing blurb does say that this is airtight, but I doubt that. I’d love to see some evidence that the hopper is airtight, as I don’t think that’s possible. You can put a rubber seal around the hopper lid, that will stop air from getting into the hopper once the lid is on, but then how is there no air available into the hopper via the burrs? The burrs aren’t touching, there’s a slight gap, and air is pretty small ;-), so I don’t think there’s a way to actually make hoppers air tight. 

How to store coffee beans correctly

Even if there was, by the way, this still doesn’t make hoppers a good place to store coffee beans, because what about the air you’re trapping in the hopper with the beans when you load beans in and then close the lid? With coffee storage solutions usually, you have some way of pushing out the trapped air. 

The other matter with a split hopper like this is that a lot of people will see it as a route for decaffeinated, keeping decaffeinated in one chamber and full caffeine beans in the other and while this works in theory, in practice it’s not a great solution due to exchanged retention. 

Exchange retention is when some of the coffee you ground the last time you made a coffee stays in the mill and ends up being used the next time you make a coffee. This isn’t huge, with domestic machines it tends to only be two or three grams, but the question with dual hoppers and one mill is you also have additional exchanged retention in the form of beans sitting on top of the burrs. 

When the other chamber is selected, there will be beans sitting in the top of the burrs which will be ground first before the fresh beans are ground from the selected hopper chamber, so add this to the exchanged already ground coffee, and I would assume that unless you waste a coffee each time you switch chambers, you’re probably going to be guzzling a fairly even mix of coffees from both hopper chambers, which isn’t excellent for the person who thinks they’re sipping decaf. 

Among the things I like about Melitta is that as with Gaggia bean to cup machines, a double shot is a double shot, and this is among the reasons you’ll see me featuring a few Melitta machines here, and Gaggia machines. 

You can in fact request a double shot, and get a double shot, meaning double the volume of espresso coffee made from double the volume of coffee beans. OK, you can get the same on other machines by basically pressing the single espresso button once, waiting for the espresso to finish pulling, and then pressing it again, however it does make me feel better about an espresso machine when a double shot is just brewed with double the weight of coffee beans.

Re the milk, this is handled with a cap in cup frother, likewise called a cappuccinatore. I mainly prefer this sort of frother to the carafe systems where you have to fill a carafe with milk and slot it onto the machine. They tend to be a little more laborious when it comes to cleaning, and cappuccinatore milk frothers are so simple.

There’s actually a milk pipe which you can put into the milk container which sits next to the machine, or just slap it in your milk bottle, the milk is sucked into the machine, frothed, and delivered into your cup. 

Check Price – Amazon UK 

Check Price – Amazon UK 

Features:

• 7 one-touch coffees (with this version)
• 1.8 Litre water tank
• Carafe milk frother (with this version)
• Colour screen display

Blurb (paraphrased):

Freshly Crafted Coffee
The Magnifica Evo freshly grinds your coffee beans just as your coffee is being brewed, to ensure the freshest espresso and tastiest espresso-based beverages.

Colour Display
Attractive colour control panel with easy to work with soft-touch selections and coloured icons for a range of different one-touch coffee recipes.

LatteCrema System
The new LatteCreama system, exclusive to DeLonghi, enables one-touch milk-based coffees with long lasting rich milk foam at the fantastic temperature and texture.

7 One-touch Recipes
All of your cafe favourites at a single touch of a button.

My Observations:

At the time of writing at least, this is one of the really latest bean to cup coffee machines from DeLonghi. It’s entry to mid-range in terms of price, and it’s quite an impressive little machine, on paper at least. 

The reason I say “with this version” for a few of the features, is that there are a few different versions of this machine, the cheaper Evo 292.33 version for example has a steam wand instead of the one touch carafe, and that one doesn’t have the one touch milk drinks.

It’s a new machine so early days regarding reviews, but the only genuine gripes I’m hearing so far is that the instruction manual isn’t excellent and you’re perfect jumping on YouTube for video setup guides. Also, a few people have pointed out that the milk is a bit on the cool side.

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Features:

• Auto or manual milk-steaming – your choice
• One touch dial for 10 different coffees
• Colour TFT display
• 1.8L water tank
• 2 hopper chambers
• Adjustable brew group for different cup sizes.
• Automatic cleaning and descaling
• Compatible with Melitta Pro water filter cartridges
• Removable extraction chamber for easy cleaning
• Brew temperature control

Blurb:

Be Your Own Barista with the Award-Winning Caffeo CI Touch

Innovative Bean-to-Cup Coffee Maker Accommodates Individual Choice

With its double-sealed 2-chamber Bean Select system for flavour variation, the user-friendly Caffeo CI One-Touch moves swiftly in its mission to optimally extract both flavour and aroma, as beans are systematically pre-wetted to enliven your senses.

This fully-automatic bean-to-cup coffee machine provides 3 brew temperatures, 4 strength levels, and a double-cup option for simultaneous arrival of two drinks.

