Verdict

If you want high-quality coffee from a great-looking coffee machine, the Miele CM7500 is the right choice.

Pros

• Smart spout adjusts height automatically
• Simple maintenance
• Excellent coffee and milk drinks
• Looks great

Cons

• Icons hard to understand
• Slightly fiddly to programme

What is the Miele CM7500?

The Miele CM7500 might be expensive, but it justifies its cost by delivering high-quality coffee and milk at the touch of the button.

With automatic spout height adjustment and built-in descaling, the CM7500 is one of the simplest bean-to-cup coffee machines to maintain, too. A slightly fiddly interface and odd ground-coffee chute detract slightly.

Related: Best coffee machines

Miele CM7500 – Design and build

Making something boxy look attractive is difficult, but the Miele CM7500 pulls it off. It would be fairer to call this coffee machine angular. Its bold lines, shiny plastic and bright chrome finish make it look every inch the high-end coffee machine.

Standing at 397 x 311 x 445mm, the Miele CM7500 is quite a large bean-to-cup machine, so you’ll need a good amount of counter space on which to place it.

The front is dominated by a large LCD touchscreen, which displays all of your drink and settings options. Only physical power and back buttons are located on the front.

There’s great attention to detail, too. The milk hose can be fitted to either side of the dispensing spout, with the other end plugging into the drip tray when not in use. Miele supplies a thermal milk carafe, too, keeping milk cool when it’s out of the fridge.

Cleverly, the spout is motorised, moving into position automatically – although there’s a maintenance mode to drop it down for cleaning. The spout adjusts enough to accommodate all but the largest of latte glasses.

Miele CM7500 – Features

A large bean hopper sits on top, with a capacity for 500g of beans. That’s around two normal bags of coffee, which should keep even the most caffeinated of households in ready supply.

The touchscreen has dedicated buttons for the recipes the machine can produce. There are 14 on offer, from ristretto, espresso and long black, up to cappuccino and flat white. Plus, there are dispensing options for hot water, hot milk and milk froth.

All coffee options can be dispensed as a double shot (additional coffee is added part way through the brewing process) or as two drinks (you pour two of the same at once). That’s a subtle difference, but it means that for a double shot of espresso, you get a similar volume as you would in a coffee shop, rather than an overflowing cup.

For tea-lovers, there are programmes to dispense hot water for tea. There are options for green tea, black tea, herbal tea and fruit tea. All options are dispensed at either 80ºC or 90ºC, but having the clear labelling makes it easier to choose the correct option.

The most popular coffee drinks (espresso, cappuccino and so on) are shown via icons. These can be hard to decipher and it takes a while to get used to them. At the start, for example, I tapped ristretto thinking it was espresso. Other options have text entries thst are easier to read.

All options can be overridden, enabling you to customise recipes to suit. There are options to adjust the coffee strength and water temperature. Be careful with the volume setting, since it doesn’t just let you set a dispensing amount in ml, but starts making a drink. You have to tap the Save button when you have the right amount of drink.

Alternatively, the Miele CM7500 has up to 10 profiles, so each member of your house can have their own selection of favourite recipes. It’s a neat touch and it’s great to see this level of customisation.

There’s a coffee grinder adjuster inside the side panel of the machine, which lets you get coarser or finer-ground coffee. You can use ground coffee, too, although this is a bit cumbersome as the side door has to be opened, and the coffee spoon extracted and filled with coffee. Still, it’s a feature that you’re unlikely to use too often, and it’s best to stick to coffee beans.

Miele CM7500 – Espresso quality

At this price, I’d expect nothing but top-quality results from the CM7500 – and I wasn’t disappointed. Coffee was dispensed at 64ºC, which is about perfect for espresso.

The dark body and oily, burnished crema were spot on, coming very close to what you’d achieve with a high-end manual machine. And the crema lasted for a few minutes, as it should.

The resulting shot was smooth to drink, with the pronounced acidity and strong body coming through in the aftertaste.

If you love coffee and want the finer notes of your coffee to come through, the Miele CM7500 is a machine that can deliver.

Miele CM7500 – Milk-based drink quality

Milk frothing and pouring is an art form, and it isn’t something that all automatic machines are good at. The Miele CM7500 doesn’t suffer from such issues. Pouring a cappuccino, the coffee machine heated up and poured the steamed milk first, before adding the shot of espresso.

All bean-to-cup machines do a poor job of blending coffee and milk, but it’s nothing that a little stir won’t sort out. There’s the tell-tale sign that the drink was made automatically: the two stained dots of coffee where the espresso was poured through the milk.

Those points aside – and they’re issues that affect all bean-to-cup machines – I have to say that the Miele CM7500 did an excellent job. The milk was brilliantly steamed, with finely textured liquid and micro-bubbles.

The resulting drink had the silky milk head, with the smooth coffee following. For high-quality milk drinks without any effort, the Miele CM7500 is currently the machine to beat.

Miele CM7500 – Maintenance

Looking after a bean-to-cup machine can be a bit of a chore, but Miele tries to make things easy. For starters, the CM7500 takes a descaling capsule, which slots into the back of the machine; an auto-descaling programme then does the hard work for you.

Automatic rinsing also helps keep the CM7500 clean. When you’ve made any milk drinks, a cleaning program runs steam through the milk hose, keeping everything clean and sanitised.

When prompted, you should use the espresso cleaning tablets to keep the CM7500 in tip-top condition. You’ll need to empty the drip tray and used coffee grounds – once a day is recommended to keep the CM7500 in peak condition. This is made easier by the drip tray having an internal lid, making it easy to carry to the sink without any spillages. Fortunately, the drip tray and accessories are dishwasher-safe, making them easy to keep clean.

Once a week, the brew unit should be removed and rinsed, and the area underneath cleaned.

Why buy the Miele CM7500?

It may be one of the most expensive bean-to-cup coffee machines out there, but the Miele CM7500 justifies its price. Top-quality coffee, easy maintenance and automatic descaling add to its charm. Thrown in the top-quality build and finish and it’s clear what you’re paying for.

The slightly fiddly interface and hard-to-read icons let the side down slightly, but these are quirks you’ll get used to. The Melitta Caffeo Barista TS Smart produces nearly as good coffee for less and has a bean hopper that can take two types of beans. However, its build quality and ease-of-maintenance lag slightly behind.

Trusted Score