Coffee Maker reviews

A pod machine that reads the K-Cup and tunes the brew per brand, with an app that reorders pods before you run out. It's still a pod machine, with all the costs that implies.

A commercial 58mm portafilter at consumer pricing, with a thriving aftermarket that fixes everything the machine ships with. Excellent espresso if you want a hobby. Frustrating if you wanted a coffee maker.

An SCA-certified drip with a real bloom phase, a rainmaker shower head, and a thermal carafe that won't scorch the second pot. Around two hundred dollars. No screen, no profiles, no notifications.

A Breville-built Vertuo with a real steam wand, a milk pitcher that weighs itself, and three froth settings. It's the prettiest pod machine I've used and the priciest by a wide margin.

Pretty in six pastel colors, plastic underneath, with a pressurized portafilter and a frother that makes bubbles rather than microfoam. The DeLonghi at a quarter the price pulls the same shot.

A three-in-one that does SCA-spec drip in a carafe, single-serve Nespresso shots, and frothed milk for cappuccinos. It costs about what one of the better single-purpose machines does.

A semi-automatic with a smart tamper, calibrated dosing, and a real auto-frother for milk drinks. The dual boiler does almost everything except the one thing that title implies.

A programmable drip that lets you tune temperature per phase and shapes the pour like a pour-over. The cup is the best I've had from a machine; the build and app are not what four hundred dollars should buy.

Hand-assembled in the Netherlands, repairable down to the last component, with a copper heater that holds the right temperature through the whole cycle. No timer, no app, no grinder. Just coffee.

A semi-automatic espresso machine with a built-in grinder and a smart tamper that handles the two steps beginners get wrong. Eight hundred dollars buys you a shot you'd order in a café.

A metal-and-glass version of the original AeroPress. Makes identical coffee, costs three times as much, and looks better doing it. Worth it only if you've worn out the plastic one.

Breville's mid-tier automated espresso machine with a built-in grinder, auto-tamping, and an auto steam wand. Around $2,000 buys you a shortcut to decent shots that doesn't insult the coffee.

A dual-boiler La Marzocco shrunk down to home-counter dimensions. The shots taste like a good cafe; the price tag taste like one too, in the wrong direction.

A boring-looking drip machine that hits SCA brewing temperatures and dumps water on the grounds the way a pour-over would. Around $200, lasts forever, and the pot tastes better than the price suggests.