Its “My Coffee” memory-feature stores up to four personal preferences, and the preference to rotate between Espresso coffee, Cappuccino, and Latte Macchiato (one of others) provides a feeling of an Italian cafe within the comfort of your own home or workplace.

With its smooth surface, refined design structure, and push-button cleaning components, it is well within your reach to maintain the pristine integrity of this innovative and long-lasting Melitta coffee maker.

My Observations:

This is a one-touch, auto milk frothing bean to cup machine, and it appears to have a lot going for it in terms of features for the price.

It has a fair number of Amazon reviews considering it’s only been available for a couple of years (at the time of writing), and there are a lot of positives. 

The dual-chamber hopper – is about as much utilize as a chocolate fireguard, in my humble opinion. If you’re thinking of buying this machine because of this feature, I’d recommend against it.

In theory, it seems a clever idea to have for instance an espresso blend in one chamber and a lighter roasted bean in the other chamber, or full caffeine in one and decaf in the other.

HOWEVER – there’s only one grinder, being fed by two hoppers – well, one hopper split in half.

So when you switch from one hopper to the other, what about the grinds retention, and not only that, what about the beans retention, meaning the beans that are sitting on top of the burrs from the other chamber when you switch chambers?

Simply, you’re going to end up sipping a mix of the coffee from both chambers – unless you make coffee and chuck it away after switching hopper chambers, and how much you’d need to chuck away would depend on the grinding retention and how lots of beans are sitting on top of the burrs, it could be two or even three coffees that you’d need to make and pour away.

So as far as I’m anxious, dual hoppers are completely pointless unless they’re feeding dual grinders, as is the case with the DeLonghi Maestosa, and the Siemens EQ.9 plus connect s700, which both have two separate grinders.

Check Price – Amazon UK  Check Price – Currys

Check Price – Amazon UKCheck Price – Currys

Features:

• Cappuccinatore milk frother
• Extremely slim at under 20cm wide
• 1.5L water tank
• Pre-infusion
• Humble dose control
• 5 grind settings
• Removable brewing unit
• Auto cleaning and descaling
• Espresso coffee & Café Crème from one touch
• Volume settings with markings
• 3 adjustable brew settings

Blurb:

One of the most compact bean to cup coffee machines on the market, the Avanza fires on all cylinders and punches way above its weight class and price class, offering effortless one touch espresso & café crème, plus cappuccino, latte & more via the humble to utilize and modest to clean cappuccinatore frother.

My Observations:

This is a neat looking and relatively new bean to cup coffee brewing device from Melitta, and it seems to be quite a nice little compact machine at the low to mid price range. It’s a cappacinatore machine, which actually indicates that it has the milk frother that would usually be inside a milk carafe, but there’s no milk carafe, so you basically chuck the pipe into your milk bottle, and the frother froths the milk (because that’s generally what frothers tend to so) and delivers it into your cup.

It has three-dose settings with humble bean selections, as with the Gaggia bean to cup machines, and the volume setting is on a dial similar to the DeLonghi machines, nevertheless there are some references in the form of markings around the dial to refer to, although there are no numbers (that could be remedied, with stickers, or Tipp-ex –  stickers would probably look neater…).

This machine doesn’t have a bypass chute, so just keep in mind that you can’t work with pre-ground coffee with it. There are five grinding settings, but the Manufacturer has actually answered a matter about the grind settings in the Amazon questions and answers, which is rather interesting.

Someone has asked about the grinding settings, and Melitta have answered appearing to advise not adjusting the setting at all from the factory pre-set until at least a thousand coffees have been made. This seems odd, I’m sure if they’ve misunderstood the question and are talking about some form of internal burr adjustment, or whether they’re saying that the grind adjustment is only there to be crafted finer over the years as the burrs wear.

Basically keep in mind that this isn’t a fully automatic bean to cup coffee brewing device as the blurb states, not when it comes to how we tend to classify fully automatic in the UK, this may be lost in translation a little bit from one country to another, for example, bean to cup machines are usually spoken about as fully auto or super auto machines in the states, whereas here if we refer to a bean to cup machine as fully auto this would usually be an automatic on the milk side as well as where espresso is anxious. 

There are a few gripes in the reviews stating that they thought they were buying a fully automatic machine, which would produce one touch milkies for them, nevertheless it’s not that sort of machine – it will produce the coffee for you (espresso coffee and Café Crème) on a one touch basis, however the milk is a manual affair, even though all you have to do is stick the pipe into your milk bottle and press the steam button, so there’s not a massive amount of work necessary.

Check Price – Amazon UK

Check Price – Amazon UK

Features:

• 9 one-touch buttons including flat white
• Adjustable milk froth
• Complete control over each coffee including coffee temperature & strength
• Adjustable brew group height for different sized cups
• Intuitive touch control panel
• 2 litre water tank

Blurb:

Improve your every day with Eletta Cappucino, De’Longhi’s innovative automatic coffee maker. Savour a velvety smooth caffe latte or prepare two espresso cups at once and love your coffee with a friend.

Combining cutting-edge coffee technology with trademark Italian style, this sleek white and stainless steel design fits seamlessly into any modern kitchen.

