COMPARISON TEST - 7 fully automatic coffee machines

Whether it is an appealingly mild Arabica from Ethiopia that hints at aromas of wild berries and vanilla, or a Robusta full of character that has sprouted from the wilderness of Vietnam: The full aroma of a bean can only be reproduced if it is ground immediately before brewing. After all, it is above all the bean's body, which breaks apart during grinding, that protects the aromas it contains from oxidising too quickly. The aroma, however, is of course dependent on many other parameters, such as the size to which the grinder should grind the beans, the temperature of the water and the pressure with which the water finally shoots through the powder. This already shows that it is anything but simple to reproduce all the different flavours in a harmonic ratio. With a modern fully automatic machine, however, many of these parameters can be adjusted to individual requirements at the touch of a button: Since all the essential processes, i.e. the grinding process on the one hand and the subsequent brewing process on the other, take place automatically, you can always ensure a perfectly stable quality: It doesn't matter whether you only want to make pure black espresso or whether you also want to prepare specialities with milk and milk foam, such as cappuccino, from time to time. We now had seven different models in our test (€min - €max: €299.00-1,249.00): Some of them offer an impressive range of beverages to choose from, in some cases also wonderfully intuitive via reliably responsive touchscreens. Other models keep it simpler here and therefore only allow you to choose from a handful of classics. You can read about the strengths and weaknesses of the fully automatic machines in our test, how they compare in terms of noise emissions and power consumption, etc., in our test report.