Advantages: Cheap, easy to use, compact
Disadvantages: No automatic pump stop

...I'd been thinking about getting an espresso machine when I saw the Krups Espresso Vivo on offer in Tesco last week, reduced from £79 to £69. You can pay anything up to £400 for 'the full monty' of coffee makers, so I thought it looked pretty good value. It is a neat, compact, easy-to-use espresso and cappuccino maker, predominantly in matte black plastic. It has a large, removeable water tank which is easy to fill either at the tap or on the machine itself using, say, a Brita jug. There are two switches on the top, one which turns the machine on to heat the water, and one which starts the espresso pump. There are two lights, a red one to indicate it is switched on, and a yellow one which goes out when the water gets up to temperature. It has a 15 bar pump pressure, which helps give a richer taste and a creamy 'head' on the espresso... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Beginning to make the very best coffee in the world
Disadvantages: Instructions & pathetic warming plate

...perhaps Mellow Birds from shuddersville. But still there are more quantum leaps to be made before achieving a coffee that ranks in the Top Ten all time best drinks in the world, along with the best wines, best Cognacs, best water, best Whiskies, best fruit juices etc. Upwards and onwards. The next leap up is making coffee out of coffee – novel notion I know. But very good coffee can be made with one plunge of the humble Cafetiere. Likewise hot-water-drip coffee filter machines are a huge advance over any instant. Care over the choice of coffee, its freshness, grinding your own beans etc, will easily make decent or good coffee with minimal outlay on paraphernalia. But from filtering and plunging there is still a long way to go to get to espresso. Espresso - the pinnacle of drinks that can be made from the coffee bean, and I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Rich coffee flavour.
Disadvantages: No good if you don't like coffee....

...After a couple of DVDs reviews we are back on the beer once more. This is another beer I sampled at Chesterfield Beer Festival in February this year. I love trying beers I haven’t had before and I am partial to the odd pint of stout. It was no surprise that my eyes were drawn to a barrel up on the top of the stillage ~ Dark Star Espresso Stout! ~~~THE BREWERY. The Dark Star Brewing Company is based at Moonhill Farm, Haywards Heath, in West Sussex. Founded back in 1994 (but called Skinners Ales to start with) in the cellar of a pub called The Evening Star in Brighton. They moved on to Moonhill Farm in 2001 and have been brewing there ever since. Dark Star beers are regularly available in five or six pubs in the local area (Sussex), and also appear at Beer Festivals and as Guest Beers nationwide. They brew a range of regular... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: A cheap and simple way to make passable espresso
Disadvantages: Smaller model awkward on gas stoves, not up to standard of a dedicated machine

...I've loved espresso ever since I accidentally ordered the wrong thing in a little station coffee shop a few years ago, but inevitably it always seemed something of a luxury: on my budget, I can't afford too many coffee shop trips, and stand-alone home espresso machines are a long way out of my price range. I was delighted, then, to discover the traditional stovetop espresso pot, a tenth of the price and far more convenient when moving back and forth from university. The Whittard pots are fairly standard, consisting of a base to be filled with water, a small basket to hold the grounds, and a jug-like top part to collect the espresso. These slot and screw together solidly, with a rubber ring providing a decent seal. Nothing special here, but also nothing terrible. I picked up the smallest, 3-cup model, mainly because it was also... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Instant, no messy machines
Disadvantages: Not to be drunk near bed time

...I stumbled upon this product purely by accident while looking for espresso coffee beans or ground to make a delicious drink that I had on an evening partaking of food and drink at an Italian restaurant in a local hotel. I am not a coffee connoisseur, in fact I hardly ever have anymore than 2 cups a day. I do however love my alcoholic coffee fixes and usually tend to stick to Irish or Gaelic Coffee, not so anymore, reason will evolve later. Unsure as to which category to do this review in I decided to do some research on the three main ingredients which make up the drink. I only got as far as researching the coffee angle and thought this could be interesting as I found out a lot of information and facts that I never knew, the first being the origins of coffee itself. Well they don't really know where it originated from but can... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful