It’s only after you’ve entered the wondrous world of the nine-to-five that you truly realise the importance of caffeine.
We’re not talking about steamrolling six-packs of Red Bull in order to pull an all-nighter to finish the dissertation that you left till the last minute, but thoughtful caffeine consumption that truly allows you to get through a gruelling Monday morning at the office.
By far the most important tip for enjoying a Cup O’ Joe without feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck some 30 minutes later is staying hydrated throughout the day.
It’s one of the reasons that artisanal coffee shops will always serve espresso shots with a small shot glass of water (cleansing the palette is the other). Coffee is a diuretic and drinking it without a healthy dose of water may dehydrate you before you’ve even managed to tuck into your lunchtime leftovers.
Before convincing the powers that be to invest in an office-appropriate coffee machine, make sure you explain why a fully automatic, bean-to-cup device is the only truly suitable option for a high-traffic working space. This will help your boss understand just why dropping a pretty penny on the right caffeine dispenser is important.
With built-in milk frothers, programmable and customisable features as well as versatile coffee menus to swipe through, fully automatic coffee machines are capable of producing a variety of caffeinated beverages without any of the fuss. You’ll only ever have to refill the beans, milk dispenser and empty out the coffee grounds.
Unless you’ve found yourself in a sparsely populated hipster start-up where office dwellers delight in wasting time grinding and tamping their own coffee, you’ll want a machine that can withstand crafting up to five coffees an hour (depending on how caffeine-driven your office is).
Once you’ve ticked a fully automatic coffee machine off the list, consider having your office invest in a bean subscription. Enjoying a variety of artisanal roasts per month is sure to boost team morale, should you be able to sneak that into the break room budget.
While you’re at it, make sure your office invests in a coffee machine that has an iced drink capability. By the time summer rolls around and all of our office buildings attempt to save money by ‘accidentally’ losing the air con remote control, nothing will hit quite like a lovely iced latte made on the company’s time with the company’s dime.
We’ve curated a selection of the best fully automatic coffee machines for your office no matter how large, small, or coffee-obsessed its population of workers may be. Go ahead and send this article to your office manager.
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Best coffee machines for the office at a glance:
- Best for smaller offices: De’Longhi Rivelia - £749, De’Longhi
- Best for larger offices: Nespresso Aguila 220 - £6,660, Nespresso
- Best for user-friendliness: De’Longhi Eletta Explore - £899, John Lewis
- Best for third-wave coffee: Sage Oracle Touch - £2,099.95, John Lewis
- Best for perfect froth every time: Miele CM 6160 MilkPerfection - £1,249, AO
- Best for fully automatic excellence: Jura E8 15363 Bean to Cup Coffee Machine - £1,395, AO
- Best for expert engineering: Siemens EQ.700 TP705GB1 Bean to Cup Coffee Machine - £932.50, Amazon
- Best for budget bean-to-cup: Philips LatteGo EP2236/40 Bean To Cup Coffee Machine - £244.97, Currys
De’Longhi Rivelia
- Best for: small offices
Brilliant for smaller offices and start-ups looking to get a caffeine fix, the Rivelia by De’Longhi is the Italian coffee expert’s most intuitive fully automatic machine yet. The innovative device is available in a variety of chic colourways to match your office aesthetic, and hardly takes up any much counterspace.
From the moment you switch on the Rivelia, you’re guided through an incredibly simple set-up process, which is pleasantly surprising for such a hi-tech machine. Though it may seem frivolous to some, the colour-coded and wonderfully customisable profiles help to bring this state-of-the-art machine back down to earth. Smaller offices will delight in their Rivelia remembering exactly what coffee order each team member prefers.
When it comes to making your coffee, simply scroll through an easy-to-use list of coffee combinations: cappuccino, flat white, long black and many more. Fill either of the two included hoppers with your beans of choice and the Rivelia will grind, tamp and brew your coffee to utter perfection.
The interchangeable hoppers designed with adventurous coffee lovers in mind are a marvel and allow even first-time coffee enjoyers to experiment with different roasts as well as caffeinated and non-caffeinated beans. The LatteCrema Cool upgrade set transforms the Rivelia into a summer-ready, iced coffee brewing delight.
Buy now £749.00, De’Longhi
Nespresso Aguila 220
- Best for: larger offices
The Nespresso Aguila 220 is part of the brand’s beloved professional range and is equipped with an incredible selection of one-touch coffee recipes, including instant hot and frothed milk options such as cappuccinos and latte macchiatos.
Like all Nespresso machines, it’s a capsule-powered option that has an impressive used capsule container capacity of 120. It can be connected directly to your office’s water supply so that you never have to refill the tank again, while automatic descaling alerts and semi-automatic daily self-cleaning ensure the machine is always operating at a premium level.
The Aguila 220 is capable of making up to 200 coffees per hour, making it ideal for open-plan office spaces, staff canteens, lounge areas and so much more.
Buy now £6660.00, Nespresso
De'Longhi Eletta Explore ECAM450.86.T Bean to Cup Coffee Machine
- Best for: user-friendliness
Interested in the De’Longhi Rivelia but have a larger office? Let us introduce you to the Eletta Explore. This brilliant fully automatic machine offers hot, cold and cold brew coffee on demand and is equipped with over 50 one-touch recipes.
