Coffee machine recommendations

[Yougottawork]

Hi
DH has been looking at the nespresso vertuo machine but we have decided that the cost of the pods makes this an expensive option, although the machine itself is relatively cheap.

Can you please recommend any alternatives? Open to pods or ground coffee - a milk frother would be a bonus.

Budget is a couple of hundred pounds so definitely cannot afford a sage.

Thank you.

I love our Vertuo FWIW... worth it Imo

Thanks- how do you buy the pods? Via the subscription?

We have a sage bean to cup at home. We rarely grind beans so we could have gone for the cheaper sage duo temp which we have in the office.
I don't have much (any) experience with other coffee machines, but the sage ones make a great cup of coffee 😊 You might get a good deal in the jan sales.

I have a Sage Bambino Plus and love it. It’s a small machine, but feature rich for its size and price point. It’s simple to use, will steam milk excellently automatically and can adapt to either freshly ground or pre-ground coffee depending on the baskets used. Not sure what you mean by a couple of hundred pounds, but the Sage Bambino (which is very similar, but without the auto milk frothing) may well be in that price bracket, especially if you can get a discount code (and I recommend subscribing to Coffeebloguk's emails in that case, as he frequently has Sage discount codes). It’s worth considering that it doesn’t come with an integrated grinder, so if you want to grind your own then you’ll need to invest more money into an espresso capable grinder, though the machine will work with pre-ground coffee with the dual wall baskets.

I'm really sorry I've just re read your OP!

What kind of coffee do you want to make? Espresso-based or filter?

We have a clever dripper, it's not a machine but I'd highly recommend it, it makes good coffee.

I am planning on buying my husband the Sage impress machine. I was hanging on for a deal, which clearly isn't happening.

Aeropress and a separate milk frother?

Ooh, can I hijack the thread and ask what you think about it? How does the coffee from a clever dripper compare to a V60 for example? It's something which I've hovered over the buy button for a long time but just haven't pulled the trigger.

Not vertuo. I have the Nespresso original line Sage Creatista pro and it's great. You can get lots of pods compatible - L'Or, Starbucks, lots of pods work. The vertuo only works with pods bought directly from nespresso so more expensive

We love our Senseo and also our ancient old fashioned drip machine.

We bought the Lavazza Desea as it had lots of great reviews and we love it. Had it over a year.

Pros:

• looks great - small and sleek
• eco friendly capsules (CO2 zero and you can chuck the used pods in your food caddy as they're suitable for industrial composting)
• lovely coffee
• easy to use
• easy to make frothy milky drinks (kids make hot & cold chocolate drinks)
• fits your £200 budget - though you can buy it for £1 if you subscribe through Lavazza website (you have to commit to buying about £400 worth of pods but this can be spread over months/years and the subscription is easy to modify as you go along - both capsule choice and delivery)

Cons

• you are limited to Lavazza capsules and the range is quite small - no novelty flavours.
• depending on how many people like milky coffee you will probably need to buy extra glass cups

Melitta smart ts bean to cup. Incredible!

I bought a L'Or sublime recently it's compatible with all standard Nespresso capsules that you can buy everywhere. Cost £59 in Argos recently I bought a milk frother from Amazon a tenner...happy so far