Two things decide whether a coffee machine review is worth reading: what was measured, and whether the person writing it had the machine. This page answers both for BrewNotes, so you can work out how much weight to put on anything else we publish.
What we measure
On a machine we have in front of us we time the warm-up from cold, weigh the dose and the yield, and time the shot. We read the brew temperature across three consecutive shots rather than one, because a machine that is right once and wrong twice is a machine you cannot repeat. We steam milk in a small jug and a large one, because the small one is where cheap steam systems fail. We measure the noise at the worktop, and we measure the machine itself — width, depth, and the height with the tank lid open, which is the number that decides whether it fits under your wall cupboards.
Around that we read the maker's manual rather than the retail listing, note the model code precisely, and set the specification down in a structured catalogue: what it has, what it is good at, and how it compares with everything else we track.
When we have used a machine, and how we mark it
A machine we have genuinely used carries a “Tested by us” badge stating how many days and how we got hold of it — bought, on loan, or used in a shop. Only then will you read a first-person claim about it. Our editorial system blocks any such claim about a machine without that record: the badge is not decoration, it is the technical precondition for writing “we used it”. If you do not see it, what you are reading is the specification and the settled experience of owners, not ours.
What we do not do
We do not invent experience, and we do not describe a cup we have not drunk. We do not accept machines from makers in exchange for coverage, and no arrangement with any retailer touches a score or a running order. We do not use makers' press photography, because a studio shot of a machine tells you nothing that its own listing does not. When owners genuinely disagree about a machine — and on some models they do, loudly — we report the disagreement and explain where it comes from rather than hide it behind an average.
Our scoring
The overall score runs from 0 to 10 and is an editorial judgement informed by what we measured, not an automatic average. Alongside it we publish five ratings from 1 to 5: build and durability, steam and milk, ease of use, versatility, and value for money — value always against what the machine's own price tier normally delivers, never against a number, because prices change weekly and a review should not. We also score, out of ten, how close the machine gets to café standard.
Water hardness changes the answer for durability more than any other single factor in the UK, so where it matters we say what we assumed.
Corrections
When a figure changes or we get something wrong, the affected article is corrected and says so: its update note records what changed and when, and the specification-checked date on every piece shows the last automated check against our catalogue. If you spot an error, write to us through the contact page and we will look at it.
Who writes it
Every article is signed: Iona Brackley does the testing and the writing and Douglas Pettifer reads it before it goes live — that check confirms every figure resolves to the catalogue and that no first-person claim exists without a testing record. Their pages list everything they have put their name to.
How we're funded
We never print a fixed price, because it would be wrong within the week: the real figure is the one shown at the shop when you buy.