Having a good coffee machine at home doesn’t just mean you can enjoy a quality brew whenever you feel like it, but it’s one of the few purchases that’ll save you money in the long run. Most of us likely spend thousands on cafe coffee every year, and if you need to be caffeinated to get your best work done, a home coffee machine is a very sensible purchase.
Fortunately, the market has great coffee machines for just about every budget, taste, and preference. No matter if you like bean-to-cup, espresso, capsule, pour-over, or filter coffee, there’s something for you.
To help you narrow it down, we’ve rounded up the best coffee machines in Australia right now, from brands like De’Longhi, Breville, Rocket, Sunbeam and Gaggia. We’ve tried and tested coffee machines of all types to put this buyer’s guide together, so let’s take a closer look.
- Best Overall Coffee Machine: Breville Oracle Jet
- Best Value Coffee Machine: De’Longhi La Specialista Maestro
- Best Manual Coffee Machine: La Marzocco GS3 MP
- Best Capsule Coffee Machine: Morning Capsule Coffee Machine
Jump To:
- Breville Oracle Jet
- La Marzocco GS3 MP — Best Manual Coffee Machine
- Morning Capsule Coffee Machine – Best Capsule Coffee Machine
- KitchenAid KF8 Fully Automatic Espresso Machine
- Rocket Porta Via – Best Portable Coffee Machine
- Moccamaster Classic – Best For Pour-Over Coffee
- Breville Creatista Plus – Best For Nespresso Pods
- De’Longhi La Specialista Maestro – Best Value Coffee Machine
- Gaggia Classic Pro Coffee Machine – Best For Beginners
- Rancilio Silvia V6 Coffee Machine – Best For Small Kitchens
- La Pavoni Europiccola EL – Best Manual Machine
- Jura Giga 6 Automatic Coffee Machine – Best For Experts
- Sunbeam Mini Barista Espresso Machine – Best For Budget
- Everything You Need To Know Before Buying A Coffee Machine
Breville Oracle Jet
At the Boss Hunting office, we’re familiar with the Breville Oracle Touch as the coffee machine we’ve used for a couple of years, however, the Breville Oracle Jet takes things to another level.
From a superficial point of view, the Oracle Jet is more compact and lighter weight, the touchscreen interface is faster and easier to read with the dark background, and the menus remain intuitive. Overall, it’s sleek and compact and would look great on any benchtop.
Beneath the brushed stainless steel exterior, the Oracle Jet now contains a Baratza grinder, which offers more than 45 different grind settings to play around with to find the perfect one for your favourite beans. Additionally, it arrives standard with a 58mm portafilter (rather than 54mm) which means your coffee puck will have a greater surface area for improved coffee extraction.
The dual boiler system of the Oracle Touch has been replaced with ThermoJet heating, allowing you to dial in the brew temperature within 1-degree increments. The milk frother has also been updated to use Breville’s Milk IQ system, which has a temperature sensor at the tip of the wand for more control and a better milk texture.
You can do pretty much everything you’d want with the Breville Oracle Jet. Short of thinking about moving into the more expensive world of a commercial-grade La Marzocco or Rocket, it’s the best for your home, even if you have no idea what you’re doing.
La Marzocco GS3 MP — Best Manual Coffee Machine
Considered by many to be the gold standard of professional-grade espresso machines for the home, if your budget allows the La Marzocco GS3 MP to be considered just make sure you’re going for the MP (Manual Paddle) version (instead of the AV version). You’ll benefit from an integrated pressure gauge in the group head to adjust the flow rate and the ability for pressure profiling so you can get your preferred coffee every time.
The quiet, high-end rotary pump is compatible with plumping, so if you don’t want to refill the water tank frequently, you can expect a constant flow of water from your pumping system. If you can stomach the price, it may be the best coffee machine you can buy.
Morning Capsule Coffee Machine – Best Capsule Coffee Machine
Relatively new to the scene, Morning is a Singapore-born brand and its Capsule Coffee Machine is the world’s first to use variable pressure profiles on coffee capsules. While it’s not going to have the same nuance as a fully automatic coffee machine, this is about as close as you can get and looks good while doing it.
Consider it the Dyson of coffee makers, with a gorgeous OLED touchscreen, a rotating dial for navigating the parameters, and a companion app that’s also quite well-designed and intuitive. Calibrating how much the weight of the dose can take some work, but the biggest appeal of the Morning Capsule Coffee Machine is that you can easily make adjustments, allowing more control over the output than any other capsule coffee machine can.
