How to choose the Best Espresso Machine

Ask any true coffee-lover worldwide about the best cup of coffee and you'd most likely get an answer "The Espresso!" This one tiny shot of pure coffee adorned with foam at the top gives a kickstart to many of us, awakening our minds and bodies and making us fit to survive through the rest of the day. Most people who haven't had a good cup of espresso typically say they don't like it because it is bitter. If espresso is bitter, it most likely hasn't been made properly as it is supposed to taste like a cup of molten bitersweet chocolate.

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In some homes, high-end coffee is revered as much as fine wine

By T. SUSAN CHANG
The Associated Press

In an era when $5 fancy coffee drinks are the norm, a growing number of people are willing to invest $1,000 or more to make the perfect cup of coffee at home.

Seduced by the gleaming, multilevered, counter-hogging machines that have begun crowding catalogs and showrooms, more people are willing to spend more money (sometimes significantly so) in pursuit of that perfect cup of Joe.

Consider this the centerpiece of the consumer revolution in coffee. A generation ago, a cup of coffee meant a bottomless mug at the diner, an overboiled brew from the home percolator, or even — shudder — a spoonful of instant.

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