The Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder is just $229, the cheapest bean-to-cup espresso machine I’ve ever seen; unfortunately, it looks and acts like it too — no Breville-beater
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Erin Bashford is a senior reviews writer at Tom’s Guide. She has a Master’s in Broadcast and Digital Journalism from the University of East Anglia and 7 years of experience reviewing music and events for various publications. She has edited publications such as Outline Magazine’s Guide to Norwich, and she has written for a number of music magazines and websites such as Clash Magazine, Outline Magazine and Dork Magazine. She has a strong interest in audio gear and the music world. As an ex-barista, Erin is passionate about coffee tech. She also loves finding the best cooking hacks and kitchen appliances, including her beloved Instant Pot. In her spare time, you can find her reading, practising yoga, hiking, writing fantasy novels, or stressing over NYT Games.
When I saw the price of the Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder, my eyes bulged out of my head like a cartoon rabbit being chased by a mountain lion. $229? For an espresso machine… and a grinder? What year is this, 2001?
It’s hard to explain just how cheap $229 is, but I’ll do my best. The entry-level Casabrews Tornado grinder is $139 — and that’s seriously budget. The De’Longhi Stilosa espresso machine is $149 — and, again, that’s seriously budget. So $229 for a grinder and an espresso machine is literally unheard of.
So, how does the Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder hold up? Well, it’s $229. That’s all I really have to say. While, yes, this is the cheapest bean-to-cup I’ve ever seen, it performs like it. But this might be enough to make it one of your best espresso machines if you’re on a budget best described as “as close to zero as possible”. Find out the full story in this Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder review.
Price
$229 / £239
Weight
13.9 pounds
Dimensions
12.5 x 10.8 x 13.4 inches
Grinder
Yes
Heating system
Thermoblock
Pressure
20-bar
Water tank capacity
61 fluid ounces
Accessories
2 x pressurized portafilters, scoop, tamper, tamping collar, brush
The Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder is $229 from Amazon U.S. and £239 from Amazon U.K. On Amzchef’s website, the Espresso Machine with Grinder is listed as “All-in-One” espresso machine and is $299 rather than $229. The “Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder” is a completely different product with a different screen style — albeit $229, not $299. I've raised this with Amzchef and have been informed it will correct this inconsistency.
They don’t make it easy for us, huh? Anyway, I would buy from Amazon due to the lower price. For ease of searching, the product code is CM1626 — but Amzchef doesn’t list this on its website (for any of its products… just a wonderful, transparent business strategy, I know). The links above are to the Amazon page, not Amzchef’s site.
Opaque pricing aside, the Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder is incredibly cheap. As I wrote in my “Pros” section above, it’s almost unbelievably cheap. A bean-to-cup espresso machine for $229? Seriously? Most electric grinders start at $150, like the Casabrews Tornado or Breville Dose Control Pro .
The only machines I’ve tested around the same price are the $350 Gevi Espresso Machine with Grinder and the $350 Casabrews Marenza . While this machine is a seriously budget option, the low, low pricing does raise questions about longevity — which I’ll get into later.
The Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder is a cheap coffee machine, and it feels like it. The scoop is flimsy plastic, and the dosing collar isn’t wide enough to allow the tamper to pass through. The tamper itself is lovely and weighty, though.
There’s no milk jug, which isn’t unprecedented, but is still a kick in the teeth. Casabrews also ships its budget machines with no milk jug, but it sells one for $10. Amzchef doesn’t sell a milk jug at all, so you’ll have to buy a separate one from another brand.
On top of that, the steam wand is supposed to have a 360° swivel, but I’d describe it more as 200° grating. Every time I moved the steam wand, the metal grated against the ball joint.
There’s a bright screen with full-color pictures, which also houses the built-in timer and temperature adjustment screen. This screen is the best part of the machine’s design, although I’m not sure it’s enough of a unique selling point to recommend buying it.
Considering the Amzchef Espresso Machine has a built-in grinder, I was extremely concerned when I unboxed two pressurized portafilter baskets. If you don’t know the difference between pressurized and non-pressurized baskets, I’ll give you a quick rundown. Pressurized portafilter baskets use two walls to force the espresso through a little hole, which creates fluffier crema but destroys delicate flavors. You should use pressurized portafilter baskets if you have pre-ground coffee or an inferior grinder (subtle foreshadowing).
Non-pressurized portafilter baskets have a mesh-like bottom, which allows the espresso to extract naturally, with no extra pressure — that all comes from the fineness of the grind. These baskets are a little trickier to use for beginners, but brew delicate, nuanced espresso if you have a good grinder and good beans.
So I was immediately suspicious when I saw the pressurized baskets. If I’m using a machine with a built-in grinder — ergo, freshly ground coffee — surely I should be provided non-pressurized baskets? A dual-walled basket will over-pressurize my espresso and mask delicate flavors.
Anyway, I had to use what Amzchef provided, so I, of course, tested it with said pressurized baskets.
By default, the grinder grinds for 7 seconds. This resulted in 17.3g of coffee during my tests, but obviously this will change if you grind finer or coarser for different beans. I set the grinder to click 5, as this pulled the ideal 1:2 ratio in 25-28 seconds.
Then, the machine automatically doses water. It pulled 35g of coffee in 28 seconds, which is almost the perfect 1:2 ratio in 25-28 seconds.
Here’s a photo of said default shot. This is with zero customizations — straight from the machine’s brain.
