There was a time when owning coffee machine was a luxury, the preserve of the Italians and the wealthy. Since Covid, however, machine ownership has boomed – the perfect storm of spare time/boredom, the desire for café quality coffee at home, and the increasingly accepted notion that latté art is the truest form of art all coalesced and the market boomed.
I’ve been around the block when it comes to home espresso machines and have a couple of pearls of wisdom to share. There are so many features advertised and I guarantee you most of them are at best nice-to-haves, at worst frills as unnecessary as tassels on a bike. Look out for these four things when shopping, and you’ll be sorted:
ABN – Anyone But Nespresso
We’re talking about espresso machines, Nespresso doesn’t count. This goes without saying therefore, but Anyone But Nespresso is the first rule of espresso club. The cult of Nespresso is a useful stop on the journey to bean-to-cup, but there are always some who get stuck on the cosmetic glow of the Nespresso branding, luxury boxes and dizzying variety of flavours – Clooney what happened to you. I have heard convenience cited as a reason for going down the Nespresso route one too many times – it may take 10-15 seconds out of the journey, but so does it remove freshness, quality, bean variety, the joy of discovering new and exciting coffee brands and any modicum of joy from the consumption of the final product... I may be going a bit too hard on Nespresso here but it really is a sliding doors moment and the Nespresso door is the wrong one – don’t do it.
Pressure Matters!
Honestly, this is the main thing you need to pay attention to and sometimes hard to get to the bottom of, but the fundamental thing when buying a coffee machine – pressure. It’s really all there is to an espresso: pressurised water forced through a puck of coffee. Since this is the basic function of the machine, you would think the variance in machines is minimal. Sadly this is not the case – I have had machines that don’t have sufficient pressure to handle fresh speciality beans, which tend to hold more gas and create greater resistance pressure. The water will just build up on top of the coffee puck, without enough pressure to push it through. These under-pressurised machines will only be able to handle shop-bought ground coffee, and if the reason for buying a machine is for better coffee, you don’t want to be stuck with an under-pressurised machine. The problem is – it’s difficult to tell what machines are under-pressurised, because they will all advertise as 15-20 bars while required pressure for an espresso usually maxes around 9 bars, so on the surface every machine should easily manage. The issue is in the coffee variance and inadaptability of machine presets. Look out for reviews on the pressure quality, and make sure to get the warranty!
Automatic-Dosing Bean Dispenser – Worth It!
If you are thinking of getting a machine and equivocating between a machine with/without an integrated bean hopper/grinder, I would highly recommend opting for the bean-to-cup. It makes life so much easier to be able to automatically dose straight from the machine to the group, while the coffee is as fresh as it can be and tastes better as a result. I have had machines where you have to hold the group down to keep the doser going. If possible, opt for the automatic doser, which gives you the right amount of coffee with a single press. It completely removes any hassle and makes the ritual of making a coffee so much more pleasurable. This is a perfect world we’re talking about, but if you are wondering what frills to opt for and which to ignore, I would take an integrated machine with an automatic doser as primary requirements – everything else can take a back seat (apart from pressure!).
Think About the Cleaning
Cleaning as a top tip when buying a machine might sound a bit unromantic but think about this: your machine is made up of many different modular parts, all of which have small caverns – too small for the adult hand - that constantly get clogged with grounds and water minerals. There’s no way to clean other than take the whole thing apart and put it back together again… or just ignore it and hope that ‘clean me’ button stops flickering by itself. Ireland being famous for its hard water – which tends to clog the machine and impact pressure – the cleaning and de-scaling function on the machine is a god-send worth looking out for. Many machines have this self-cleaning function and provide cleaning materials with the machine – worth investing in a self-cleaning machine to save a world of hassle in the long run.
So in summary…
In the past we have owned Sage, Breville, De’Longhi and Gaggia machines and honestly, there are a lot of good machines out there and most can do the trick. While we love our Sage Barista machine for the convenience and quality it provides, most machines will represent a significant step forward in the coffee journey. By prioritizing your needs starting with the above areas, you can be sure you’ve got the best machine for your budget.
Good luck on the journey – you may just be starting but trust me, you’ve arrived.
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