• Coffee and milk based beverages at the touch of a button
• Brew 2 espresso coffee cups at the same time
• Creamy, dense, long-lasting milk foam at the great temperature with the automatic LatteCrema System. Auto clean milk carafe
• Customise aroma and quantity
• White finish with stainless steel detail and button control panel

Notes about the blurb:

Re the “enjoy your coffee with a friend” bit, that’s easier said than done at the moment, eh? Unless you happen to live with your friend of course. 

My Observations:

This is another extremely successful bean to cup coffee brewing equipment from De’Longhi, as you’ll notice if you look at the reviews – it has racked up a tonne of reviews, and the overall rating is really impressive.

Although it’s largely positive, there are a few complaints that the flat white this machine produces isn’t a flat white, and this is no surprise to me. It’s a tall order to get a properly brewed flat white at a coffee shop, let alone from a machine.

If flat whites are your milky of choice, as they are mine, then I’d avoid an auto milk frothing machine, steam your own milk.

Yeah, there’s a learning curve, but once you get it you’ll be able to make better flat whites than you’d get from any machine, and from a lot of coffee shops too.

Check Price – Amazon UK

Check Price – Sage Appliances Check Price – Amazon UK  Check Price – Currys

This isn’t a bean to cup machine, strictly speaking, nevertheless it’s very close – and it may be the absolute excellent machine for some people reading this post, which is why I decided to include it. 

By far my favourite bean to cup machines are the Sage Oracle and Sage Oracle Touch, which I’ll discuss a bit later on., and the Barista Touch is really close to these two machines. It lacks extremely little in reality in the way of bean to cup type features, and it’s about a grand cheaper than the Oracle touch, which is why I think I have to include the Barista touch.

Update: Sage Discount Codes!
If you’re in the UK and you’re thinking of buying any Sage coffee machine or coffee grinder (or any other product from Sage Appliances) you might want to drop me an email. Click here to join my “Brew Time” mailing list, and then email me ([email protected]) to see if I have a current discount code to Share. Sage Appliances sometimes share codes with me, I can’t publish them – and there’s no point as they’re usually time-limited anyway, but they do allow me to share them with subscribers via email.

I’m not including the Sage Barista Express in this post, or the Barista Pro, as I think without the touch screen features these machines are firmly in the home barista semi-auto traditional espresso machine category. 

Features:

• Simple touch screen operation
• 5 pre-programmed coffees
• 6 personalised coffees
• 29 coffee grinder settings
• Automatic or manual milk steaming – your option (automatic produces near-perfect milk texture!)
• Stainless steel construction
• 3 second heat up time

Blurb:

Create third wave speciality coffee at home with ease.

My Observations:

As I pointed out earlier, strictly speaking, the Barista Touch isn’t a bean to cup machine, however there’s only in truth one small bean to cup aspect missing, which is tamping.

The Oracle range that I keep harping on about, is a full bean to cup with one distinct difference, which is that they require the user to just move the coffee around, which does two things. 

First of all, it deals with a problem that bean to cup machine designers have to get around, which is automating dumping the used coffee grounds into the dump box inside the machine and ensuring that the user can’t allow it to overfill. 

Secondly, it gives bean to cup users a more authentic home barista experience. 

While Oracle users are only manually carrying out one small part of the process, moving the portafilter from the grind position to the group head & then knocking out the puck of coffee from the portafilter.

This handling of the portafilter is the main thing a lot of people associate with the Barista experience.

So the Oracle machines allow home espresso machine users to feel like home baristas, and to experience a similar degree of quality in the cup that they’d experience, but without having gone through the home barista learning curve. 

The only extra step a barista touch user has to carry out is tamping (using the tamper to put pressure on the ground coffee in the basket), and truly – this is another key part of the home barista thing.

So for some people, the barista touch is fantastic, providing just a little bit more of the authentic home barista experience without requiring much in the way of developing skills.

Yes, there’s some skill involved in tamping, however it’s not quite at the same level as learning to pull decent shots with a traditional espresso coffee machine without any automation.

Also, the Sage machines come with the razor tool, which ensures a extent surface & the right space between the top of the puck of coffee and the shower screen in the group head.

This does make it harder to mess up the tamp, as the main mistake people make when tamping is either not getting the correct dosage into the basket, or not tamping level. 

By the way, if you think you might enjoy the home barista thing to the point that you may want to very develop the skills quite than rely on automation, the Sage Barista Express is almost half the price of the Barista Touch.

The Barista Pro is the newer version of the Barista Express, and has the same newer thermojet system. There’s also the Sage Dual Boiler, which is the same dual boiler machine as the Oracle & Oracle touch (implies you can pull shots and steam milk at the same time) however without the bean to cup stuff.

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Check Price – Sage Appliances Check Price – Amazon UK  Check Price – Currys

As I’ve referred to, this is one of my two favourite true bean to cup coffee machines.

I say “true” because if we were to take that out of the equation and include the Barista Touch I’ve truly spoken about, I’d say my three favourites, as I think this is a excellent fit for the majority of people looking for a bean to cup coffee makeking equipment.

