It's easy to be seduced by a beautiful coffee machine and its high-tech features, but before you make a purchase, find out if an espresso machine really suits your needs.

Professional best espresso machine under 500 is increasingly found in offices and homes. It's great that we can make our own specialty coffee at work or from the comfort of our home, but it's even better when you really understand what's going on when making a shot of espresso.

A sleek, beautiful case can hide completely different mechanisms. Let's take a look under the hood and learn more about espresso machines

In 1884, at an exhibition in Turin, Angelo Moriondo presented "a new steam engine for the economical and rapid preparation of coffee drinks." Thus was born the method of making coffee under pressure.

Electric steam coffee machines are still in use today. Ease of operation makes them easy to handle and manage, they are affordable and compact. What is the principle of their work?

In a sealed tank, water is brought to the boiling point and steam is produced. This creates pressure which pushes the water through the reservoir into the coffee. This is similar to what happens inside a geyser coffee maker.

The disadvantage of steam machines is their low pressure of only 1–1.5 bar, while the ideal pressure for espresso is 9 bar.

In these machines, the water used to create steam is also used to make coffee. This means that the water almost boils when it reaches the beans, and this can lead to over-extraction and spoil the taste of the coffee.