The budget coffee pod machine that beat £1,200 model in our expert’s blind taste test! Daily Mail’s new Test Lab ranks 10 top coffee machines to find which is worth YOUR money

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With High Street coffee shop prices soaring (Starbucks now charges £4.94 for a cappuccino) there’s been a boom in the sale of home coffee machines.

But with so many to choose from, it’s a confusing business. Are fancy barista-style models like the Sage Barista Touch Impress really worth the money? Or should you save your pennies and buy a no-frills pod machine like the popular L’Or Barista Absolu?

To find out, we took ten of the most popular machines on the market right now – from less than £100 (in the sales) to more than £1,000 – and put them through their paces in the Daily Mail Test Lab. We looked at best-sellers at Amazon, John Lewis and Currys as well as the models most talked about on social media. 

Think the Sage surely beats the bunch? Reckon pod machines had no chance in our blind taste test? The results may surprise you. Read on to discover which machine makes the tastiest coffee – and which models are worth avoiding… 

The results in full

How we tested coffee machines

From simple pod models to fully automated bean-to-cup versions, we put ten of the most popular coffee machines through a barrage of tests to find out how they compare.

As a coffee lover on the lookout for the best value for money, my priority was finding a machine which could produce a café standard drink at home without costing the earth or involving barista skills most of us (including me!) simply don’t have. 

Our core focus was on value for money, how easy the machine was to use – and, most importantly of all, taste. 

For the ultimate taste test, we challenged coffee guru Peter Renyard, head of training at the Artisan Coffee School in London, to take part in a blind tasting to find out which machine really hits the best note when it comes to flavour.

We gave Peter, who trains baristas for a living, ten drinks to sample without telling him which machines they came from – and we filmed the results.

I’m no expert when it comes to making the perfect espresso but neither is the average consumer, so Peter judged each one on its merits. I love coffee, so gave each of them a score as a home user.

To ensure a fair test, we used supermarket mineral water and the same blend of coffee from Curious Roo Coffee Roasters (curiousroo.com) throughout the test. And to make sure there was absolutely no peeking, Peter, who was sat behind a screen, was blindfolded. He also wore earmuffs and left the room while each coffee was being made so that he couldn’t hear any telltale noises!

Machines were then scored out of five across a range of criteria including price, aesthetics, ease of use, size of water tank, noise levels, drink temperature and whether or not they include milk frothing attachments. Read more on how we work out Test Lab scores.

As a useful indicator of value for money, we calculated the cost per cup of investing in one of these appliances. This was based on drinking two cups a day with the cost spread over five years, the average lifespan for a coffee machine. 

No brand paid for promotion or influenced our verdicts in any way. Read more on why you can trust Daily Mail Test Lab’s verdicts. We tell you how it REALLY is!

Write to Daily Mail Test Lab at testlab@dailymail.com with YOUR product review wish list. 

Our two champion machines

The winner, by a country mile, was the Ninja Luxe Café Mini Series – knocking the two expensive Sage machines into third and fourth place. And the biggest surprise for our testers? The simple (and affordable) Dualit Pod Machine came second. 

Our coffee guru Peter ranked it third in the blind taste test, and combined with our other scores and its value for money, it came out a best buy above the two Sage machines. 

 
Full review: If a coffee shop barista machine shrank in the wash it would come out looking something like this. In black and chrome it’s sleek, modern and something you’d definitely want the neighbours to clock.

Arrives with a combination of printed instructions and QR codes, fiddly but I just about got there.

The machine, a best seller at Currys, took a long time to calibrate, then I added the beans and selected the grind (this requires a lot of trial and error). The ground coffee is then squashed down with a tamper in the portafilter, the long handle with the metal brewing basket at the end. There are four different coffee programmes, each with adjustable strength. 

The steam wand is flimsy and manual, meaning you have to wiggle it around when in action. It did produce hot milk though (albeit with a disappointingly flat froth) while giving me a steam facial at the same time.

