Do you have a blender? A juicer? A slow cooker? Our kitchens are full of gadgets, and many of them go un-used from one week to the next. A coffee machine, however, not only looks great on your worktop, but can be used several times a day, giving you great quality coffee at the touch of a button. Give yourself a treat at breakfast, serve several different types of coffee to your friends and lunch and finish your evening meal over an espresso; with the range of great quality coffee machines available today, there’s no excuse for drinking inferior coffee ever again!

Choosing coffee machines

It’s true that as the coffee machine has grown in popularity, so the number of machines on the market has increased. If you’re seriously considering investing in a new coffee machine, how do you know which one to choose? Are you bewildered by:

• Espresso coffee machines
• Pod coffee machines
• Capsule coffee machines
• Bean-to-cup coffee machines
• Pump coffee machines

Which one’s best for you? The easiest way to choose is to set two main criteria:

• Cost – how much are you prepared to spend? You can get a great quality coffee machine for just a few hundred pounds, or you can splash out and spend over £1,000 on a state-of-the-art coffee machine. Once you’ve set your budget, you can discount the machines that cost too little or too much and focus on the ones that meet your needs.

• Coffee – what sort of coffee do you drink most? Espresso lovers don’t need a cappuccino coffee machine, for example. Just choose a straightforward, good quality espresso machine and enjoy. If, on the other hand, you’re interested in coffee machines that can handle a wide range of drinks, you need to look at something a little more complex. If you’re only interested in drinking coffee from freshly ground beans, make sure you look at bean-to-cup coffee makers rather than pod or capsule based machines.