Which are the smallest coffee machines on the market?

When we talk about very small coffee machines, we usually think of ultra-compact machines that can be placed anywhere in the house and which are usually in demand in the market for reasons of physical space. However, this is not always the case.

The size of coffee machines depends, to a large extent, on the type of machine we are evaluating. And we can never compare a large automatic espresso machine with a mini portable coffee machine designed for travel.

In all segments, there are large and small models, and it is fair to evaluate them separately. So that’s what we’re going to do in this article.

We are going to talk only about really small coffee makers from Amazon, focusing our review on the needs of those users who are only looking for economy of space, practicality and convenience.

Be careful, because often the reduction in size does not mean a reduction in costs… quite the contrary. It is not true in all types that the smallest coffee machine is also the cheapest.

Small and cheap coffee machines can be Italian coffee machines (Moka pots), coffee pod machines, and almost always drip coffee machines. In other types of machines, a smaller size may mean a higher price.

What is the best small coffee pod machine?

Small coffee pod machines are always represented by almost all manufacturers. Each brand has a range of coffee machines on the market, usually consisting of several “basic” models and some high-end models with more features.

Among these basic models, we always find a very small, compact and generally super-economical coffee pod machine.

These models of smaller coffee pod machines, from the world’s leading manufacturers:

  • The Happy by Tassimo.
  • The Essenza Mini by Nespresso.
  • The Piccolo XS and Genio S Plus by Dolce Gusto.
  • The Tiny, in the case of Lavazza.
  • The X9, in the case of Illy brand (although this is not a small coffee machine at all).

The smallest Dolce Gusto coffee machine

In the case of Dolce Gusto, its smallest coffee machines are the Mini-Me, the Piccolo XS and the Genio S Plus.

The latter two are updates of the original Piccolo and Genio (dating back to the early 2000s) that completely change their design with a body width of only 11 cm.

All of them are between 0.6 and 0.8 litres of tank capacity.

The smallest Nespresso coffee machines

And if you want to know which are the smallest Nespresso coffee machines, the answer is the Essenza Mini and the Inissia.

The Essenza Mini is the smallest coffee pod machine on the market, at just 9 cm wide and weighing only 2.3 kilograms. The Inissia, on the other hand, while still quite compact, is 12 cm wide.

Both models have a capacity of between 0.6 and 0.7 litres.

Small espresso machines

In this section, we have to clearly separate the small electric coffee machines from the manual or portable ones, which deserve almost a space of their own. As far as manual espresso machines are concerned, there is not much to choose from. The sizes tend to be all standard, in the order of the

We can find very narrow coffee machines, or particularly small in some dimensions, such as the Delonghi Dedica, which is only 13 cm wide.

The Cecotec Cumbia Capricciosa is another good candidate, although this one is more of a “hybrid” model between the traditional portafilter coffee machines and the pure capsule coffee machines. It has a capacity of only 0.6 litres and is ultra-compact in all its dimensions.

Is there such a thing as a small superautomatic coffee machine?

Within the espresso machines, there is a group of super-automatic coffee machines: the most complete and top-of-the-range coffee machines on the market. We can’t exactly expect these tiny machines… but as in everything else, there are also different groups.

There are some automatic coffee machines that are smaller than the rest, mainly because they save on the water tank (just over a litre) and because they only have automatic espresso preparations. That is all.

We give a good account of them in this special article that we dedicated to them at the time:

Small drip coffee machines

Small drip coffee machines are generally single-serve coffee makers, which have a thermal cup with a capacity of around half a litre where they serve freshly brewed coffee, ready to go. They can also come with conventional ceramic cups, but they are always small 1-cup coffee makers.

There are several models of this type on the market:

If we go to the traditional machines, in terms of size, we can divide them into two groups: the normal ones that can hold 10-12 cups or more (more than a litre of capacity) and the small filter coffee machines with 4-6 cups (about 0.5 or 0.6 litres of a tank). Among the latter small 6-cup drip coffee machines, we can highlight the following models:

Aromaboy and Single 5 machines from the German firm Melitta are absolute references in this segment.

The smallest Italian coffee makers

When we talk about small Italian coffee makers, we always talk about the 1-2 cup models (they usually brew 0.15 or 0.20 ml of coffee per cup). However, not all Moka pot models are made in this size. In many of them, the range is usually 3-6-9 cups, and smaller Italian coffee makers – single serve – are considered an exception rather.

But fortunately, the market is very wide, and there are quite a few models of small Italian coffee makers to choose from. Here are a few examples:

Of course, the Bialetti Mini Express, a tiny Italian coffee machine reduced to the smallest possible size, takes the cake. You won’t find a smaller coffee maker than this one. The only thing about it is that it is not strictly portable: it is still a Moka pot, and so for the coffee to brew, we need to put it on the stove.

Small Italian induction coffee makers

Small coffee makers for induction are those that are made of stainless steel or at least have a diffuser bottom in this material (even if the body of the mocha is made of aluminium) to be able to transmit the heat from the induction hob.

Therefore, we can extract a list of references very similar to those in the previous section:

Small Commercial coffee machines

As for small professional coffee machines for pubs and catering, the offer is centred on catering machines with a single group of coffee or semi-professional super-automatic coffee machines (which are usually very expensive, more so than the previous ones).

Of the first group, we can find several examples on Amazon. As you can see, they are characterised above all by the fact that they have an integrated grinder (a feature that differentiates a professional machine from an amateur or domestic one) and also because their size, measured mainly in terms of width, does not exceed 45-50 cm.

Many of them appear in our guide to coffee machines for small businesses because small businesses = small coffee machines in most cases.

Small coffee machines for offices

The need (or sometimes the whim) to install a coffee machine at work is recurrent. Sometimes we are not talking about large buildings, but small premises with few workers where the space outside the work area is very limited.

When it comes to buying a small coffee machine for the office, people usually opt for a capsule coffee machine because it is more practical and cheaper. After all, nobody is going to grind the coffee, press it, pour it into the cup, check the extraction time… during a break from work, are they? So we refer you to the previous section, where we talked about them.

Small and portable coffee makers

A portable coffee machine has to be small, by definition. Staresso, Minipresso, Conqueco… There are many similar ones; they all work in a similar way -press pressure by pressing- and allow you to enjoy an espresso wherever you are. They usually work with ground coffee, although many also accept Nespresso coffee pods or ESE pods.

Their size is usually a tube of about 20 or 22 cm in height and 8-9 cm in diameter. It isn’t easy to reduce them any further!

And what is the smallest coffee machine in the world?

This is always difficult to measure, but we can safely attribute this merit to the CoffeeJack coffee maker by YankoDesign.

It is a small appliance, 11 cm high and 9 cm in diameter. It uses an extraction system similar to that of the Aerobie Aeropress or Staresso, but with the design and components reduced to a minimum. It works with real ground coffee, and you can carry it around in your bag or backpack – if it’s not the smallest coffee maker on the market, it’s close!

However, it isn’t easy to get it outside the US market for the moment, and of course, it has not yet arrived on Amazon. Here’s a video in case you want to know more about this really tiny espresso machine.