The crema is a little flat, and there’s not a whole lot of depth to the shot. I usually love watching the black ‘body’ of the shot rise up after extraction, but that wasn’t the case with this espresso. It brewed this dark amber color and this dark amber color it remained. As for the taste, it was a little bitter, not particularly strong or weak, but it got the job done. If you’re a total beginner, this would be good enough, but coffee enthusiasts would be better off elsewhere.
However, coffee enthusiasts might be the intended target audience here. There are a few premium, coffee snob-certified features on the Amzchef. You’ve got a PID controller, which controls water temperature, and you can customize temps to your liking. It can go from 190°-201°F, more versatile than Breville’s set-at-200°F PID controller, which you’d find on the $299 Breville Bambino or the $499 Breville Bambino Plus .
All of these features are excellent — I wouldn’t buy an espresso machine without — and resulted in decent espresso. Pressurized portafilters aside, this coffee sits firmly in the “good enough” category. Especially for $229, which is crazy cheap.
I have never seen a bean-to-cup semi-automatic espresso machine cheaper than the Amzchef Espresso Machine with Grinder. I’ve tested $350 models — the aforementioned Casabrews Marenza and Gevi Espresso Machine with Grinder — but $229? That’s crazy cheap.
The grinder itself has 44 settings, so you can grind from superfine to cold-brew-coarse. As mentioned earlier, the grinder grinds for 7 seconds by default, which you can adjust. To test uniformity, I used my Kruve Coffee Sieves ($189). As espresso grounds should be 300-400 microns, I sift ground coffee through the 500-micron sieve. I’m looking for 100% pass-through. I used click 5 to test espresso, which extracted a 1:2 ratio in 28 seconds.
Sieve size
Passthrough
500 microns
30%
Here’s a photo to exemplify what I mean. The left is coffee bigger than 500 microns, and the right is coffee smaller than 500 microns (espresso size).
As you can see, this is a non-uniform, inconsistent grinder… and now I know why Amzchef only provides you dual-walled portafilters.
The steam wand is one of the biggest let-dows of the whole machine. It’s weak, spluttery, and takes over sixty seconds to steam a jug of milk (for one coffee).
To activate the steam wand itself, you have to press the steam graphic on the screen, not twist the knob on the side. After pressing the graphic, and the machine reading 107 (temperature), then you twist the knob. It needs a few seconds to switch to steam.
However, the steam wand is really disappointing. I still managed to get half-decent latte art, but the actual texture of the milk was undesirable. It had a layer of foam on top and then wet milk — no velvety aeration throughout.
As you can see, the latte art is still good. But this is after years of practice. I don’t think this is a good machine for beginners to learn on, because you have to know how to tease out “good” milk texture from a sub-par wand.
I don’t really have anything positive to say about the steam wand. If you aren’t fussed about milk drinks, this might be something you can overlook, but for me, I live for decadent, velvety milk, so it’d be a pass.
As it’s just 13 inches wide and 13 inches deep, the Amzchef Espresso Machine is relatively compact, especially for a bean-to-cup machine. If you’re seriously short on space (and budget), I might recommend the Amzchef, but that’s a might .
The machine has an “aluminum alloy” boiler, which means it’s more susceptible to corrosion than a stainless steel boiler, however, there’s no water filter slot in the water tank. Either the machine won’t last as long as a stainless steel boiler, or you’ll need to be seriously on top of descaling — even if you live in a soft water area. There are also no cleaning discs or a cleaning portafilter basket cover for backflushing, unlike Breville and De’Longhi’s machines.
Amzchef advertizes a 2-year warranty if you purchase from the Amzchef website, but the espresso machine is $70 more expensive on the Amzchef site (at time of writing — Amzchef has told me it will correct this). If you register it, the warranty increases to three years. However, you have to spend an extra $70 buying it directly from Amzchef. On the Amzchef warranty page, it reads, “Buy from Amazon, Walmart, or other online retailers? You may get an up-to-2-year limited warranty.” Schrödinger’s warranty!
Amzchef’s representative confirmed that you receive a 2-year warranty regardless of retailer, which is great news, but the language is still too opaque. What if you didn’t have a direct link to the company to find out this information (as I assume most of you won’t)? The language needs to be clearer.
Opaque business practices like this make me incredibly wary about recommending a product. It’s disingenuous. I wouldn’t spend my hard-earned money at a company with obfuscated warranty rules.
Everything about the Amzchef Espresso Machine feels too good to be true. A PID controller, customizable brew temperature, built-in grinder, cold brew, and 360° swivel steam wand for $229? There’s something not quite right here — and you can feel it in the build quality. The water tank is flimsy, the grinder hopper is flimsy, the portafilter is flimsy, and the steam wand grates as it moves. Not only that, but the steam wand is relatively weak, and the low-quality grinder makes for mediocre espresso.
This is a tricky one, because $229 is incredibly cheap for an espresso machine with a grinder. Normally, you’d be expecting to pay $229 for the espresso machine alone and an extra $229 for the grinder — and that would be cheap.
However, I can’t recommend this machine due to its low-quality build, low-quality accessories, and low-quality grinder. I would recommend grabbing the $350 Casabrews Marenza instead (but that’s also incredibly flimsy), or save up more for the Breville Barista Express — often around $499 during sales events like Black Friday — or the De’Longhi Arte Evo — also around $450 during sales events.