The Oracle was the first coffee brewing device I ever reviewed. Sage sent me one on loan for a week or so in order to review it, by this point (almost 5 years ago, at the time of writing) I was primarily using manual brewers, and hadn’t yet begun my home barista journey.

I was really impressed with the machine, but it was only once I started the home barista learning curve that I fully appreciated the quality of the coffee and milk texture this machine was able to produce straight out of the box.

Until you’ve tried using a manual espresso coffee machine and you come to realise just how much skill is really involved, you might not fully appreciate just how much work needs to have gone into producing a machine that delivers impacts like this straight out of the box.

Features: 

• Dual Boiler – pull shots and steam milk at the same time for faster coffees
• 2.5L water tank
• Proper low pressure pre-infusion – reduced chance of channeling = increased shot quality
• PID control – ensures stable brew temp = increased shot quality
• Auto on and off – set it to be ready to use when you wake up needing coffee
• Full sized 58mm portafilter – comes in handy when it comes to buying third party accessories, naked portafilters, tampers, baskets, etc.
• Big, concentrated double shots – brewed from 22 grams of coffee
• Auto Dosing & Auto Tamping for as close to fantastic extraction every time
• Auto milk steaming with control over milk temp and texture
• Auto steam wand purging
• One touch Americano / long black – water delivered via a separate water tap, not dispensed through the coffee grounds.

Blurb:

Third Wave Specialty Coffee, without the barista.

My Observations:

Sage (or Breville in Australia who create the machines, we know them as Sage Appliances here) are an exceptionally clever bunch of people.

Sage Coffee Machines – Why You Shouldn’t Buy One Basically Yet

It’s apparent from their products that they take a step back when creating machines & look at things from a fresh perspective, quite than just looking at what others have done. 

They clearly did the majority of stepping back when making their respond to to the bean to cup issue, as it’s so different to any other bean to cup coffee makeking tool that came before it. 

“Normal” Bean to cup machines, for want of a better word, offer the untrained coffee lover espresso coffee and espresso-based drinks at home, at the touch of a button, straight out of the box without the skill development required to get semi decent effects from a classic espresso machine.

They do this, but it comes at a sacrifice to cup quality.

There’s no doubt at all that a traditional espresso coffee machine in the hands of a skilled home barista will deliver espresso and espresso-based coffees that even the best bean to cup machine wouldn’t be able to come close to delivering. 

But for years, bean to cup coffee machines have been great-selling machines due to the fact that numerous coffee aficionados place such a appreciate on ease of use.

They’re busy, they just want to press a button and get their favourite coffee, and they don’t have the time or inclination to embark upon a hobby (and becoming a home barista in truth is a hobby even though many people don’t rather get that when they begin).

What the Sage Oracle did, although, was to answer a particular niche market, which is busy people who want the convenience of bean to cup, nevertheless without any sacrifice in cup quality. 

I’m not talking here about superficial things, bells & whistles, I’m talking about fundamentals. 

For example, the Oracle has 45 grind settings. This gives the Oracle a huge advantage over any other bean to cup machine I’m aware of.

All of the other bean to cup machines featuring in this post (and all of the machines I’m aware of) except the sage machines have between 5-13 grind settings.

Being able to more finely modify the grind size brews a huge impact on shot quality. So this is a huge plus for the Oracle even before we take any of the other features into account. 

Nevertheless then we have things like pre-infusion, PID (digital temperature control), 21 gram double dosage, Americano being made with hot water via a dedicated water spout so it’s not literally a long over extracted shot, dual boiler, auto milk texturing.

While I don’t think you’re ever going to get a bean to cup machine up to 100% of the potential cup quality of a decent home barista set up and a decent home barista, these features I believe get the Sage Oracle about as close as anyone is likely to get.

Likewise, keep in mind that I said a decent home barista setup and a decent home barista. I would expect the Oracle to be able to deliver better quality coffees straight out of the box in the hands of a complete beginner than a novice with a fantastic home barista setup. You should have tasted some of the coffees I made early on my home barista journey… 😉

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Check Price – Amazon UKCheck Price – Sage Appliances  Check Price – Currys 

I’m not going to go into as much detail here extremely due to the fact that this is a newer, touch screen version of the Oracle, and a number of of the features are the same. 

Features (which differ from the oracle):

• Humble touch screen operation
• 5 pre-programmed coffees
• 8 personalised coffees

Blurb:

Automation at every stage

My Review

Likewise watch:

My Observations:

For me, the newer Oracle Touch is aimed deeper into the bean to cup market than the Oracle is.

In other words, while The Oracle perhaps grabs the attention of the folk who find out that they want better quality than bean to cup machines are likely to deliver, I think the Oracle Touch is aimed more at the folk who swear by bean to cup, and are looking for the perfect when it comes to simplicity and convenience.

Let’s imagine you’ve been a bean to cup machine user for years, and your eyes are drawn to the Oracle Touch due to the reality that of the intelligent looking user controls and personalisation.

