Essenza XN110840 Mini Coffee Machine by Krups, Piano Black

This is an excellent coffee machine for anyone who has limited space available. I first used one when I was staying in a hotel and thereafter wanted one. It uses the original shaped coffee pods and produces an excellent cup of coffee. Easy to use, you fill up the water receptacle at the back of the machine and away you go. I live in a hard water area so have been using bottled water to reduce limescale but this is optional. This would be ideal for a caravan, motorhome or other small space. I live in a flat and it is perfect as limited space is available. Cost saving as I have not bought coffee from the usual high street names since having this; I make it at home and take it with me - really good coffee, easy operation, excellent buy.

I’ve been using it pretty much every day between mid April and the end of June, and it’s a fantastic little device. It’s about the size of a large book (Secret History of Twin Peaks, and about twice as thick), so it can sit out of the way in my office. The arm on the top feels very sturdy (I think it’s metal rather than plastic). The capsules are a bit weird, for the first couple of months, I was trying to get the capsule to line up vertically with the part that engages and covers it as you close the arm, which was very fiddly. I was taking the drip tray out and trying to push it into perfect 90 degree alignment from above and below it. I’ve since found you can drop most capsules in then slowly close the arm and it will pull the capsule into alignment. At first it looks like the capsule is pointing up slightly and it’s going to get squished, but do it gently and the capsule gets pulled down so it’s in the same vertical alignment as the machine (90 degrees to the surface it’s on) I was using knock off plastic ones, which you can’t recycle, but you can get aluminium ones at a pretty reasonable price too, a bit better for the environment since you can get recycling backs from Nespresso and return the used capsules free of charge, which is a great idea! Great for quick espressos/lungos. There’s a button for each. An espresso cup is fine, but if you want a lungo, just make sure you’ve got a cup that has a 110ml capacity (150ml is fine hand just leaves a little gap). If you’re not sure what cup size you’ve got, a good trick is to fill the cup with water, then pour the water into a measuring beaker). Lungos are basically “stretched” espressos (I.e. a slightly watered down espresso), but you can get lungo capsules which have more coffee in the apparently. I like them when I’m approaching the lethal does of caffeine, or start to be able to see through time! It takes about 20-30 seconds to warm up from could (press any button to wake it up, the your preferred cup size). It’s not hugely noisy, about on par with a 1st generation Tasimo, May be a bit quieter, but it only runs for a couple of seconds to produce the coffee. It’s already had more use in 3 months than my Tassimo had in 10 years (220 pods already!). If you like shorter, stronger coffees, with a lot of varieties, this is a great option. Just please get the aluminium pods and recycle!

This is a great little coffee machine; perfect for quickly making coffee for two people, as the water capacity is sufficient. It takes up very little space, looks neat, is good quality, easy to use and to clean. We use it almost every day and are extremely happy with it. We feel it was good value for money!

The coffee maker is brilliant and works really well. The only issue I had is that Amazon advertised 14 free capsules but when the box arrived it states 7 on the outside of the Nespresso box and I side you only get 7 and not the 14 advertised.

good compact machine. easy to use and clean. looks very modern in kitchen and takes up only small space

I got this after my last machine died and I had to get a new one, quickly. This machine has a very small footprint but the downside is that the water tank and capsule waste basket are pretty small too. It looks sleek and elegant and it would fit in any small kitchen or office very well. The coffee making is unchanged compared to previous models. I highly recommend it if you like the modern, sleek look but it wouldn’t be ideal if you had a lot of coffees to make in rapid succession.

Super product highly reliable and delivers excellent quality

Very compact, so doesn't take too much space. It has smaller container for used coffee capsules and water, so if you need several coffees at a time you need to empty more often and fill up water, but that is rather rare. For every day use for medium size family it's perfect and good value for money.