Krups Orchestro FNF247

Expensive for what it does – This machine makes good coffee and quite easy to use as long as you don't need the steamer which is cumbersome. Moreover, my machine often stops working after the steamer is used and has to be unplugged and left alone for days before its willing to make black coffee again. The coffee it produces is not very hot, even at the highest setting.… Read more

Cleaning is largely automated but needs expensive Krups tablets. I like this machine in general, but it doesn't deliver enough for the high price. There are only very few repair shops for it and all very expensive. I will to buy another Krups coffee machine once this stops working.

Can't think of anything better than my Orchestro 889 – The best espresso machine, still. I bought it in 1997 and have made approx. 20.000 cups. Changed the water pump once and now need to change the heating block. Found one on eBay yesterday and will replace it by myself next week. This is the mother of all espresso machines  Show details

Excellent Coffee – Like others I bought this machine from Deals Direct (about 7 years ago). I bought it after buying a three times more expensive DeLonghi Magnifica with automatic cappucino for my mother. As far as the actual coffee goes, this Krups outperforms that Delonghi machine by a huge margin. Let me set a baseline as to what I rate as good coffee. The… Read more

coffees I get from the stronger Nespresso pods, from the Aldi's pods and from a manual DeLonghi Espresso machine I rate as very good to excellent. I know that other people who use more expensive dual boiler machines would view my baseline as relatively low.

Regardless, this Krups machine has no difficulty making coffees with equal or greater strength and body to my baseline, regardless of whether I am making 50ml or 110ml cups, and it does so when I set the strength level to only 9 or 10 out of 16. By way of comparison, the Delonghi can only get to that strength at its highest intensity level, and only for a 50ml cup (and it still didn't taste all that good).

At the time I scoured the internet to try figure out why the difference in performance. It transpired that most automatic coffee machines then just used a thermoblock, whereas Krups added another step which gave a closer approximation to the pressure-temperature characteristics that one gets from the better dual boiler machines.

The machine is simple to operate and is ready to make coffee within 35 seconds of pushing the ON button. The feature I really like is that when you've pushed the button to make a coffee, you can change the amount of coffee in the cup from a tiny amount right up to 250ml. With other machines, one has to be there with a measuring cup to calibrate the right quantity, and tell people not to adjust your settings.

The plastic cup gadget that came with the unit for making cappucinos was difficult for my wife to use - she wound up spraying the wall with milk one night, till she got the hang of it. We later bought the sealed stainless steel gadget from Krups, which made things easier.

I should add that I am writing this now about two relatively old machines, because I just spent a week trying to get good coffee out of that Delonghi machine. I used ground coffee from the same packet in both machines - thus doing away with variation from the grinding mill settings when using coffee beans. I gave up in frustration with the DeLonghi, and was so amazed at how much better the Krups was.

Regards. Superb coffee for all typical cup sizes. Instructions were a tad too concise. Cappucino making is somewhat tricky.

Good – Bought mine thru auction but now cant find where to but the cleaning tabs required. Any one help or can recommend using another cleaner Easy to use Steamer is a bit trickey

Excellent – We have had our machine 6 months bought it cheap at deals direct and have had great service and coffee. once we got over the awful instructions. I de scale with Tartaric acid rather than the expensive krups product Having grown up with coffee machines for years I find the manual frother quite adequate. Using a cheap temperature guage seems to help… Read more

get it right. Simple to use, and makes good quality coffee very easily seems to need regular cleaning and descaling but maybe that helps keep it good

cleaning products are expensive and instructions are not in easy to understand english.

Good – I'm no coffee connoisseur, I value this machine because it makes a cappuccino every time, trouble free. I think the coffee it makes is excellent. The steamer attachment, like the rest of the machine is easy to use and easy to clean. I haven't had a problem with this machine since I got it. Coffee bypass is nice to have because I can buy flavored… Read more

ground coffee, and leave normal beans in the hopper. I picked my machine up for $400 on eBay, and I'm reminded that I got a good deal every morning when I get an effortless cappuccino, where I would've otherwise been stuck with Blend 43. Easy, Painless and trouble-free.

Auto-On and timer-off means the machine is ready to use when I wake up. Separate steamer design means coffees take slightly longer to make (two step process, rather than press one button and come back in 2 minutes).

Steamer takes 30 seconds to heat up for milk frothing.

Water tank needs filling every 4 coffee's or so.