Brewing new TECHNOLOGY

These coffee machines will do more than just wake you up in the morning, writes Sophie Prideaux

FANCY BREW

Most coffee makers will simply sit on a worktop, blending in with your other unassuming appliances. But if it’s design you’re looking for, this might be the most elaborate espresso machine in the world. Featuring 18K white gold ring enhancements, diamonds, royal purple amethysts, and with thermoses made from gold lead carbon fibre, the Espresso Veloce Royale 01 is really something. Designed to resemble a Formula One engine and engineered using aerospace-grade materials, the limited-edition coffee maker is sold by Super Veloce as a collector’s item. It dispenses aromatic, Italian-style coffee from one of six exhaust pipe valves. Only 500 will be manufactured, making it the ultimate investment for coffee and racing fans. The machine comes with four complimentary cylinder-designed espresso cups, with gold handles encrusted with diamonds. Dh627,000, www.superveloce.co

TIME TO EXPERIMENT

It might look like a piece of lab equipment, but the Gina is a coffee maker like no other. It is another concept made possible thanks to Kickstarter, although the founders managed to raise more than 10 times their initial target of US$50,000 (Dh183,625). The reason caffeine fans are so excited is Gina’s experimental element. Its adjustable valve allows coffee to be made one of three ways – keep the valve closed for an immersive brew, open for pour-over coffee, or set it halfway for cold drip. The smart element of the machine is its custom-made app, although unlike other smart coffee gadgets, it doesn’t allow you to control brewing. Instead, it saves the data from your brewing so you can remember what you liked, and share your discoveries with other coffee fans. Dh899, www.goat-story.com

MADE TO MEASURE

If your family has varying preferences when it comes to how they like their coffee, the Miele CM 6350 is the next best thing to having your own barista. The countertop coffee machine offers a definitive experience with its range of features, including the built-in “personalised barista” setting, allowing you to customise size, strength, brewing temperature, grinder settings and froth. You can choose between favourites such as cappuccino, espresso, caffè latte, long coffee and ristretto. With up to four individual coffee profiles, the machine uses the saved data for each person to blend their perfect cup, complemented by the heated cup rack system, which pre-warms all cups. And its OneTouch for Two feature makes two speciality coffees simultaneously. Dh6,200, www.miele.ae

FRESH TAKE

If, for you, coffee is all about freshness, the Bonaverde Berlin is the machine you need. The coffee maker is the result of a Kickstarter campaign from 2013, which saw more than 2,200 people raise US$681,000 (Dh2.5 million). The Bonaverde Berlin is more than just a coffee maker; it will actually roast and grind the coffee beans before it gets started on brewing. The concept was designed to allow farmers to be able to sell their green coffee beans directly to consumers. But the machine also has a built-in smart element. It works exclusively alongside its own branded coffee pods, which come with smart barcodes telling the machine how the coffee should be roasted. The Bonaverde Berlin can also be linked to Facebook Messenger, allowing you to schedule the start of your next roast via the Bonaverde Coffee Concierge. Dh3,669, www.bonaverde.com

SMART SOLUTION

For the times you wish you could come home to a freshly brewed pot of coffee ready and waiting for you, there’s Smarter Coffee. This machine works through Wi-Fi and can be controlled using your voice, an app or a fitness tracker. It can be linked to Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa to answer your verbal requests for a coffee, but even more impressive is the machine’s ability to detect when you arrive home and start brewing before you even say a word. The machine also features modes that allow you to link with other smart home appliances, enabling you to command it to start brewing, say, when the kitchen lights come on. The co-ordinating app allows you to always know how many cups of coffee you have left in your machine, while giving you control over the strength of your coffee. Dh1,549, www.smarter.am