BOSCH 300 Series Fully Automatic Espresso Machine

This unit is the ultimate in luxury espresso makers. It’s very stylish, well-designed and built, easy to clean, and makes a fantastic brew. Definitely gets 5 stars from me, a bit of a coffee snob due to a friend who knows how to make a fantastic cup of coffee and ruined me from ever enjoying Starbucks again. Additionally, my wife does NOT like coffee, and practically refuses to drink it. She also isn’t a huge fan of large kitchen gadgets, so I was a bit worried that she wouldn’t like it taking up so much counter space. After setting up the unit (you can set things like your water hardness and the grind size), I initially tested the machine on a bag of coffee I had opened up 2 months before and hadn’t finished…not fresh beans by any means. I made a latte macchiato, and WOW. I normally like to add syrups to my coffee, but it was so smooth that I turned to my wife and told her to try it. “I don’t like coffee though, and it doesn’t even have any sweetener in it!” she said…but I told her to just try it anyway. The look on her face was priceless as she took a sip, paused, then said “What the heck!” and kept drinking it. I had to literally pull the cup away from her hands because it was late in the evening and too late for caffeine. The machine is so easy that she can use it herself (she doesn’t want to learn complicated machines), and she made her own coffee this morning. One additional nice feature is that the coffee dispensing nozzles are on a device that pulls down to meet your cup, meaning that you don’t have to worry about accidentally dripping outside the cup!

Just because this is a 5-star machine doesn’t mean there aren’t any caveats, and it wouldn’t be fair to not list them here!
1. The unit is quite loud when grinding. I haven’t owned other espresso makers to be able to say what the volume comparison is, but if you lived in a small house with thin walls, this would definitely be audible and possibly wake someone up. The milk frother however is almost silent, compared to one my parents had when I was growing up that was incredibly loud.
2. The water tank is (in my opinion) inconveniently placed in the back. This unit is designed to sit on a counter, and many people have cabinets over their counters. Our unit is in a corner, with only about 6″ of clearance between the unit and the bottom of the cabinet above it. This means I can’t get the water tank out without physically moving the unit, which actually has little suction-cup feet. It’s a bit of a pain to refill with water; I would have preferred to see a water tank on the side rather than on the back.
3. This was the most disappointing part of an otherwise incredible unit…the milk frother doesn’t heat the milk. It does an excellent job at getting the milk nice and foamy, however for something like the macchiato, you’re putting a few ounces of hot coffee in with 5oz of cold frothy milk, meaning the coffee is around lukewarm when it’s time to drink it. For a $1,000 unit, I would have expected it to optionally steam the milk as well. For this reason, I use a standalone milk frother/heater, and make a double shot espresso in this unit. Not everyone will care about this, but it’s just something to keep in mind as it looks like it would steam the milk. However, I will say the pull down frother is very convenient!

All in all, I absolutely love this machine, and I believe it will finally get me off my daily morning energy drinks and on to something more healthy!