Bean Adapt Technology automatically adjusts machine settings for each coffee type to ensure the ideal coffee extraction for your chosen beans, while the automatic To-Go system adjusts to suit your portable coffee cup of choice.
What’s more, you can beat the heat with the device’s incredibly innovative Cold Extraction Technology, which produces for Cold Brew drinks in under five minutes.
Buy now £899.99, John Lewis
Sage Oracle Touch Fully Automatic Bean-to-Cup Coffee Machine
- Best for: third-wave coffee
Sage does a fantastic job at making fully automatic coffee machines look exactly like premium-level manual ones. The Oracle Touch is a next-gen espresso machine which utilises an interactive touchscreen menu to create classic caffeinated beverages such as lattes, espressos, americanos, flat whites, cappuccinos and more.
When Sage declares a machine to be fully automated, they really mean it. The machine automatically grinds, doses and tamps coffee for a true at-home, third-wave experience. Meanwhile, the automatic steam wand is capable of producing silky smooth, barista-level micro foam for a perfect brew every time. Should you wish to experiment with latte art, it’s never been easier.
Plus, Sage’s expert porta-filter ensures that a perfect 19-22g brew is produced each and every time. Coffee addicts can also create, save and name up to eight customisable coffee settings.
Buy now £2099.95, John Lewis
Miele CM 6160 MilkPerfection
- Best for: perfect froth every time
The Miele CM 6160 makes two cups of coffee at once, making it a great option for busy offices. It comes with 11 pre-set automatic programmes for classic coffee recipes and a height-adjustable spout for those workers who come in with their very own favourite mugs from home.
Perhaps the most office-suitable feature of the Miele MilkPerfection is the Auto Clean, which prevents users from having to take the machine apart in order to ensure that it’s running smoothly and hygienically.
Buy now £1249.00, AO
Jura E8 15363 Bean to Cup Coffee Machine
- Best for: fully automatic excellence
A classic office option, the Jura E8 15363 may require some thoughtful, regular maintenance, but it’s a brilliant fully automatic machine that’s certainly worth the work. With an impressive 17 pre-programmed one-touch drinks and adjustable coffee strength to suit different caffeine sensibilities, the Jura E8 is an intuitive and user-friendly machine which will blend seamlessly into any workplace canteen or break room.
The Jura E8 is powered by a Professional Aroma Grinder, which is designed to deliver a flawless grind and a state-of-the-art brewing process that allows the coffee aromas to fully develop. Automatic milk frothing and spout cleaning make producing a consistent stream of feather-light flat whites an absolute breeze.
Buy now £1395.00, AO
Siemens EQ.700 TP705GB1 Bean to Cup Coffee Machine
- Best for: expert engineering
The same precision that guides Siemens’ engineering and manufacture of complex medical equipment guides their design of practical household appliances and is very much on show with their range of bean-to-cup coffee makers. This is the EQ.700, a fully automatic machine on the cutting edge.
It starts with its design, a sleek, smart gunmetal form. The control surface is a swanky ‘iSelect’ touch-screen, with an easy-to-navigate menu and a plethora of fun options to discover.
Its function carries the theme, with a wide array of different coffee recipes available at the swipe of a finger – facilitated by a built-in milk system (which takes milk from a separate jug via the hose, allowing you to keep your milk fridge-fresh between brews) and a smart water pump that perfectly measures pressure and amount for each brew.
The hopper for the coffee beans is huge – and huger still is the water tank, enabling you to make many faff-free drinks before needing to top everything up. The EQ.700 also benefits from Wi-Fi connectivity with Siemens’ Home Connect app, which allows you to set your coffee brewing from your phone, smartwatch or even a voice assistant like Google Nest.
Between this, the 11 custom user presets and the pan-global menu of instantly-accessible coffee recipes, the EQ.700 is pure luxury in coffee maker form. The quality of the coffee it produces is incomparable to other automatic bean-to-cup solutions, and its top-dollar functionality is almost excessive. Watch this become an indispensable part of your future kitchen.
Buy now £932.50, Amazon
Philips LatteGo EP2236/40 Bean To Cup Coffee Machine – Black
- Best for: budget bean-to-cup convenience
Philips is another household brand with fingers in many different domestic pies, including the LatteGo EP2236/40; an automatic coffee maker with all the bells and whistles you’d hope for. There’s a 275g bean reservoir, which connects to a ceramic grinder with 12 coarseness settings; there’s an automatic brewing system giving you up to 15 bars of espresso-pulling pressure; and there’s an on-board milk system there to layer your drink with dense creamy foam.
The LatteGo EP2236/40 is extremely user-friendly, with three preset beverages – and finer settings to tweak temperature and grind coarseness – accessed by a single button. The unit is also easy-clean, with an easily detached milk system and an internal cleaning cycle (also accessed by a single button press).
With little else required of you than topping up the bean hopper and topping up your milk, this is a great choice for the less technologically adept of us, and at a budget price point.
Buy now £244.97, Currys