Like all bean machines there’s a bit more cleaning once you introduce all the extras like portafilters, funnels and tampers. But for the quality of the end result I’ll take the washing up. I would happily pay a fiver for a coffee this good in a café. Once best known for its air fryers, Ninja is taking on the likes of Smeg and Sage to produce premium kitchen appliances worth the spend. Amazon reviewers give this a bumper 4.8 stars out of 5 – and our tests showed why.  

This Ninja Luxe Café Mini is a new model released after the original full-size Ninja Luxe Café Premier. We think its more compact, space-saving size – and lower price point – makes it a better bet for many homes than the original. It’s our champion coffee machine! 

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘Really good dark brown crema, the velvety layer of foam that forms the top of a properly brewed espresso, with a little bit of marbling. There’s good body too and I’m picking up some nice caramel chocolate in there. Perhaps lacks acidity but with a bit of calibration to improve the coffee to water ratio this could be excellent and similar to a professional barista coffee.’

Full review: Small and compact, this popular model will pack neatly away in a cupboard but it’s also good looking enough to keep out.

Strictly no frills, it doesn’t come with printed instructions, just a QR code to scan on a smartphone that takes you to an instruction manual. (Would it have killed them to put a printed leaflet in?) Luckily the set-up is easy. You fill the water tank, pop in a pod and you’re ready to roll. I found the pod lever stiff and had to be quite forceful with it, making me fearful of breakages. It was temperamental too preferring aluminium pods to the plastic ones I used for our test. I also found the temperature of the drinks varied a little from cup to cup. 

Some reviews on Amazon report similar issues and the retailer says this model had been returned a number of times, often due to the stiff lever. But overall, I was impressed by this slimline budget option – mainly due to the unexpectedly good taste. 

One button operation delivered an espresso instantly and the depth of flavour was good. So I wasn’t surprised when it came third in Peter’s blind taste test, beating several more expensive all-singing and all-dancing bean-to-cup models – including the Sage Barista Touch Impress.

For the price – particularly if you love espressos or have your own frother (there’s no milk frothing option) – this is a good purchase.

Easy to take apart for cleaning. It’s basic but looks good and is small and light enough to take on holiday with you.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘There is an inviting smell of chocolate and the crema is looking good. It’s got a nice silky mouth feel and I’d say it’s on its way to being a very good espresso.’

Best of the rest…

So what about the other eight machines? Some scored better than others – and each had its plus points that will appeal to different households. Here are the scores on the doors.

Full review: Heavy, shiny and with a stainless steel finish, this machine looks expensive, classy and professional. Little wonder, then, that it’s a best seller at Currys. It’s also popular on Amazon, where 2,700 reviewers have given it an average of 4.5 stars, despite the high price point for a pod machine.

Comes with detailed instructions but the onscreen digital display makes it very easy to set up and follow without really needing to consult them.

The machine rinses itself through quickly before it’s ready to start brewing. There are seven pre-set coffee recipes to choose from and each can be tweaked according to desired taste.

Comes with an attached, automatic steam wand for milk frothing that can be adjusted for temperature and froth level. The milk for my flat white came out perfectly. The steaming wand is sturdy, efficient and purges after every use and all you need do is wipe off residue with a damp cloth.

Cleaning is easy and the machine will tell you when it needs to be descaled.

Word of warning though: Nespresso REALLY want you to use their pods, the machine does not like other brands, struggles to ‘accept’ them into the pod compartment and then they get stuck when you try to eject them. Luckily it comes with a sample box of own brand pods.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘The body is on the light side. Long aftertaste and a bit of bitterness. Lacks some acidity and sweetness. Crema isn’t bad. But it’s only OK.’

Full review: The supermodel of coffee machines, this really is a thing of beauty that will take pride of place on any kitchen worktop.

One of John Lewis’s best selling machines, the set-up is virtually idiot proof as you simply follow the instructions on the screen. It isn’t just pretty – it’s intelligent too, learning and asking questions as you go so that you can get your drink just right. Was that too strong? Too watery? Do you want a finer grind? And so on.

