Germany · since 1908
The company that invented the paper filter
In 1908 Melitta Bentz punched holes in a brass pot, lined it with a sheet of her son’s blotting paper, and invented filter coffee. The 1x4 cone in every supermarket in Europe is a direct descendant, and the company is still family-owned.
The modern range is unglamorous and thoughtful. The Caffeo Solo is the clearest example: a bean-to-cup machine that deliberately does not do milk, and is therefore twenty centimetres wide, cheaper, and has no milk system to abandon. For a household that drinks its coffee black that is a better product than any of its competitors sell.
The AromaFresh line answers a different question — grind and brew on a timer, so filter coffee is waiting when you get up. The built-in grinder is closer to a chopper than a burr set, and it is still grinding four minutes before the brew rather than four weeks before, which matters more.
Where Melitta is genuinely the reference is consumables. Its filter papers set the standard for weight and porosity, and they are stocked everywhere in Europe at a price nobody undercuts meaningfully.
Bean chambers ×2 · 21 drinks · app control
Two separate bean chambers, so a decaf drinker and an espresso drinker share one machine without either compromising. The app is beside the point; the second hopper is not.
Best for: A household where one person drinks decaf after six and nobody wants to swap beans.
≈ £900 / 950 €
Steel conical burr · 1.2 L · black coffee only
A bean-to-cup machine that deliberately does not do milk, and is cheaper, narrower and simpler for it. If you drink your coffee black, you are paying for nothing you do not use.
Best for: Espresso, lungo and americano drinkers who genuinely never make a cappuccino.
≈ £280 / 300 €
1 L thermal · built-in grinder · timer
Whole beans in the hopper, brewed coffee in a thermal jug, on a timer. The grinder is ordinary and the convenience is enormous — for a lot of households that is the right trade.
Best for: A household that wants fresh-ground filter coffee without doing anything at 7 a.m.
≈ £190 / 200 €
1.25 L · aroma selector · glass carafe
Eighty euros for a filter machine that does the basics properly. It does not hold SCA brew temperature and it does not pretend to — what it does is make honest coffee for a quarter of the price of one that does.
Best for: A first filter machine, an office, or anywhere a Moccamaster cannot be justified.
≈ £75 / 80 €
