For most of our readers, the ideal bean to cup purchase will be as much about spending the right amount of money as it will about the features of the machine. It would be very easy for us to tell everyone to go and buy the biggest and best coffee maker on the market in terms of cost, but the simple fact is most people aren’t able or willing to spend thousands of pounds.
One of the reasons De’longhi feature so frequently and so highly in our recommended machines is that they consistently create machines offering the best value for the money spent. Of course, you’ll still need to spend hundreds of pounds on their models, bean to cup machines don’t come cheap. What you get though, is truly superior coffee compared to lower cost coffee makers like pod based makers and of course instant coffee.
Delonghi’s Best Coffee Machines
As you’re no doubt already aware, the best coffee machine for one reader is almost certainly going to differ from others. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to limit ourselves to Delonghi, but the same also applies to Sage, Melitta, and all the other manufacturers with a wide range of products.
The biggest consideration is going to be the type of coffee that you want to make. If you’re a purist, you might just want espresso and nothing else. In that case, going with the very affordable Magnifica ESAM4200 is almost certainly your best bet. It’s a really great machine, and you’re not paying for milk texturing that you’re never going to use.
If you like milky coffee though, such as latte, cappuccino or a flat white, you’re much more suited to an Eletta, namely the ECAM44.660.B or the ECAM45.760.W. They’re very very similar machines, differing in color (the former is black, the latter white), and a slightly different configuration on the control panel. To all intents and purposes though, if they’re the same price and you want one, it comes down to which colour you prefer or fits best into your kitchen. Generally speaking the black Eletta machine tends to be the cheapest but it does vary.
Simple To Use, One Touch Drinks
However you like your coffee, Delonghi machines tend to be best for one touch operation. With virtually all of their coffee makers, you can fine tune how fine the beans are ground, how long the drinks are and with milk based coffees in the Eletta range, how much the machine froths the milk before serving. That means you get the best of both worlds, automation and configuration. Naturally, some people want a more hands on machine, in which case the Sage range will probably be more suited to them, but for the majority of us, we want to make coffee we like, and have the simplicity of making cup after cup at the touch of a button.