It was the noisiest machine but there are 14 recipes available at the touch of a button, with the operator able to tweak each one to their liking. Milk frothing is easy, efficient and automatic, delivering just the right density of micro foam for my flat white. It talks you through the cleaning process too, most parts simply require a quick rinse and the machine will tell you when to do a thorough descaling.

Yes, it’s pricey. But for coffee aficionados who want a more hands-on experience, it might be worth the investment. And at 32p a cup over five years, this is still cheaper than a coffee shop. 

For me, the end result tasted like a café quality coffee and I felt like a proper barista, to the extent I nearly wrote my name on my cup. But my taste buds are clearly not as sophisticated as Peter’s as he detected a strange odour which resulted in a much lower score for taste than I gave. The Test Lab team is investigating whether this was due to it being a new machine or something else. For now, we can only go on what we witnessed in testing. So coupled with the price, his score pushed it down our rankings. Amazon reviewers also question the value for money, giving it 4.2 stars out of 5. One for the coffee purists.

Peter’s taste test verdict? Crema is looking nice albeit with a lack of marbling. It’s silky and there’s acidity and balance and an absence of bitterness. However, there is a chemical smell present which is tainting the coffee.

 

Full review: Of all the machines I tested, this took me by far the longest to set up – an embarrassing two hours! In my defence it came with zero instructions and, unlike some gadgets, it certainly wasn’t instinctive. Instead, a QR code guides you to a series of videos or printed instructions too small to read and that I couldn’t enlarge. 

In the end I had to watch YouTube videos from various sources to work out how to put the portafilter in and slide it across once the grinder had dispensed the coffee. Once I knew how to do it, it was easy to operate but, frankly, by that stage I wanted gin, not coffee. My espresso was delivered in seconds and it tasted pretty good, though nowhere near hot enough.

The machine isn’t cheap but sorry to say it looks it. 

Cleaning is easy, you just rinse the components and descale when the indicator tells you. There’s also very little mess as the grinding and tamping is all done for you. But I noticed some water leakage under the machine after a couple of uses.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘Good smell, some caramel going on there which is nice. Body is on the light side but it’s balanced. I’m getting a chocolate after taste. Decent crema. Not a million miles away from a coffee shop espresso.’

Full review: KitchenAid are known for their stylish, colourful gadgets but they clearly had an off day when they designed this. It’s a big, ugly lump of white plastic that doesn’t particularly look like a coffee machine and is too large to fit in a cupboard. On the plus side, it’s easy to set up, in fact the hardest part was finding the on/off button. There are clear on-screen instructions to follow and the printed ones in the box are great too.

You have 13 preset hot coffee recipes to choose from. It does come with a frother but I found it fiddly and ineffective, heating the milk to barely warm. So as a lover of a good flat white, this machine did not get my vote even though the espresso I made tasted fine.

Cleaning is straightforward, by following the onscreen instructions. Disappointingly cheap looking for such an expensive machine. Amazon customers seem to like it – particularly the relatively small size for such a capable machine – but it’s only had a handful of reviewers so far.

Peter’s taste teste verdict? ‘Crema is pale and quite thin. It tastes on the lighter side although it’s reasonably balanced and the extraction is pretty good. It’s decent and rounded but needs more body and aromatics.’

Full review: Can’t decide between a filter or pod system? This clever machine, one of Curry’s most popular models, offers both. It’s bulky and would need to be kept out but it’s eye-catching enough not to cover with a tea towel.

Clear step-by-step printed instructions made it a doddle to set up. For those that prefer you can also scan a QR code for a video guide.

A touch button system to operate makes it foolproof. There is a whisk that attaches to the side but it only froths the milk, it doesn’t heat. You’re advised to heat milk in a microwave beforehand, which makes it rather pointless.

