When you walk into a real life store, you can just look at the machines on display and get an idea of how big they are, and let’s face it, fall in love with your favourite model there and then. On the web, it’s a little more difficult
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Impulse Buying – The Purse/Wallet Killer
From an impulse buy perspective, that’s probably a very good thing – we’re all guilty of overspending on the high street from time to time, but when shopping online, you’ve always got the excuse to send it back because it’s not quite what you expected. It might cost you a little in return postage (unless you can genuinely claim it’s not arrived as described or is faulty), but that’s much better than keeping things you should never have bought in the first place, especially when it’s something like a coffee machine that cost you hundreds of pounds.
Problems Buying On The Web
For the former point though, you really can’t get a completely realistic feel for how a coffee machine will look until you see it in the flesh, and one issue that raises is whether it’s going to work with your existing cups and mugs. If you’re like me, you will like a long coffee – that’s what you might think of as a decent sized mug. Sadly, a lot of people seem to be quite disappointed when they get their first bean to cup machine home, run an automated program and see what they get. The fact is, you’re not going to get a large near-pint sized coffee like you get when you go large in Starbucks, it’s more likely to be between a quarter and a half of that amount of liquid. Don’t fret though, there are solutions for the dilemma!
Getting Around Small Results
Firstly, some machines have long coffee options, as the manufacturers have finally come around to the fact that we don’t all drink coffee the ‘proper’ way as they see it. Yes, I’m greedy, and I’m proud of it. I drink a lot of coffee when I’m sat at my desk, writing detailed coffee machine reviews on this website. The last thing I want to be doing is running down to the kitchen every half an hour to top up. So, for me at least – a long coffee function is a great solution.
The alternative option is machines that can make two cups simultaneously, as it’s dead easy to use smaller cups on the machine to make your drink, and tip them quickly into your mug of choice to consume. You can even just take both cups with you – no-one’s watching in the privacy of your own home! Perhaps I’m unusual in the fact that I like a bigger drink in one go, but if you’re thinking the same way, there’s a couple of workarounds so you can benefit from these amazing machines but not feel short changed with the result each time.
Does Cup Size Matter?
On to the physical size of cups and mugs, each machine will have a slightly different clearance under the dispensing nozzle(s), so double check the specifications on our reviews where we’ve included them. In general, we tend to reference them when there’s customer comments raised, specific features to adjust the nozzle height or there’s just likely to be a problem, in other words, when there’s a limited space to get bigger cups or mugs in. If you’ve got standard sized and shaped mugs, all the machines should be fine, but we all have our favourite mug, so if that’s you with the novelty or oversized variety, give it a little extra thought.
The Last Word
In summary, then, if you’ve got a sensible cup or mug, no need to worry, but if you drink out of huge mugs (the equivalent in coffee terms of those wine bottle sized glasses!), maybe go and check out a machine on the high street that you like and then come back to buy it online to benefit from the lower price!