Coffee machines come in all shapes and sizes. From small stove-top devices like the classic Italian mocha pot to fully automated bean-to-cup machines that seem to be able to make any type of coffee-based drink at the touch of a button.

Not so long ago the highest aspirations anyone in the UK had for their coffee drinks were that they were hot, wet and tasted vaguely of coffee. How things have moved on. Since the arrival in the UK of the large US coffee store chains like Starbucks and the rapid development of our home-grown brands like Costa, the quality of coffee that customers now demand is so much higher. A simple granule-based drink is not longer satisfactory, when the alternatives are so much more tasty.

The new choice of coffee drinks is huge, from lattes to mochas and cappuccinos, with added syrups of all kinds of flavours and different milk varieties to boot. Making a coffee has now almost become a science for which baristas now need serious training to accomplish.

Having paid good money for a takeaway coffee and seen prices rises, largely due to the customers happiness to pay and also lead by soaring coffee prices on the commodity markets, many people have now decided to try and make these tasty coffee drinks at home, and that naturally means they are suddenly very interested in coffee machines.

Around 10 years ago, not many households in the UK even had a coffee machine, let alone one of today\’s fancy machines. Some would have taken the first step and opted for a simple filter machine. With these a paper filter held a dose of ground coffee (everyone bought pre-ground coffee as that was all that was available) over which heated water was trickled, with the coffee itself dropping through into a clear glass jug sitting on a hot plate. If the ground coffee was very fresh and the coffee was drunk almost immediately, then the taste was fairly acceptable. However not everyone realised the importance of fresh coffee so often stale grinds were used and, worse still, the coffee was left to stew on the hot plate for hours. Even this bitter, almost burnt coffee was happily served by hotels and restaurants and customers didn\’t know any better. They just drank the disgusting coffee, thinking that was simply how things were.

Now standards are much higher and the freshly made taste you can experience in Starbucks or Costa can only be achieved using an espresso-capable machine using very fresh coffee. That now means you have to grind your own coffee beans at home or opt for one of the many pod-based devices that use individually sealed portions of pre-ground coffee to make single drinks. This way of making coffee is safe, reliable but expensive and limited in terms of variation.

The only way to go for real coffee enthusiasts is to buy a larger and more expensive espresso maker that features it\’s own boiler or even two boilers. Dual boiler machines contain two sources of water and steam. The steam is super-heated and used for frothing or texturing milk, while a cooler boiler or a heat-exchanger mechanism is used to pass water through the filter head under pressure to make the espresso component.

As with all things, the better quality coffee machines come at a price and expect to pay between 200 and 1200 pounds for a capable home coffee machine.

Author Bio: There is a huge choice of coffee machines available now and James is familiar with the benefits of each type. He provides coffee machine reviews and coffee stories on his site and other publications.

Category: Food and Drinks
Keywords: