Easy Coffee and Espresso, not for the Fanatic.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy to use. Less money than buying cappuccinos.

Cons: Cleaning is a pain. Never open espresso boiler without letting the Machine cool down.

The Bottom Line: 
I would recommend this to anyone who wants cappuccinos or espressos anytime. If you want a coffee maker, don't get this its not worth the money.

Author's Review
Ok, nobody in my family coffee fanatic. So this coffee/ espresso maker floats our boat just fine. We got it about 10 years ago, maybe longer. I was like 5 at the time, so I never really understood the concept of this coffeemaker until just recently, when me and my mom were at Target in the coffee maker section. The following is our conversation:

Me: (In awe) Mom? I think we need a new coffee maker, look at how small they are now!?!
Mom: No, lets go.
Me: MA! look, its smaller than my head!
Mom: It doesn't make cappuccino, dummy.
Me: So, neither does ours.
Mom: Uh. yea it does..
Me: Mom, why would people pay 3.50 for cappuccino when you can make them at home?
Mom: Not everyone has one dummy.

So... I went home, and dusted off the manual from our coffee maker, and realized mom was not lying. So in the past week I've consumed twice as much cappuccino then my whole family has in all of eternity.

We've been using it for coffee for as long as I can remember, it works just fine.I've never really timed the machine so I don't know exactly how quickly it brews, but it does seem to be quite fast. I'd say that you could put 2 cups of water, the coffee powder, and have the whole coffee drinking process done (including clean up) in about 15 minutes. The timer function we've never used, the clock is easy to set.

The espresso part works, but you need to know what an espresso consists of before you just go pouring any liquid it in. I hate that you can't take out the boiler part to clean, because as it turns out about 9 years ago my dad used MILK to make and espresso because he doesn't know coffee from tea and never cleaned it out right. So I had to run water through the think like 300 times to get it to cleaned properly. It takes about 3 to 4 minutes to get enough pressure for an espresso to brew, but from the time the first drop drips a full shot will be ready in about 30 seconds. The machine comes with an attachment that lets the espresso drip into two cups at once. The attachment is nice in theory, but will not fit anything that is more than 2 inches tall under it.

The froth attachment is not as perfect as they say it is. You've got to fiddle with it its hard to get it really frothy everytime, and its a pain to clean off the dry milk that gets caked on to the metal part from the steam. It usually takes a scouring pad, some soap and good old elbow grease to get it off. Also, be sure that you always clean the froth attachment with a cup of water after you're done frothing the milk (otherwise it gets yucky). If you switch right from espresso mode to steam mode, the steam will start right away, but otherwise it will take a good minute for the steam to start and another for you to get a good froth.

Its a good machine, its held up over constant use for the past 10 years in our house. Its a little inconvenient to clean but it was a good investment, and now I don't need to buy a cappuccino everytime I'm at the mall, so I have some more money to spend.