The options are endless it seems when it comes to the brands and types of coffee machines available these days. Let's unpack this one!
Firstly - do you want coffee's made for you or do you want to make them yourself?
Fully automatic machines
Domestic machines are often bean to cup and are self cleaning too! They're capable of delivering espresso as well as steaming milk, delivered straight to your cup. Quite often the time from turning on the machine to delivering your complete coffee in a cup is within a couple of minutes.
Pro's
Take two mins or less to make a coffee
Machine takes 40 sec to warm up
Settings are all pre saved for next time
Self Cleaning
Contain everything from beans, milk and a built in water tank
Con's
Limited personalisation especially grind and dosage
Inability to play around with flavour profiling
Texturing milk via an automatic carafe is limited
Temperatures are standardised, difficult to get an extra hot coffee
Manual Machines
In comparison, Manual machines offer the most in terms of personalisation seeing as you can play around to achieve the best flavour profiles by adjusting grind and dosage and some high tech machines have adjustable group head temperatures too. They are manual in nature and do take some extra time in the morning. Milk is steamed manually to achieve the silkiest and smoothest taste to match with your god shot of an espresso.
Pro's
Use a range of beans from light to medium to dark roasted coffee
Freedom to adjust all parameters as you like
Texturing milk like nothing else comparable
Can go as hot or cool as you wish when steaming milk
Con's
Most machines take a minimum of 10 mins to warm up & 20 mins to be hot
Require skill to produce espresso consistently
Require a grinder to be able to a produce the best tasting espresso coffee
Manual cleaning and maintenance must be scheduled in periodically
I've personally had the pleasure of working with both and have tasted amazing coffees from both Fully Auto Machines as well as Manual Machines.
It is a lifestyle choice, but just so you know either will be able to produce exceptional coffee no matter what you choose.
Beans - what to use
Fully auto - Because of the shorter brew profiles of a fully auto machine, we'd recommend our Milano or Espresso Blends as these carry enough complexity to shine through even a shorter brew profile that fully auto machines exhibit.
Manual Machine - You can choose any of our blends to create with your manual machine. From Premium to Dolce Vita you expect a smooth but very flavoursome coffee and from Milano & Espresso Blends you would expect more complex and somewhat stronger flavour profiles.
Make sure you checkout all our beans HERE
Any questions - please let me know!
Shafeen Mussa
Founder - Managing Director
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