KitchenAid KF8 Fully Automatic Espresso Machine
KitchenAid is a name you probably associate with benchtop baking mixers, but the brand also knows how to make a great-value premium coffee machine. Not only is the self-contained coffee grinder super quiet (a must-have for anyone with a young family), but it offers no less than 40 different coffee-making options to select from on the 5-inch touchscreen and froths milk to perfection no matter if it’s dairy or plant-based.
It features a 2.2L water tank and the milk frother enjoys nearly 800ml of capacity, while the coffee bean hopper can hold 270g when fully loaded. It’s not the most affordable coffee machine on this list, but the quality and consistency of the brew it produces is impressive for a brand you probably didn’t even know made coffee machines.
Rocket Porta Via – Best Portable Coffee Machine
Portable coffee machines are becoming more common but few are as powerful and impressively designed as the Rocket Porta Via. When it was launched in 2019, the shapely device was the world’s first truly portable espresso machine allowing you to make a primo coffee at home, pop it in the boot, take it to the office, and treat the team to some real coffee.
Rocket’s commercial-grade know-how is clearly expressed with the Rocket Porta Via, which features smaller details like a foam-padded slot for ceramic cups and necessary prosumer standards like a professional-grade bottomless portafilter, an external water reservoir and a tamper. The downsides are its cost and challenge to purchase locally (you’ll likely need to preorder a unit), however, if all you want is aromatic barista-quality crema anywhere, this could be the coffee machine for you.
Moccamaster Classic – Best For Pour-Over Coffee
First off, read our full guide to making pour-over coffee. As stated, brewing pour-over coffee is an art form and one of the purest ways of making a great cup of coffee where you can control a number of parameters. It does require a little more time, but the Moccamaster Classic makes an excellent cup of coffee thanks to its heavy-duty copper boiler and generous 1.25-litre carafe, which can fill up in just under six minutes.
The Moccamaster Classic is fitted with a 9-hole spray head so it can more evenly distribute liquid over the ground coffee, meaning that what ends up in that carafe is going to be much closer to what the grower intended. Plus, the price makes it one of the more affordable coffee machines on this list.
Breville Creatista Plus – Best For Nespresso Pods
Nespresso pod machines are never going to be perfect, but if you’ve got some Nespresso pods lying around the closest thing to cafe coffee you can enjoy will come from the Breville Creatista Plus. It has eight texture levels to choose from, 11 milk temperature settings, and simultaneously forths milk and brews coffee, combining to give you the best control of your coffee possible for a Nespresso pod machine.
De’Longhi La Specialista Maestro – Best Value Coffee Machine
The very popular De’Longhi La Specialista Maestro represents the best balance between the company’s well-calibrated technologies and a reasonable price point. Not only is the design is attractive, but it can also heat milk before switching to making coffee thanks to a dual heating system.
This feature-rich coffee machine also has De’Longhi’s proprietary Sensor Grinding Technology, a Smart Tamping Station, and Active Press Control with up to 19 bar pump pressure. While it’s quite bulky, this device can pump out an impressive coffee consistently and is one of the better options on this list for those looking for a high-end coffee machine that won’t break the bank.
Gaggia Classic Pro Coffee Machine – Best For Beginners
Widely considered to be the best entry point to home coffee, the Gaggia Classic Pro Coffee Machine is one of the more balanced choices on this list of the best coffee machines you can buy. It is capable of 15 bar pressure and has extra basket sizes for better grind size, hence better extraction and a richer crema with deeper taste.
Consider it a beginner-friendly espresso maker as far as automatic coffee machines are concerned, so it’s both affordable and ticks all the boxes in ease of use. The kicker here is that it only has a single boiler, so you aren’t able to align your brew and milk frothing.
Rancilio Silvia V6 Coffee Machine – Best For Small Kitchens
If you want a compact Espresso machine that’s easy to move around, the Rancilio Silvia V6 fits the bill nicely. Designed with prosumer machines in mind, its blocky build delivers a commercial-grade 58mm portafilter and tamper, as well as a 300ml brass boiler backed by a 2L water tank.
The Rancilio Silvia V6 Coffee Machine is incredibly easy to clean and maintain, and for a little over $1,000, the machine represents incredible value.
La Pavoni Europiccola EL – Best Manual Machine
If complete manual control over extraction is what you’re after, you want a level manual coffee machine like the Europiccola EL. With this slim, beautifully designed kit, you are the one who can control extraction time, negating the impact of a poor tamp or some mineral build-up in the portafilter. What’s more is that it’ll steam milk perfectly as well, with a 2-hole steam tip so you can finish your milk coffee with precision.
