Best Bean to Cup Coffee Machines for Home Use Review 2023

Whichever name you use when referencing this particular model, we regard this as the best fully automatic coffee machine for home use on the market today.  Even if this portion of the review doesn’t completely convince you, we think you’ll agree that it’s one of the best machines available at any price.

It’s no surprise that our top spot is held by a machine made by DeLonghi.  They and Gaggia tend to trade top honors, depending on what type of machine we’re looking at.  What is somewhat surprising is the fact that Gaggia doesn’t have a model on this particular list.  Instead, two other companies, Phillips (makers of the exceptional Saeco line), and Jura dominate the machines in this class.

In this case, though, we regard it as an acceptable tradeoff, given everything else this model gets right.  In fact, the small bean hopper is about the only weakness this model has!

The double boiler is nice, and especially given the size of the water tank, which makes it ideal for power drinkers and larger households with multiple coffee drinkers, because it speeds up the drink-making process, but the real point of interest lies in the Gran Dama’s control system.

On this model, you can make the following drinks with the touch of a single button:

That covers the most common specialty drinks, and of course, armed with a world-class shot of espresso and something to froth milk with, you can make just about anything else you can imagine.

Regarding weaknesses, as we said, the undersized bean hopper is the only genuine flaw in the design and is the reason that the Gran Dama missed getting a perfect five-star rating.

Having said that, coffee purists will likely also bemoan the fact that it uses an auto-frother, and doesn’t have a conventional steam wand, but this group is likely to be able to live with it, given the number of grind settings on offer, and the sheer amount of drink customization available.

The only other thing to make a note of is the fact that the interface is somewhat dated, using an old, simple LED screen, which gives the machine a slight learning curve. 

If and when DeLonghi upgrades this, and nudges the size of the bean hopper up slightly, it’ll get that five-star rating from us.  It really is that good, and almost shockingly modestly priced, considering what you’re getting! 

In our view, as good as the other machines on this list are, the Gran Dama deserves top honors in this category.

This product has been discontinued. Check out our recommended alternative product: Gaggia Accademia

The second issue is that the bean hopper is slightly undersized, compared with the sixty-ounce water tank.  Unless you like your coffee really strong though, this won’t be a deal breaker either.

If you’re looking for unparalleled performance offered at an exceptional price, this is really the only machine to consider.  If, on the other hand, you need your fix of bells and whistles, this one will leave you a bit underwhelmed.  Even so, we regard it as an exceptional choice, and one of the best values on the market today.

This is Saeco’s flagship model, and the big brother to the Exprelia we talked about just above. Interestingly, in our view, the Exprelia is slightly superior to the flagship model, which is why it places third in our list of the best bean to cup coffee machine for home use.

If you have multiple casual coffee drinkers in your home, it will allow each person to set up a profile and save their preferred drink settings, so the coffee drinkers in your family aren’t overwriting each other’s saved settings all the time, or worse, having to constantly manually enter them in.

The water tank is probably too small to accommodate multiple power coffee drinkers, but can easily support the habits of 3-4 casual coffee aficionados.  If that describes your family, then this feature will wind up being your absolute favorite, and you’ll probably disagree with our top pick for that reason.

While the bean hopper looks undersized at first glance, having only a 10-ounce capacity, the company includes a secondary hopper with your purchase, which doubles the capacity to 20-ounces.

With a capacity like that, the Jura Impressa can even keep pace in a busy office environment, making it something of a crossover machine.

If what you’re looking for is raw capacity to support the coffee habits of several coffee drinkers in your family, and you don’t mind dealing with the learning curve, then this machine is solid gold.

Normally, we try to pick the top four machines for any given category, but in this case, the Giga 5 cried out for inclusion, even though it will be beyond the reach of many would-be buyers. 

In addition to that, the machine has a cutting edge TFT (Thin Film Transistor) display, a massive 87-ounce water tank, and more than two dozen pre-programmed drinks (29, to be precise).  You can even create a custom menu so that your six favorite drinks are on the main screen for one-touch convenience.

Despite its awesome feature set, the Giga 5 does have a few shortcomings.  None of these are deal-breakers, but you’d think that in a machine that costs as much as the Giga 5, there wouldn’t be any shortcomings.  In no particular order, these are:

Again, none of these are critical design failings, but they left us wanting more, and we hope that in future model upgrades, the Giga 5 will incorporate all of the above.

Even without them, it’s an awesome machine by any reckoning, and would make a great addition to your kitchen…if you can afford it.