Customer Ratings & Reviews

I spent a lot of time checking out combo coffee makers before I settled on this one. I read a lot of reviews and I breezed some recipes/info about what it takes to make a good cup of coffee/espresso. Most importantly, I wanted a decent sized drip coffee maker for the weekdays and an espresso maker for the weekends (or occasional weekday off). I bought this unit on sale during Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Here are my impressions and suggestions after a week with this unit: The build quality seems fairly solid as soon as opening the larger than expected box. The instructions are very basic and not clear, but enough to get you rolling. I was disappointed no specialty coffee recipes were included, but my Google Fu isn't white belt level. Make sure to wash all of the important parts and run some water cycles through the drip coffee side. There are additional pieces (scoop/tamper, single shot filter, and double shot filter with portafilter) stored for shipping in the drip coffee water compartment. I took those out, removed the shipping tape, and tried to decipher the instructions. First, I went ahead and plugged it in to run through some water cycles for the drip coffee. I was impressed how quickly it went through the cycle. The first day, I finished three water cycles and went straight for the espresso side. You cannot run the drip coffee side and the espresso side at the same time. Even if the drip coffee cycle is over and it is warming the coffee, it still won't run the espresso side. -ESPRESSO- First, let me make it clear that I am no coffee/espresso snob, expert, or even "home barista". I like coffee and I do a little bit of research for everything I do. What I found was that this unit claims 19-bars of pressure (baro in greek = weight shortened to bar), which means it puts 19 x 14.7 psi = 279.3 psi through the tamped grounds to make the espresso. Pressure is necessary to force the water through the coffee grounds to quickly result in espresso. The unit comes with a portafilter (the arm), a one shot filter, and a double shot filter. Each filter will hold different amounts of grounds for the resulting goal. I started with grinding my coffee beans very finely and using the tamper every 1/4" of grind I dropped into the double shot filter. I found inserting the portafilter arm into the espresso side and turning it required enough effort that I had to brace my non-dominant hand against the bulk of the unit itself or it would all rotate with the effort. After securing the portafilter and filling the espresso water compartment, I turned the POWER on the espresso side and waited for the 1 SHOT or 2 SHOT buttons to stop blinking and illuminate solidly. This meant it was ready to roll on espresso. After pushing the 2 SHOT button, you can hear the pressure build and then it do its espresso magic. The color comes out as visually all crema, the light colored foam in espresso that is the result of the emulsification of oils in the grounds that makes a nice foam. The engineers at Bella have decided 19-bars and the amount of time to push the water through creates a proper espresso with the right crema. As a layman, I can say it appears they did a fine job. The result is a great tasting, relatively strong espresso. There are many factors to making a good espresso and with this machine, the user's main ones are quality of coffee beans, consistency of grind, and successful tamping. -STEAM/FROTHING- This is my biggest complaint with this machine so far. The STEAM button that most people intend to use to froth their milk, creamer, or chocolate is difficult to use. This could largely be up to my own abilities and I'll be the first to admit that. Once the espresso side of the combo machine is ready, the STEAM, 1 SHOT, and 2 SHOT buttons will all be illuminated solidly. With intentions to froth milk, the STEAM button being lit is your goal. You cannot use the steam function if you are making or made drip coffee. Once that STEAM button is lit solid, you press it and then manipulate the knob on the left side of the machine. The knob has three settings: HOT WATER, OFF, and STEAM - going from counter to clockwise direction. The STEAM function on the knob gives you the ability to froth foam. The frothing arm uses steam to froth. First thing to know is that it can get very loud. Your dog won't like it and your son doing virtual classes upstairs is going to wonder what's going on in his kitchen. Anyway, make sure to use a cup with a handle to hold without touching a warm surface and would hold at least twice the size of the liquid you intend to froth. You position the frothing nozzle just under the surface of the liquid near to one side of the cup so that it creates a vortex inside. It's going to get very loud as it shoots hot steam into the liquid. You will get the hang of this frothing goal after a few tries but know that it starts out making a nice vortex in your cup and then gets such a strong injection of steam that it can and will sputter hot liquid all over the machine, counter, and yourself if you continue. I have learned to stop right before it gets to this point and I can even do another cycle over continuing to messy end. If you turn the knob to OFF during the steam process, it will expel the left over water from this process into the tray on the espresso side. I have purchased a frothing cup separately, but you may have a mug or otherwise that has a handle and is the right size. The STEAM function of this machine is the only thing that I am not satisfied with at this moment, but it may be my fault. Again, I will admit that I am still getting the hang of this frothing function but I haven't quite managed to get the target liquid, half milk and half hazelnut creamer in my case, to get close to doubling in size after frothing - which I understand is ideal. -DRIP COFFEE- Like I mentioned previously, it is recommended to run 2-3 water cycles through this side before making coffee. Fill the water compartment up on the drip coffee side to your preference. If you want the max result of 10 cups, the carafe will show you that you must have more water as some will be lost through steam or otherwise in the process. The front of this side is another compartment with a "gold" permanent filter of the cone variety. Some people swear by paper filters, others say you can taste the paper itself. That's your decision but the "gold" filter can do its job just fine regardless. When you plug the machine in, it is waiting for you to make your combo decision. If you want drip coffee, you already filled the necessary steps. If you wish to change the brew strength, hold PROGRAM for a few seconds until the brew strength pie/circle will blink with 1/3, 2/3 or 3/3. I have run it on 2/3 and find that the best. With your brew strength now set, tap the BREW buttons which doubles as power on for this side. The machine brews coffee fairly quickly. Fortunately, there is also a feature to set the time and have the machine brew your coffee before you wake up. You do this by tapping the PROGRAM button and then setting the time with the HOURS and MINUTES buttons. Like I said, it brews fairly quickly and the result is a pretty darn good tasting coffee! After it is done, a timer will set on this screen that will count up to 2 hours of keeping the coffee warm and then a beep will notify you that you're out of time. It does the warming job well, because the coffee is still great tasting and warm after those two hours. Unfortunately, two hours appears to be the longest that it will keep a brew warm for you - unless I'm missing something. I did find that hitting BREW again seems to skip the actual process if there is no water in the back and go straight to warming the previous brew, if you so wish. I will say that this is my experience, but this could be detrimental to the machine. So, perhaps it would be better to simply get into the habit of getting your coffee within those two hours or making a new batch if needed. Many machines have a faulty or poorly designed carafe, but that doesn't appear the case here. I haven't spilt a single drop of coffee that wasn't completely my fault. Overall, I am very pleased with my first week with this machine. The espresso and drip coffee functions of the combo machine are both great tasting to this simple coffee drinker. Honestly, I don't know enough or are experienced enough to tell you if these are perfect cups of coffee but they satisfy my requests from a combo machine. The frothing arm will take some getting used to for all unless you have previous experience in this realm. I am curious to see how well this machine holds up under use, which will truly determines its worth. From my understanding, getting customer service from Bella is very difficult. For that reason, I purchased the ~$23 dollar Geek Squad coverage and recommend others do the same. Happy coffee drinking!