You go on to read that not only is this machine going to give you the type of user experience you’re looking for, nevertheless it’s also likely to deliver better tasting coffees than any machine you’ve previously owned.

You may then be reaching for your wallet, or reaching for an excuse to tell (or sell?)  your better half why you need to spend the price of a very nice holiday on a coffee brewing device ;-). 

Check Price – Sage Appliances Check Price – Amazon UK  Check Price – Currys 

Update: Sage Discount Codes!
If you’re in the UK and you’re thinking of buying any Sage coffee brewing equipment or mill (or any other product from Sage Appliances) you might want to drop me an email. Click here to join my “Brew Time” mailing list, and then email me ([email protected]) to see if I have a current discount code to Share. Sage Appliances sometimes share codes with me, I can’t publish them – and there’s no point as they’re usually time-limited anyway, however they do allow me to share them with subscribers via email.

17 Perfect Bean to Cup Coffee Machines – Conclusion

So this is the up to date list of what I believe to be the recent 17 perfect bean to cup espresso coffee machines in the UK this year.

I’ve lately completely updated this list as a lot had changed in the world of coffee machines since I first wrote this article, and I will continue to keep a close eye on things and update it again as things change. 

Don’t forget although, regardless of what bean to cup coffee machine you go for, if you want excellent coffee out, you need to put great coffee in – don’t forget your discount code:

Use discount code CBNC25 for 25% off your first order at Coffeeworks

Now, I’m going to introduce you to my bean to cup coffee machine FAQ. I did have this on a separate post, but I thought it would make sense to bring this info here so that anyone looking at bean to cup coffee machines has access to all of this info on the same page.

OK, this does make this less of a article, and more of an encyclopedia ;-), but you don’t have to read all this info at the same time, feel free to bookmark the page so if you do have other questions, you know that you can come back here and carry on reading.

Kev’s 2022 Bean to Cup Machine FAQ

What is a bean to cup coffee makeking device?

What we refer to as bean to cup coffee machines, are espresso machines with an integrated coffee grinder and a brewing unit.

While with a representative espresso machine there’s a filter holder, known as a portafilter, into which the user has to put ground coffee beans (we call this dosing), this is handled by the brewing unit. The machine automatically grinds the coffee for you and then doses the basket, in the brewing unit.

With traditional espresso machines, the user has to tamp the coffee, lock the portafilter into the group, press the button, and then knock the portafilter into the knock box, as you’d see a barista doing in a coffee shop – all of this is managed via the brewing unit on bean to cup coffee machines, all the user callsfor to do is press a button, and empty the internal grinds bin when it’s full.

There are different kinds of bean to cup coffee machines when it comes to the milk side of things, with standard bean to cup machines only being fully automated where coffee is anxious, and requiring some work from the user to steam and pour the milk, and with “one touch” machines likewise called “cappuccino makers” being able to make milk-based coffees likewise at the touch of a button.

Do bean to cup machines make espresso as good as traditional espresso coffee machines?

Creating a great espresso coffee with a typical espresso coffee machine is something that requires rather a bit of skill and effort.

A good traditional espresso coffee machine paired with an espresso capable coffee mill in the hands of a skilled Barista, will (in my simple opinion) deliver espresso on a different extent to that which a domestic bean to cup machine would usually be capable of.

However, this is only after the user has invested a significant amount of money on device, and a significant amount of time and effort developing their home barista skills. 

When it comes to just being able to walk up to a machine, press a button, and walk off with your coffee – bean to cup machines offer a degree of convenience that many people would expect from a coffee makeking device, while delivering espresso and espresso-based coffees that a lot of “normal” coffee drinkers would be more than happy with. 

For more on traditional espresso coffee machines see:

Best Espresso coffee Machines

Is a bean to cup coffee machine the right coffee brewing device for me?

This is an exceptionally good question, many people buy a coffee machine without fully grasp all of the different types of coffee machines available, and as a result, they end up with something which doesn’t rather fit their requires.

The great thing about coffee machines now is that there are so numerous different forms and even sub-types of coffee machines, that there’s usually a excellent match for all needs. Nevertheless you need to discover what your callsfor are in relation to a coffee brewing tool if you’re going to end up finding your wonderful match.

If come to think of it, you’re basically uncertain if you understand all of the options of which bean to cup is just one, I’d recommend this post: 

Coffee Machines Guide

Another quick point to make is that bean to cup machines espresso machines. 

Espresso is the base of most of the most popular cafe coffees including cappuccino, latte, flat white, cortado, macchiato, Americano – and you can make all these kinds of coffees with the majority of bean to cup machines. 

If you were in reality looking for American coffee, see: 

Best Filter coffee Machines

What are the different kinds of bean to cup coffee makeking tool

Not only are there several different types of coffee makeking equipment, there are sub kinds, too. 

When it comes to bean to cup, there are two main subtypes:

• Bean to cup coffee machine with steam wand
• One touch or “cappuccino maker” bean to cup coffee makeking device

See my video below which explains the different forms of bean to cup coffee machines.

Which type of bean to cup coffee brewing equipment do I need? 

