What is an automatic coffee machine and should you get one?

At a very basic level, an automatic coffee machine is one that takes at least some part of the coffee making process and does it for you. Quite what level of automation you get will vary by machine, however, which is why you’ll sometimes see machines referred to as anything from “Semi Automatic” to “Fully Automatic”, which kind of sounds like they’re getting coffee machines mixed up with machine guns, honestly.

What most of us think of – and what you’re most likely after from an “automatic” coffee machine – is a device that can make you a fresh cup of coffee at the touch of a button, taking much or all of the manual labour out of coffee production. You supply the beans and the water and it does most of the rest of it for you. 

You can still get levels of service variance however, and this can relate to how fine-tuned you want your coffee experience to be. Some automatic machines will only offer a handful of grind or water settings,  most will incorporate some kind of steam wand for frothing milk, while others may incorporate milk delivery as well.

• Ease of use: This is really the reason why anyone buys an automatic coffee machine, because they want a simpler way to get a café style coffee at home. For fully automatic coffee machines, it can be as simple as pressing a button and watching the coffee magic happen.
• Some level of control: This will vary by machine, but most automatic machines will at least let you set water levels, and for automatic coffee machines with inbuilt grinders also the grind consistency, which means you can play around with coffee quality in a way that you can’t do with, for example, many pod coffee machines.
• Fresher coffee than a pod machine: Pod machines absolutely have their place, but the reality with any vacuum packed pod is that the coffee is by absolute definition not fresh when you’re making it compared to the freshly ground beans that you’ll get with a cup prepared from an automatic coffee machine.
• More environmentally sound than (most) coffee pods: An automatic machine gives you much of the convenience of a pod coffee machine, but without the waste pods to dispose of at the end of each cup. While you can get reusable or compostable pods to minimise this, the byproduct of an automatic coffee machine is considerably simpler to deal with – properly mixed with other organic matter, it makes fantastic compost, for example.

• Limits coffee creativity: There’s a reason why coffee afficionados love the manual coffee making method, because it allows them to make (or try to make) coffee exactly the way that they want it. While automatic machines do offer some control settings, they’re typically within a smaller subset of variables, limiting the ways that you can fine-tune your coffee creation process.
• Pod machines are typically smaller: Do you live in a small flat or apartment with limited bench space for a coffee machine? While most consumer automatic coffee machines aren’t the size of the behemoth at your local coffee bar, they’ll still take up a sizeable quantity of space compared to a pod coffee machine’s smaller, sleeker presentation.
• Cleaning is a must: If you think all you have to do with an automatic coffee machine is press a button and wait for all that coffee goodness to come flowing through, think again. Proper maintenance of automatic coffee machines is absolutely vital to ensure not only a tasty cup of coffee, but also that your machine remains in peak condition, and isn’t also doing double duty as a breeding ground for mould and other nasties you definitely don’t want to be drinking. We’ve got a full guide to keeping your automatic coffee machine sparkling clean right here.