Coffee Espresso Makers Guide

So, what’s the best coffee espresso gadget on the market? Oddly enough, that’s a little more difficult question than asking what’s the best NFL football team, or even who’s the best heart surgeon in Omaha, Nebraska. Football has playoffs, and you could take a look at the longevity of their patients to rank heart surgeons, but the best coffee espresso gadget? What do you mean by “best”?

Best usually means that something works better or lasts longer than the others. But with coffee espresso makers, you have such a wide range of prices that it’s hard to compare them. Not only that, but it’s really true that not all coffee espresso makers are made equal. They’re really not!

For instance, there are four types of coffee espresso makers to choose from. So, really, if you’re interested in the best coffee espresso gadget, you should really compare them only withing these four groups.

There are steam driven coffee espresso machines. These are the cheaper ones…well, to be honest, these are the cheap ones! You can get a Mr. Coffee espresso maker for $25! Steam driven machines sound great, and if you’re just interested in having fun with espresso, they are. But a steam machine can’t deliver the pressure or the heat to make a really great, frothy cup of espresso.

If you’re interested in a cheap cup of almost espresso, then Mr. Coffee makes some fine machines, which with a slight stretch of the imagination might be consider the best coffee espresso gadget, at least ‘best” when it comes to low priced.

If you’ve got more money…a lot more money…to spend on espresso, then maybe you should consider an automatic machine. Automatic espresso makers are, well, automatic. That is they do everything except drink the espresso for you. At the high end of this price range (over $500) DeLonghi and Saeco make some really nice single and double cup espresso machines, or gadgets. At the low end, you might be interested in what Nespresso has to offer. By low end, I mean $250 or so.

I’m not contending that these three manufacturers are the only ones you can consider as making the best espresso gadget, but they would surely be in the running for the top gadget that’s automatic and that’s in their respective price ranges.

In addition to all this, there are pump and piston driven machines.

Pump machines are prices usually somewhere between the steam machines and the automatic machines. DeLonghi makes some nice pump machines. So does Krups. Pump machines are a little more difficult to use than automatic machines. You have to grind the espresso just right to make these guys work well. As far as the best coffee espresso gadget, if you’re in the middle price ranges, then a DeLonghi might be just the ticket.

Coffee & espresso makers are all the rage. It’s no wonder. If you’re an espresso aficionado, like I am, you’re probably always stopping off at Starbucks before work, right? Well, have you ever sat down and actually calculated how much money you’re spending on your shots of espresso? I did, and I was shocked! What I was spending in only a few months could buy the best coffee & espress makers on the planet.

Not only that, but a lot of my friends are just as passionate about espresso as I am. I bet that’s probably true for you as well. There’s nothing that will liven up a get together quite as much as one of the top quality coffee & espresso makers that are currently on the market. You can make your own espresso for everyone! It’s a great conversation piece.

Well, since you love espresso, and since having a coffee & espresso maker will save you money and also benefit your social get togethers, the only question is what kind of espresso maker to buy.

There are basically four types of coffee & espresso makers automatic, piston driven, pump driven, and steam driven coffee & espresso makers. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

Automatic Coffee & Espresso Makers

Want the results without all the fuss? Want to just drink great espresso and talk with your friends without becoming a master espresso maker? Well then an automatic espresso maker is probably in your future somewhere. The great thing about automatic coffee & espresso makers is they’re easy to use and also easy to clean. There are also several very good, high-end manufacturers of these items, Gaggia, Solis, and Saeco being among the most popular and well thought of. Now, espresso makers made by these companies are top of the line, so be prepared to spend some money when you buy one. If you’re an espresso lover, the money will be well-spent, however, and you’ll also be saving yourself money over your normal Starbucks’ habit.

Piston Driven Coffee & Espresso Makers

Want to buy a real collector’s item? If you find a real piston driven machine, then snap it up! They’re becoming more and more rare. The original machine was invented by Gaggia. It uses a piston to drive the water through the coffee. You get the best foamy tops from piston drive machines, but as I said, they’re getting harder and harder to find.

Pump Driven Coffee & Espresso Makers

The pump driven machine is really like a modernized version of the piston driven machine. The pump model is for you, if you want to really get into the down and dirty of making your own espresso at home. Buy this type of machine if you think you’re going to be spending your free time roasting your beans, grinding them, making a cup of espresso then starting all over again in order to reach perfection. Pump driven coffee & espresso makers make a really great cup of espresso.

