Philips - Naviglio HD8749/01 Black

I have a Gagia Navglio and it’s been going strong for over 6 years. I want to upgrade to something that has a bypass doser for ground beans and an easier milk frother. I don’t mind filling the frothing cup and steaming, but I would rather have a carafe ready to go.

Gaggia Navglio bean to cup. I’ve had a number of machines from a modded Gaggia Classic to some fully automatic ones. This is my current one and it’s great. Currently under €300 delivered: https://www.coffeeitalia.ie/gaggia-naviglio-hd8749-01-black/

You can make really good coffee with a $500 coffee machine, but you can make better coffee more consistantly with a $2000 machine however, that doesnt answer your question and I’ll go into why I don’t think it really works that way. The reason I say that it doesn’t work that way is that it’s relative to what you’re used to. Taste is a very subjective matter. Physically everyone’s taste receptors (Papillae and taste pores) are different and we also have differences mentally, as we’ve all been trained to our individual and very particular “cultural” taste and enjoyment profile. I drink black coffee and have done for the majority of my life, whilst others will only drink it with milk. When you were a child, your family introduced tastes to you based on their preferences and as you got older, that was slowly modified as you went on your own taste adventure, went on foreign holidays, perhaps meeting people in university and visiting restaurants etc., have all changed you preferences, so there has technically been as many taste profiles, as have ever been people ever alive and that includes our earliest ancestors. Additionally if you’ve always had coffee made from freeze dried coffee, they you really wouldn’t and couldn’t know, what good coffee should really taste like! Common tastes that link us all are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami, as our taste receptors are grouped together based on function. The tip and edges of your tongue detect sweet, salty and sour, with the back of your tongue detecting bitterness, as most natural toxins have a slightly bitter taste to them. Umami, just in case you’re not familiar with the word, means savoury in Japanese however, the word doesn’t just mean savoury. It means the savoury taste you get from roast beef or lamb. That amalgamation of flavours, that the English language doesn’t have a single word to describe. Everyone had a differing number of taste receptors and also a different density of each, thereby giving us all a unique experience of that particular items taste. Now that you have the science behind taste, what would you think the answer is to your question? Would a $500 machine make you good enough coffee that you’re happy and you would drink it every day, then thats the answer. If the answer is no, then it’s no and it doesnt matter if it’s a milky drink or not. Now, my personal view of the situation, is that tea drinkers are way fussier than coffee drinkers in my experience, with my wife being a complete nightmare and requiring a particular shade of beige in her cup! Coffee drinkers and are a lot more willing to experience and, or to tolerate a variation of flavour and strength; also, due to coffee having that “umami” flavour, due mainly to the roasting process that caramelises the sugars etc., coffee sits right in the middle of that mental comfort zone, side by side with (in my case at least) a Sunday roast! A side note to all of this, and to illustrate the sensitivity of our taste receptors, I have my coffee black with no sugar. It’s nearly always a double espresso or a double moka, with no sugar. On the rare occasions I go for something else, guess what, it’s a lungo or an americano! If my wife makes us both a coffee, I can tell if she accidentally stirred my drink, as I can taste both milk and sweetener transferred off the spoon. She tends to flick the spoon between stirring each drink, so many parts per million would that average out at? The top and bottom of it is that I enjoy coffee from my Bialetti Moka pot costing £50 as I much as espresso from my Rancillio or an Americano from my Gaggia bean to cup machine. The common theme here is that i select the beans for each, based on my preference, therefore each one is perfect for my needs at that particular moment in time. Each one is different to each other, but individually pleasing. I think what I was trying to say in my neurodiverse hyper-focus of a response is not to believe the hype or the pseudoscience that you’ll see on YouTube and read online. Buy your machine of choice, based on honest reviews online and not influencers and “hype-notists” who have a vested interest in the situation. Remember whatever priority you decide, is valid for you, if thats price, size, functions such as built in grinder (very handy for first timers) or some other thing. Nail your flag to the pole and above all else enjoy learning about coffee flavours and regions. Decide what you like and stick with it forever, or fall into a black hole with the rest of us and be eternally damned to never having that new perfect grinder or getting that brew profile perfect! Also continuously being in trouble for spending too much on coffee stuff and having too much coffee stuff, not to mention being accused if not needing any more coffee related stuff, by our other half!

I hear the Gaggia classic will give you years - and is repairable and serviceable but it's a truly manual process. (They do refurbished models, [https://www.gaggiaoutletshop.co.uk/](https://www.gaggiaoutletshop.co.uk/) ) I don't have experience with that particular one but I got a Gaggia bean to cup. Support for the machine was amazing, I was able to change out parts. Technicians available on zoom. At the 5/6 year mark, the pressure went and I weighed it up, and decided it was time for a change. When it retired, the beverage counter had espresso's at over 12,000 so we got our moneys worth. I replaced it with a Sage Bambino Plus, it's semi automatic making it easy to use but a good coffee grinder is a must. Fresh ground beans will make a huge difference. You need an espresso grinder. I ended up with the Baratza, again can be serviced and repaired. No hope with the Sage though, when that packs up, it will be gone. Current set up is far from perfect but it makes a pretty remarkable espresso, definitely richer than the bean to cup.