GALLERY

With its £650 price tag the DeLonghi Perfecta Cappuccino maker is clearly aimed at coffee aficionados. Despite the range and variety of its sophisticated functions, however, it doesn’t take a set of instructions as thick as the Yellow Pages to navigate your way around it.

A sleek, café-style machine bearing a Good Housekeeping Institute seal of approval, it has an integrated conical burr grinder with 13 settings for adjusting the grind for all types of beans. A milk carafe plugged into the front of the machine, part of a fully automated brewing and milk-frothing system, mixes steam, air and milk to produce a light fresh froth for cappuccinos and lattes at the touch of a button.

It's programmable, too, meaning personal coffee preferences such as, strength and temperature can be fed into it.

Cleaning's straightforward as the various pieces come apart easily and the cappuccino system is self-cleaning.

My only personal quibble would be that, given its hefty price tag, it doesn’t really look the part. It somehow seems a bit flimsy and not quite as polished as one might expect.

DeLonghi Perfecta Cappuccino, from £650, all good cookshops