This depends on you. So as referred to above, there are machines with steam wands, which allow you to manually steam milk for milkies (cappuccino, latte, etc) and then there are the one touch machines that deal with the milk from one touch, too.

By the way, if you’ve heard the terms semi-automatic and fully automatic bean to cup machines, this tends to be how bean to cup machines are described in the states – with semi auto being what Brits tend to call just bean to cup machines with steam wand, and fully or sometimes “super automatic” machines being what we’d refer to as one touch machines. 

Machines with steam wands such as the Gaggia Brera, Delonghi Magnifica, Gaggia Anima and so on – are best for:

• Budget (they’re usually cheaper). 
• People who are fussy about their milk texture. 
• People who want more control over the milk temp and texture.

These types of machines are one of the lowest cost machines – even though this isn’t true of all machines.

The Oracle and Oracle Touch have steam wands – however they’re likewise one touch machines, kind of – and these definitely aren’t the cheapest. These machines have a steam wand, however the machine still does the frothing, basically in the jug via the wand instead of via a carafe, and unlike the majority of other one touch machines they in reality produce remarkable milk texture, suitable for pouring latte art.

For more see: 

Sage Oracle and Oracle Touch Review

The reason I say this sort of machine is better for someone who’s fussy about milk texture is that many the one touch machines create fairly thick foam with big bubbles – for creating what I refer to as old school cappuccino, with spoonable foam. 

Some people like this type of foam, which floats on top of the coffee, whereas I much prefer velvety microfoam, which mixes with the coffee and creates a much more integrated milk & espresso coffee based coffee which, for me, delivers the wonderful mouth feel. 

Regardless of how you like your milk texture, if you’re a flat white lover, you’re going to need microfoam. Flat white really can’t be made with standard stiff milk froth, which is why some of the one touch machines which have a “flat white” option tend to get a bit of stick in the reviews when it comes to whether or not they’re basically capable of one-touch flat whites.

By the way, I have had what I’d considered to be a fairly good flat white from a bean to cup machine, nevertheless not a home coffee makeking tool – this was a commercial bean to cup coffee machine, an incredible machine I have to say, but a lot of people aren’t going to spend this type of money on a bean to cup machine for home.

If you are looking for a commercial coffee brewing tool, feel free to drop me an email, I’ll know some best commercial machine suppliers who I’d be more than happy to put you in contact with.

In my humble opinion, among home coffee machines the only bean to cup machine capable of proper flat white is the Oracle & Oracle Touch. There’s the lower cost Sage Barista Touch, but this isn’t in truth a bean to cup machine, it’s a home barista espresso coffee machine with a touch screen, a hybrid, extremely. 

When it comes to controlling texture and temperature, again you only simply have this with machines with a wand – except for the Oracle & Oracle Touch, and some of the other higher end one touch machines including the Gaggia Accademia.

Do all bean to cup machines with steam wands produce great milk texture?

I’m glad you asked this, oh – wait, I asked it, I’m talking to myself!

Nearly all of the bean to cup machines with a steam wand, come with what’s called a Panarello – likewise called a “turbo frother” or “auto frother”.

These are a sheath fixed over the steam pipe. They pull air into the milk via a hole on the side, and most of these forms of wands are only capable of the thicker froth for old-school cappuccino that you’ll likewise get via many one touch bean to cup machines.

But – with most machines, you can basically pull the sheath off, to reveal the metal pipe, which can be used like a pro steam wand that you’d see on a commercial coffee machine or home barista machine. It takes a little bit of practice, but it’s possible to get in fact good milk texture this way, with the panarello removed.

The only thing which is a little bit of a pain is that some of these pipes aren’t all that long, so it can make it a little of a faff, nevertheless you’ll get used to it.

Which are the best for milk texture

If milk texture and control over texture and temperature are important to you, my personal favourite is the Gaggia Magenta plus, simply because it’s a really clever bean to cup machine with the sort of features bean to cup users would want, nevertheless it has a pro steam wand, allowing you to create fantastic texture without the faff of removing the Panarello and not having a pipe which is rather long enough to reach into the milk jug.

Check Price – Gaggia Direct

As I’ve pointed out a couple of times now, there’s likewise the Sage Oracle and Oracle Touch, and I extremely like these machines too – but they’re outside of the budget of most people, while the Magenta Plus is a much more reasonably priced machine.

The newer Gaggia Cadorna Barista Pro has now been released in the UK, too, which is well worth having a look at, especially if there are multiple users who will want to save their own personal settings.

Do bean to cup coffee machines give control over grinding

Bean to cup machines have grind adjustments, but a lot of them will have only around 3-5 grind settings, so there’s basically not much control there. The flagship Gaggia machines the Babila & Accademia both have 15 grind settings, which offers more control than with any other machine I’m aware of apart from the Oracle range which have 45 grind settings. 

Who steeps the best bean to cup coffee machines, Gaggia, DeLonghi, Sage, Melitta, Krups?

This is a common question, but there’s no modest answer, as all manufacturers have ranges of machines spanning different budgets. 

