The big trends in coffee these days revolve around home brewing. New contraptions are hitting the market every year. If you go into the specialty coffee world, a lot of folks sing the praises of manual brewing. Think of products like the Chemex, the Moka pot, the French press, the AeroPress, the espresso machine. Each of these involves the brewer at home using a specialized machine to make their cup of coffee. These are all wonderful. But, we need not forget about the convenience of automatic brewing.
Automatic brewers have been around for a very long time, and some are quite good! But there’s another kind of automatic coffee maker we’ve yet to cover at Raj’s Coffee, and that’s the bean-to-cup machine.
Why invest in a bean-to-cup coffee machine? The answer is simple. You want to be able to brew fresh coffee with minimal input. Bean-to-cup machines automate every step of the brewing process. They will grind the beans, disperse the water, and serve you a ready cup while keeping the experience hands-off. Whether you’re looking to upgrade your busy home kitchen with a nice machine or trying to offer your workplace tastier coffee, bean-to-cup machines can get the job done.
Here, we’ll cover some of the best bean-to-cup machines on the market and cater our recommendations to a spectrum of needs.
You Want Many Options On a Budget
Our recommendation: the Ninja Luxe Café ES601.
When we say “on a budget,” we’re speaking in relative terms. All bean-to-cup machines are going to run pretty high prices. But some are more affordable than others. And on the cheaper end of that spectrum is one particularly good option: the Ninja Luxe Café.
The Ninja Luxe is very much a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to beverage options. It offers three categories of coffee: drip, espresso, and cold brew. Each of these categories has multiple preparation styles. For example, you can choose between double shot and quad shot for espresso. In addition, drip coffee comes in several size options. It will even froth milk for you with no hand-on action required. And yes, the froth has customizable options too.
Each of the factors that goes into the brew, such as temperature, grind size, and even dairy vs. non-dairy milk can be entered into the user interface on the top. The machine does the rest. If you’re the kind of coffee fan who likes to have a lot of options for their drink, and you’re aiming for the cheaper end of the spectrum, then the Ninja Luxe Café is the way to go. At the time of writing, it goes for $599.95.
You Just Want Good Espresso
Our recommendation: the Breville Barista Express Impress.
If the Ninja Luxe Café offers so much, why would you want to look at anything else? Simply put, not everyone is looking for a jack-of-all-trades machine. If you’re the kind of coffee lover who really just wants a solid espresso without having to do all the steps yourself, this model from Breville should hit the spot.
The Barista Express Impress boasts a few features that will take your espresso-making up a notch from the Ninja Luxe. First, there’s the smart dosing system, which, as the manufacturer claims, “automatically calculates adjusts the dose based on last grind and tamp.” This means that the conical burr grinder at the top will remember which grind setting was used last and default to it on future uses. This of course can be customized.
Second, there’s the assisted tamping. This feature applies consistent pressure on the puck of espresso grounds. It even twists the puck into shape, mimicking the manual motion a barista would make. The idea here is to keep the puck reliably vacuum-sealed while minimizing mess.
Third, there’s the microfoam steam wand, which gives the brewer at home more direct control over how the milk foams. For anyone looking to try out their own latte art, a steam wand that can mix milk into microfoam is essential. This sort of precision is, from what we can tell, not as doable on the Ninja Luxe.
Because the Breville Barista Express Impress hands this last step back to the home brewer, we can fairly call this a semi-automatic machine. But we imagine that if you’re wanting to invest in an espresso machine, then you will likely want to do this step yourself. No judgment if we’re wrong! But we do think that the Express Impress is a solid option for folks looking for a semi-automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine. Note that it retails almost $200 more than the Ninja Luxe.
You Want to Spare No Expense
Our recommendation: the Smeg BCC13.
For those looking to add a sleek, modern, fully automatic bean-to-cup brewer to their kitchen, none may be more appealing than the Smeg BCC13. Here, we arrive at the higher end of the price spectrum. Currently the Smeg BCC13 runs for about $1,000. So what does it offer? In short, aesthetic.
The Smeg BCC13 is something of a hybrid between the Ninja Luxe and the Breville in that it offers a wide range of customizable options with precise control. The machine comes with 10 presets, including espresso, light espresso, coffee, americano, and others. Where it diverges significantly from the Ninja Luxe and the Breville is the milk pipe. The Smeg comes with a small container where the home brewer adds milk and then attaches the pipe to the machine. The machine then foams the milk and adds it to the coffee based on its preset.
But more than the milk functionality, the Smeg offers a sleek and small machine. Bean-to-cup machines, on the whole, run large. They gotta fit all those parts! Most models take up a fair amount of counter space in your kitchen. The Smeg, on the other hand, is quite compact, measuring at 7″ wide, 17″ deep, and 13 1/4″ high. It also boasts a smooth finish based on midcentury appliance design. It is easily the sharpest looking bean-to-cup machine we’ve come across and would fit onto a kitchen counter more easily than others.
If you don’t mind spending more money on a bean-to-cup machine that will automate your espresso and look great on your counter, the Smeg BCC13 is the way to go.
Conclusion
Brewing fresh coffee at home or in your workplace has never been easier, and bean-to-cup machines are a huge reason why. They may be expensive, but they offer a largely automated brewing method that allows you to enjoy freshly ground coffee without having to do every step yourself. We hope that between these three recommendations you will find something that suits your coffee needs.