The water tank is a good size as is the capsule container. The downside is that being a dual-purpose machine, there’s more to clean and rinse after use. Half a jug of filter coffee (enough for four cups) took five and a half minutes, whereas the pod coffee (with four espresso styles to choose from) is instant. The best of both worlds at a mid-range price. Amazon reviewers agree, giving it 4.5 out of five and praising its versatility and value for money.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘I’m getting a dry sensation on the tongue. The bitterness is coming through quickly which is a sign the extraction hasn’t gone quite right. Not great.’

Full review: If the thought of faffing around with grinders and steaming wands fills you with dread, then a simple filter is the way to go.

This machine, launched with great fanfare thanks to the Smeg branding, allows you to brew a large jug from ground coffee (up to ten cups) that will stay hot on a warming pad for up to 40 minutes.

Designed in Smeg’s trademark retro style it’s sturdy, cool looking and definitely a kitchen gadget you’d want to keep out on the worktop. The instructions are detailed if overly fussy (especially if you’re not interested in functions like timer delays).

However, after skipping through the stuff I didn’t need it was easy and quick to set up. The water tank is filled, coffee is placed in the permanent filter in the top of the machine and it starts quietly brewing within seconds. My four-cup brew was ready in four minutes and the settings allow you to increase the intensity according to taste. An hour after my first mug, the coffee, which I’m sad to say was a little bland and watery, was still warm.

Easy as pie to clean, simply rinse the filter and jug and away you go. An indicator on the machine tells you when descaling is required. Amazon reviewers are fairly impressed, giving it 4.3 stars.

No, you won’t get 12 different types of drink with this one and the coffee is not as punchy as a good espresso but it’s refreshingly simple, looks impressive on the countertop and would be handy if you have guests over for breakfast.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘This lacks body, there’s no smell and I’m not getting any flavour at all. Disappointing.’

Full review: This is one of the coffee machines of the moment. It’s advertised all over the internet. And it’s been on offer for weeks. But does it live up to the hype? The good news is this is very lightweight and slim and that’s just as well because the bad news is that it looks and feels very cheap.

Comes with instructions but it’s so straightforward I didn’t need to consult them. You fill the tank, insert a pod and a drink (hot or cold) is dispensed with the push of a single button. The tank is a decent size for a small machine, meaning you won’t be running to the sink to refill after just a couple of uses. Amazon reviewers rate it for value for money, giving it 4.3 stars, but the build quality is criticised by some. 

My espresso was delivered speedily and was piping hot with a good crema. Minimal cleaning required other than emptying the drip tray. No milk frothing but you do get a pack of ten espresso strength pods included with the machine. Basic but not bad.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘Crema is pale and lacks marbling. Not a very intense smell. There’s a wild bitterness that’s coming through strongly and drying in my mouth. Lacks the overall balance you want from a good espresso.’

Full review: This is another coffee machine you’re bound to come across – lots of advertising and lots of chatter about the Magnifico Evo. Extremely heavy and bulky, this will take up a lot of work surface and, sadly, it won’t win any coffee machine beauty awards.

It arrives packed with a whole wallet full of bumph including an invite to book a personal tutorial – after looking at the printed instructions, I understood why. They’re just a series of diagrams with arrows that are impossible to decipher. I ended up consulting YouTube videos, and found the whole set up process a massive pain.

There’s an adjustable bean grinder and drinks are made automatically at the touch of a button. The detachable milk frother looks like a baby’s bottle and it took me several attempts to get it to work, having to eventually reboot the machine. It’s been reviewed over 1,700 times on Amazon and ends up with a four-star rating. Not bad, but not a ringing endorsement, either, at the price.

However, when up and running it delivered perfectly, hot, frothy coffee. My cappuccino (one of four hot coffees to choose from) was excellent. It was easy to clean: you press a button to flush the system through, descale when instructed and all other parts are quick to rinse. Still can’t quite forgive them for the terrible instructions though even if it is a best seller on the High Street.

Peter’s taste test verdict? ‘Too much water with pale, minimal crema. Not getting much aroma. It’s bland and lacking in body. Nothing special.’

 

Write to Daily Mail Test Lab at testlab@dailymail.com with YOUR product review wish list