If you were to ask me who I think provides the perfect ranges of bean to cup machines I’d say possibly Gaggia or  Delonghi. 

Gaggia Coffee Machines DeLongCoffee Machines

If you were to ask me which brand I think steeps the really perfect bean to cup machine, my personal favourite is the Oracle or Oracle Touch, if I’m not taking budget into consideration. These machines, while not the the majority of expensive to be fair, are not within the budget of the majority of coffee enthusiasts, and OK they’re not bean to cup machines, strictly speaking, they’re Sage’s respond to to bean to cup.

Are there any coffee only bean to cup coffee machines?

Yes, not several, but there are a few. The Beko CEG5301X, the SCOTT Slimissimo and the Smeg BCC01.

Literally keep in mind, these machines differ a huge amount in price, especially the smeg machine, however they appear to be incredibly similar in terms of specs and features, with the Smeg it seems you’re paying for looks, quite than for additional specs or features, which is fine as long as you’re creating that choice deliberately. For more see:

Smeg Coffee Machines

Which bean to cup coffee brewing equipment is perfect for Americano?

Most bean to cup machines will make Americano, and the  Sage Oracle or Sage Oracle Touch have a one-touch Americano button – and a dedicated hot water spout, even though as I’ve said these aren’t within all budgets, they’re not cheap. 

When it comes to more basic bean to cup machines (the Sage machines don’t have a brewing unit, so they’re not in truth bean to cup machines, technically speaking) the latest Gaggia bean to cup machines including the Cadorna & Magenta I think are one of the best for Americano due to the reality that the majority of of them have a separate channel for hot water. So they deliver the coffee through one channel, and then fresh, hot water via another channel, instead of delivering hot water through the used coffee as is what occurs with a number of machines.

Which is the perfect bean to cup machine for an workplace?

This is a common issue, and the respond to is, annoyingly “it depends.”

What it depends on, more than anything, is how a lot of people will be utilizing it, so how several coffees each day it’s going to be making. If it’s a home workplace, and you’re going to be making a few coffees daily, what you’re looking for basically is a home coffee brewing tool – despite the reality you’re going to be using it in your workplace – so, all of the machines I spoken about above in the main perfect bean to cup coffee machines section are among the perfect.

If you’re talking about an office with several people most whom are going to want a few coffees each day from it, along with making coffee for customers when they call, you’re probably going to need to look at the commercial side of things, both from a speed and a reliability perspective. 

12 people waiting to make a coffee from a home machine during a 15 minute break for example is going to be a bit of a frustrating experience, while commercial machines are made for this type of scenario.

Likewise a home machine put under this type of demand is likely to not last as long, or to require more typical maintenance – as it’s being used for more than it’s in truth designed for in terms of coffees made back to back and the worry on the components that will come with this.

If you’re looking for a commercial bean to cup coffee makeking equipment for bigger offices, just drop me an email and I’ll point you in the right direction. 

Where should I go for the perfect bean to cup machine sales & deals?

This is another fairly common matter, and the usual address is just to shop around and see who has a sale on or who’s offering a deal at the time.

If you’re buying a Sage coffee brewing device, I may be able to offer you a discount code if I have one at the time, basically email me to see if I do.

Gaggia Direct have deals and gives sometimes, so they’re worth checking. Even if they don’t have a sale or a deal, they’ll sometimes offer 3 year warranty instead of the usual 2.

Amazon is always worth checking of course, and my advice there would just be to make double sure the machine is coming from a UK supplier. 

eBay is worth checking too, particularly for used machines. If you’re looking at a new machine there, just be careful when it comes to warranty. I’ve heard from a customer recently who bought a brand new machine from eBay listed as having manufacturer’s warranty, however when he went to the manufacturer with a warranty matter he was told they wouldn’t honour the warranty as they didn’t recognize the seller.

Costco have decent deals on coffee machines occasionally, but other than that I’d simply shop around online and see who has the best deal for the machine you’re looking for. Just be careful that it is simply a good deal and you’re not being hoodwinked – wow, hoodwinked, where did that come from ;-).

Anyway – there are a few (at least…) websites appearing to offer truly good prices for coffee machines, often much better pricing than other UK suppliers, and it’s often not a excellent deal as such, but a grey import.

A grey import suggests that the machine you’re buying wasn’t intended for your country, and the seller is taking advantage of that. Manufacturers tend to have selling prices which reflect the market and also the cost of sale of the machine once it’s been imported to that country via the official channels.

You’re not breaking any laws, that I’m aware of, buy buying a grey import, however there can be issues when it comes to having to return the machine, as it would usually mean the buyer paying to return the machine from the country it came from, and there can likewise be unexpected customs charges.

Bean to cup coffee machines from Currys, are they any good?

This is a common matter, too – as Curry’s are a convenient place to buy from, though – I went to my local Currys the other day and stood there at the counter like a lemon for about ten minutes. I have to admit I don’t particularly love the fact that their staff are all floating rather than always having someone at the tills ready to take your purchase to, nevertheless anyway.