Only reason it gets 4 stars, is its a bit loud qhen ysing the steamer or the espresso. Regardless. Its an amazing buy. Havent had the melting issues i saw from most one star reviews and still kaing great coffee and espresso

I purchased this a week ago but I’ve been using it everyday 3x/day since and I had to write a review because this machine exceeded my expectations!. I am a colombian (very picky about coffee) and was searching a lot for a good and affordable coffee/machiato/capuccino maker that could fit all my personal and family needs and this one have all the marks checked! . also, decided to post some pictures about the quality of the coffee because I couldn’t find them when I was doing my searching (see attachments). This machine besides being great looking on my kitchen counter top makes a delicious coffee and it takes less tha 5 minutes to make (after a little practice). Instructions are very easy to understand as well. let’s see how long it lasts.. I added the extra 2 years of geek squad warranty (just in case)… I totally recommend this machine! it is a very good deal and quality of machiato is 2x better than starbucks. :-)

If you love coffee this is a toy for you. Stop giving your money to Starbucks & make your own coffee. I tried the Espresso before going to work and I stayed awake all night long.

USED MACHINE. Just like someone else mentioned, they sent a reused refurbished machine with obvious coffee stains all over it. Even the frother was used. No where at the time of purchase did it mention it was an open box purchase. This is simply unsanitary, misleading, and could pose a risk to health, depending on what the previous users did. I am shocked that the inspectors didn't notice the marks, and it shows how much you can trust them. However, I cleaned the whole thing up (see picture of towel, its brown-because coffee) because I didn't want to deal with returning it and probably receiving a worse one next time, but I would not recommend purchasing this through Best Buy unless you have patience to deal with that, and I will hesitate to order kitchen/sensitive items through Best Buy again, knowing that they are probably not sanitary. I knew something was off when they sent a product from the state over rather than the nearby store which had it in stock. The machine itself is fine, the steamer is difficult and won't froth for me even though I watched videos on how to do so. But if it starts glitching soon like some others say, who can say if its my fault, or the previous owner?

Got it on the deal of the day for $100, i love bella products i have an air fryer ive bought from best buy as well. Same day pick up. You wont regret getting this even for retail. All the other high dollar ones your just wasting money on. Make your starbucks at home!! Cheaper more affordable at the end of the day.

We love this machine. I program it for a few cups of coffee each morning and once I pour the first cup, I make my wife a double shot espresso before she’s off to work. It has been a perfect purchase so far!!!

The Drip Coffee side is amazing! The side for Espresso can be better because sometimes hold water on it and lost the quality of the espresso

This is the best coffee/espresso maker I've had to date! I use it everyday and it makes the best coffee. I got this as a replacement and it was on sale which makes me like it even more! Great buy!!!

If I had something negative to say would be only about the assembly. The plastic looks pretty fragile and it tends to bend and the screen gets blurred by the water vapor during every brew. But the coffee I get every morning and the espresso shots are just amazing.

This is the best all in one coffee machine, my wife makes the best cappuccino ever, very easy to use, im highly recommended, you won’t be disappointed.

Great product for the price range, good coffee maker

My car, my coffee express machine work wonderful not only make hot coffee pot combining with espresso machine. It work wonderful I’m strong recommended and also very affordable.

I love my coffee maker! Froths milk as if you were at Starbucks and pours excellent shots. Simpler to use compared to a lot of other coffee makers. Definitely would recommend.

Makes great coffee love it. I made me a coffee station just for my Bella coffee maker, feels like Starbucks.

Great coffee machine. East clean. Great taste. Quick. Semi-nosey. Steam nozzle is strong and takes about minute to heat up. I would buy again.

Easy to use very reliable for the price I will recommend for a beginner like me .

This combo machine is great! I don’t have to take my girlfriend to a boujie coffee shop for an iced latte anymore!

I like this espresso and coffee machine - glad I bought this when the price was down.

My son loves it! He uses it every morning! I do recommend this product.