However, the main draw of this manual coffee machine is the lever itself. You lift it to raise a piston and allow water pressure to infuse the coffee in the filter holder, and then you lower it to force that water through the coffee and into the cup. The speed in which you do this, and the pressure, give you plenty of variables to play around so you can zone in on your tastes with much more accuracy.
Jura Giga 6 Automatic Coffee Machine – Best For Experts
Not only do some of the best watches come from Switzerland, but the country has also been known to pump out coffee machines that rival any Italian-made bean juicer. The brand behind this has always been Jura, and the Jura Giga 6 Automatic Coffee Machine is easily one of their best, and most popular, models to date.
The machine uses machine learning to remember your preferences, streamlining and individualizing the morning routine. This is complemented by the option of no less than 28 different styles of coffee (ristretto, espresso, latte macchiato, cappuccino, cortado, flat white, Americano, and more), easily programmed and accessible via a 4.3-inch LED touchscreen.
The double thermolock and pump system means the Jura Giga 6 can whip up a morning coffee and texture milk at the same time to ensure consistency and convenience. The integrated milk frother will even clean itself automatically after use, so the machine is ready for you the next morning, without any impurities that’ll affect the result.
Sunbeam Mini Barista Espresso Machine – Best For Budget
For serious coffee lovers looking for something that makes a great cup of coffee on a budget, the Sunbeam Mini Barista Espresso Machine is where it’s at. This small device does everything quite well and it’s more than capable enough to produce a satisfying milk coffee.
It features include Auto Shot Volumetric Control, letting you pre-set single and double shots of espresso, a commercial-grade 58mm group head for the portafilter, a 15 bar Italian-designed pump, and a wand for dialling in that micro-foam milk. That’s an impressive feature set for something that costs just a few hundred dollars. Hence, my recommendation for those shopping for a coffee machine in Australia on a budget.
Everything You Need To Know Before Buying A Coffee Machine
The Types Of Coffee Machines To Consider
You’re first going to want to decide what type of coffee machine you want. It’s not an easy choice; there are more than a dozen types of coffee machines out there, for a variety of tastes. Do you want a manual coffee machine? An automatic coffee machine? Fully automatic coffee machines or semi-automatic espresso machines? Are you thinking more about capsule machines?
These are the first questions you should be asking yourself before browsing the ridiculously overcrowded market of home coffee machines or home espresso machines. If you want a good espresso coffee machine that’ll last you a long time, you’ll need to put in the hard yards and do some research before you can start using fresh coffee beans, freshly ground coffee, or coffee pods to give you great-tasting coffee at home.
If you’re not too fussed about smaller details, and you just want fast, consistent coffee, you’re most likely going to join the majority and go for a pod or capsule coffee machine. Better yet, an automatic espresso machine.
If you’d rather be able to dial in those little nuances, a drip filter coffee machine, or a pour-over coffee maker, is your bag.
But I think semi-automatic is usually the way to go as this category of coffee machines represents the best balance. You’ll typically find that both beginners and experts go straight for a semi-automatic, which takes care of the more complex elements of a cup of coffee while still offering a great deal of control over the brew.
Features To Look For In A Coffee Machine
While looking for a coffee machine there are a few features to keep in mind if you want value for money and daily enjoyment. These are the five most important elements of a good coffee machine you should consider.
Dual Boilers: Ideally, you want a coffee machine with two boilers so you can brew coffee and steam milk at the same time. The main advantage of this is allowing the machine to better stabilise temperature, which is one of the most important factors in any brew.
PID Temperature Control: A built-in digital temperature controller will always result in better coffee. Just set the desired temperature and technology will do the rest.
Rotary Pump: There are two types of pumps: rotary and vibration. Vibration pumps are more common but can be quite loud, while a rotary pump is generally believed to be the more premium option.
Bar Pressure: This factor indicates the speed at which hot water is forced through the coffee, which determines the extraction (15 bar is ideal, but 19 bar is excellent).
Dimensions & Weight: Consider your available kitchen bench space before pulling the trigger on a coffee machine, as you don’t want it taking up space you might need.
How We Chose This List Of Best Coffee Machines
Boss Hunting is lucky enough to be able to go hands-on with many coffee machines throughout the year, all of which have been tried and tested by our office’s most enthusiastic coffee drinkers. We consider the features of a new coffee machine and balance them against the price tag to ascertain the value proposition on offer.
Will this coffee machine pay for itself faster? Or will it only suffice sometimes, leaving you running for your local cafe most days of the week? You want a good coffee machine that satisfies you enough to keep you away from your local cafe each day, which forms a large part of our evaluation process.
To read more on how we put together buyer’s guides like this please read our editorial policy.
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