Currys sell some well-known bean to cup machine brands, including Gaggia, Krups, DeLonghi and Breville – but they tend to have particular models from each manufacturer quite than having the full ranges.

Best Coffee Machines

Just be careful when it comes to the Breville side of things, as this is a commonly made mistake.

Sage Appliances, which make some of the the majority of popular coffee machines, are known as Breville in almost all other countries, we understand them as Sage here because the brand name was sold in the 80s. 

Some people (I understand this from the emails I’ve been sent from readers) have noticed that Breville and Sage are the same machines, and have thought that it’s an interchangeable brand name, so when they’ve walked into Currys (the main reseller for Breville UK) and seen a Breville coffee makeking device at seemingly an wonderful price, they’ve bought it only to realize a bit later on. on that they’ve bought a totally different brand of coffee makeking tool.

See Breville Barista Max Plus:

Breville Barista Max Plus

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Breville coffee machines by the way, just that the brand we discover as Breville in the UK is definitely not the same brand that is sold outside of the UK, and they’re massively different machines although some of them look mildly similar and have similar names. For more on Sage see:

Sage Coffee Machines

Bean to cup coffee machines from Argos, same question?

Similar issue, similar respond to. Argos tend to sell De’Longhi, Seimens & Melitta – and again they don’t usually have the full ranges, but they do sometimes have decent deals, so it’s always worth a look. 

Are Jura bean to cup coffee machines any good?

My personal opinion about Jura machines is that their higher-end home bean to cup coffee machines, in particular, are extremely good. The reason you won’t find anything about Jura coffee machines on this blog, though, is that I’ve had so a lot of complaints from people about aftersales support. Literally check out their UK Trust Pilot reviews. I’ve not had complaints about their machines, I have to say – basically their support.

It does look like they’re beginning to do better, looking at the last couple of reviews – however I didn’t want to start reviewing their machines without hearing from them re what’s going on with their support, so I’ve tried to contact them, but I’ve had no joy. If this changes, and they convince me that whatever the issue with aftersales support, it’s now sorted – you’ll start to see Jura bean to cup coffee machines appear on this post.

Gaggia Vs DeLonghi – who steeps the best bean to cup coffee machines?

Another common question about two of the most popular manufacturers of this type of coffee machines, and I completely find out the matter being asked, but it’s similar to asking which car manufacturers make better cars, it usually depends on the exact models being compared. 

Overall from the machines I’ve used, and from the conversations I’ve had with readers who’ve owned both brands, I tend to think of these two brands as being fairly equal. They’ve both been around for a long time, they both have rather wide ranges covering all budgets, and they both have several repeat customers who’re really loyal to the brand. 

As I’ve said in other posts, the one thing that would lead me to buy a Gaggia coffee brewing equipment over a DeLonghi coffee makeking tool in the UK is just that the main UK reseller for Gaggia in the UK, Gaggia Direct, are the same guys who ran Gaggia UK before Philips bought Gaggia, so the history and knowledge they have allows them to offer ideal customer service.

Plus, they’re an old-fashioned customer support oriented business who you can literally phone for support, or have a zoom call with, or pop in to see them if you’re within driving distance of their warehouse and showroom near Halifax.

The Gaggia bean to cup machines all deliver double shots when you select a double shot – in that they have a selection for 2 shots, and when selected – the machine grinds, pulls the shot, and then does the same again.

This isn’t the case with all of the DeLonghi bean to cup coffee machines as far as I’m aware, so this is undoubtedly one thing in Gaggia’s favour, nevertheless until I’ve tried all of DeLonghi’s bean to cup machines, which I haven’t as of yet, I can’t truly make a sweeping statement re Gaggia Vs Delonghi on the whole.

Are the Sage Barista Express or Barista Pro good bean to cup coffee machines?

The Sage Barista Express and Barista Pro are great machines, but they’re integrated grinder home barista machines, and not bean to cup coffee machines. My video, above, explains the differences between these two machines, in case you were wondering.

The same is true of the Barista Touch, which is the touch screen version of the Barista Pro, though that is more along the lines of a bean to cup machine, with it’s touch screen controls – nevertheless still, it isn’t a BTC machine.

I discover the matter because some retailers put these machines in the bean to cup machine category due to the truth that they see the grinding machine and assume that brews it BTC, however it doesn’t.

The BTC side of things refers to the technology built into the machine to replace the barista – not simply the integrated coffee grinder.

As I’ve said a couple of times, the Oracle range, while not bean to cup machines in the traditional sense as they don’t have a brew unit, are almost bean to cup machines in that they handle all of the parts of the process and require little or no user interaction other than handling the portafilter & moving it about – nevertheless the machines in the Barista range don’t have these clever “on board barista” features to reduce the need for barista skill.

So, there we go, all of the most widely asked bean to cup coffee makeking device questions. If I’ve missed any simply leave a comment below and I’ll address it, and add it to the FAQ if it’s a issue I’ve missed.

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This article firstly appeared at Coffee Blog – The UK Specialty Coffee Blog – For Lovers of REAL Coffee!