Steam Driven Coffee & Espresso Makers

Some die-hard purists will probably turn up their noses if you come home with a steam driven machine, but who cares! Most steam driven coffee & espresso makers can’t get enough pressure or heat to make a really excellent cup of espresso. But if you want to have fun with this and not spend a fortune, then the steam driven machine is for you.

Not matter which type you buy, making your own espresso at home is a ton of fun, and also can save you money to boot. Just do your homework so that you can find the right type of coffee & espresso makers for your needs and budget.

Coffee expresso makers are all the rage nowadays. You can see why. If you go to Starbucks once a day for a year, you’re spending nearly $2,000 on coffee! Really! Do the math. $150 per month x 12 months. That’s $1,800 per year. If you had your own coffee expresso makers, you could be spending your hard earned money on other things. Not only that, but expresso makers are cool! They’re great conversation pieces and if your friends like coffee as well as you do, they can be the center of any get together.

Here’s the deal, though. You have to buy the right kind of machine, and believe it or not, there is more than one kind of coffee expresso machine.

Steam Driven Coffee Expresso Makers

Normally, when most of us think about expresso makers for home use, we think about steam driven models. These work well. I had one for years and enjoyed it thoroughly, but they’re the Ford Fiesta of the expresso world. Most steam driven expresso makers don’t get the water hot enough or put it under enough pressure to make a really good cup of expresso. Let’s put it this way. It probably won’t have that nice, rich golden head of foam on it we all love and crave.

Automatic Coffee Expresso Makers

Automatic expresso machines work well, but without all the fuss. If you’re just into this for a great cup of expresso every now and then, then an automatic machine might be the right choice for you. With an automatic maker, you don’t have to grind the beans and tamp them down into the holder. All you have to do is follow the easy to use instructions, and voila! You have an excellent cup of expresso coffee. The only problem with these is they’re relatively expensive. If that doesn’t throw you off, then a few good manufacturers are Solis, Gaggia, and Saeco, among others.

Piston Driven Coffee Expresso Makers

Piston driven coffee expresso makers were some of the original expresso machines. They were invented in the 1930s by Gaggia. Today piston driven expresso machines are highly collectible, so If you can snag one, do so. They’re getting hard to find, though.

Pump Driven Coffee Expresso Machines

The pump expresso machine is an offshoot of the piston driven machine. If you’re really into expresso, then this is what you want. Pump machines have the power and can apply the right pressure to push your hot water through enough coffee to make a really nice cup of expresso. They can create pressures of up to five times greater then their steam driven counterparts.

Whichever kind you choose, it’s great to have any of these coffee expresso makers.

Coffee esspresso makers come in all types of makes and models. Some are more expensive then others. Some make better cups of esspresso than others. So that you can understand what you’re buying and why, let’s look at the types of coffee esspresso makers that are on the market.

One thing you need to think about is budget. Another thing you need to think about is ease of use. If you’re a real coffee esspresso aficionado, then you’ll want one kind of machine. Whereas if you just want a gadget that you’re going to use a little while then put on the shelf, there are less expensive type models to choose from.

There are basically four different types of coffee esspresso maker on the market, steam driven, automatic, pump driven, and piston. Each has its pluses and minuses. Let’s look at this in some detail.

Steam driven coffee esspresso makers are at the budget end of the market. This is not to say that they are inferior products. Although, real esspresso buffs might disagree. What steam driven machines can’t do is to build enough pressure or heat to give you a really delicious cup of esspresso. You’re not going to have the richness, nor the foam on the top, for instance. Having said that, if you want homemade esspresso and don’t want to fork out a ton of money for it, then a steam driven model might be just right for you.

Automatic coffee esspresso makers are…well, automatic. Don’t want to grind beans? Don’t want to hassle with everything else? Then go automatic. Problem with automatic coffee esspresso machines, though, is they’re expensive. Unless you just enjoy spending a lot of money for gadgets, you’ll want to be really into esspresso before you buy one of these machines.

Pump driven coffee esspresso makers are really the top of the line. They can create the steam and heat necessary to make a really good cup of esspresso. Pump driven models are really fun, if you enjoy the whole esspresso process. Like to grind the beans and tamp them down? Then the pump model is for you. In general, purists like pump driven esspresso machines. They’ll set you back though.

Piston driven coffee esspresso makers are a forerunner of the pump machine. With a piston machine, a piston is what provides the pressure to push the hot water through the coffee. These machines are collectibles and are fairly rare. If you run into one and you’re an esspresso lover, then buy it! Worst case, you’ll be able to make some money off of your purchase somewhere down the road.

No matter what kind of machine you get, it’s a lot of fun having any one of these coffee esspresso makers.