It's hard to exaggerate how much of a difference investing in the best coffee machines makes to your morning routine. Before reviewing the L'OR BARISTA Sublime I was using much more analogue methods: a cafetière on weekends and WFH days, instant coffee for those 'need coffee now' moments, and a Moka when I'm missing Italy.

If you've got cash to splash, you may want something with a more traditional design, for example, Dualit or Grind pod coffee machines are stunning in shiny stainless steel and bring more of a classic charm to your kitchen worktops.

A compact pod machine that’s capable of making a variety of coffees

Removing the drip tray provides access to the bin in which used capsules drop. We found this bin could comfortably hold around a dozen capsules, so depending on how many cups of coffee you drink, it will need emptying every, or every other, day.

Discover the new L'OR BARISTA® Sublime coffee machine featuring a compact design and a matt finish. This machine allows you to easily prepare all types of high-quality, espresso-based drinks, in a professional way and in your own home. Prepare two espressos at once, a double espresso, a delicious single espresso or a lungo. As is sometimes the case with capsule machines, quite a lot of water gathers in the tray beneath the used-pod drawer. Also, the twin-spout group head drips coffee for a few seconds after extraction. I haven’t found this to be the case with my favourite Nespresso machine, the Grind One, so I guess it’s a design thing. Compatibility: The L'OR BARISTA coffee machine has been created to work with L'OR classic espresso capsules and L'OR BARISTA XXL double espresso capsules, as well as Nespresso®* capsules and most other compatible capsules. See the complete list in the compatibility section. As you may have read in my guide to the Best Coffee Pod System, my issue with standard Nespresso pods is that they’re too small – just 5g of coffee per pod as opposed to, say, the Lavazza A Modo Mio which has around 7g per capsule. This means I’ve sometimes felt the need to extract two pods one after the other just to get a proper barista-style hit. The L'OR Barista Sublime, however, has been manufactured by Philips to accept two sizes of coffee capsule – and only L'OR makes them. This is music to my ears – or rather palette – because it means I can get a double-shot espresso with just one tap of a button. The pod bin holds about 10 used pods and is easy to remove. It's available in three colours, Piano Noir, Sunset Rubis and Satin Blanc. The water capacity is 0.8L which is enough for 3-4 long coffees.How long does it take? I timed it, and it takes 1 minute, 28 seconds to make a coffee, including the time it takes to rinse and fill the water tank, find a mug etc. Capsule recognition: The system identifies the size of the capsules used to ensure the correct dosage of water and offer you an optimal coffee experience. The L'OR Barista Sublime has three different extraction buttons – Ristretto (or short espresso), standard Espresso and Lungo. Basically, you choose a pod – standard or large – load it into the machine and press a button of choice. For instance, if you select a standard pod and tap the espresso button, it will dispense enough coffee to fill three quarters of a standard espresso cup. But if you put in a large capsule and tap the same espresso button it will dispense almost double the volume. In terms of cost per use, if you buy the XXL pods in bulk, it works out as 30p per coffee. Sure, there's also a small cost of running it added to your electricity bill, and the cost of buying a descaler once in a while, but overall I think it's well worth it because coffee's one of those small but important pleasures.

Both the removable drip tray and 27.05 fl.oz/ 0.8-litre water tank are dishwasher-safe; however, they’re just as easily cleaned under running water.

The L’OR Barista Sublime is an affordable Nespresso-compatible coffee machine with the added benefit of double-shots

Mind, since it takes about 30 seconds to warm up, it would be good to be able to preheat the boiler with a single tap while you pre-heat the cup or make a milky cappuccino froth using the Best Milk Frother, but you can’t have everything.