Buying guides

What to buy for the coffee you actually drink.

It takes our highest score and only 4 of 5 for value. The distance between those two numbers is the whole answer, and a grinder sits inside it.

Nothing cheaper than the Bambino Plus textures milk for you: the four machines below it rate 2 or 1 where it takes a 5. One of them outlives it.

It scores 8.5 and takes our top value rating, the only machine above the mid tier that does both. The grinder is the part nobody budgets for.

Go cheaper and you hand back either the grinder or the portafilter. Only 1 of the 14 machines we track is a measured match for the BES875.