On deciding that, as I am totally incapable of making a decent cup of cafetiere coffee but love the taste of real coffee, my life needed a coffee machine I ended up choosing the KMix coffee machine mostly on its cute looks and brand name (definitely not on price) - unusual shallowness for me!

The KMix coffee machine is available in either this raspberry red or, with a slightly different product number, black - as you can tell from the picture above I went for the red having a love of colourful kitchen objects.

The coffee machine is pretty compact, about 30cm deep and 20cm wide, designed not to eat up too much of my precious kitchen worktop and with a metal body. The coffee machine comes with a glass jug, small measuring scoop (I believe it's designed to be one scoop per cup but having doubts now whether that is per little coffee cup or normal cup - I usually use one per normal cup, the coffee tastes fine but maybe I just like it weaker than I realise), a mess coffee filter and paper filters. The jug is listed as a 6 cup jug but this actually means 6 little coffee cups or 3 smallish mugs.

The machine is ridiculously easy to use as it is only suitable to make filter coffee with, no additional options for frothed milk or anything else, which was fine with me as I only wanted coffee but I realise that most people enjoy the extras too. As I said making coffee is simple open the top pour in the correct amount of water (into the water section not the coffee section next to it as I have inadvertently attempted to do a few times! It's obvious what goes where) and scoop the desired amount of coffee into the filter lined coffee section. I have only ever used the reusable mesh filter, without any problems. Press the on switch, it's the only switch on the machine, and away it gurgles for a few minutes before providing a perfectly brewed grounds free cup of coffee. If like me you enjoy having a couple of cups in fairly rapid succession there is a hot plate below the jug which will keep your coffee warm for 30 mins. The chrome top gets warm too, I suppose to warm the cups before use, but I have never made use of this or noticed it as I use pretty chunky cups which don't respond well to gentle warming.

The machine makes perfect filter coffee every time and does its job well, albeit the only job it does. Having said that, as I alluded to at the beginning for the price yo pay for it you may expect it to do more. Currently this maker retails between £55 and £70, you are definitely paying the price for a quality brand as you can get much less stylish, plasticy coffee machine from supermarkets for around £20 or ones with more features but less style for the £70 mark. Is the functionality of the machine worth this price, in all truth no, but the brand is a very good one and I'd expect this machine to far outlast any cheaper model so I see it as an investment and it was a treat. Would I recommend this machine to anyone - yes I would assuming that they were just in the market for a reliable and stylish coffee machine. Am I happy with my purchase? Yes I am; it's compact, gorgeous makes coffee far better than I can (I have even got it plugged into a timer to brew me coffee before I wake) and I'm now on the hunt for the best priced matching kettle. I have had a hard time star rating this but as it does the job I wanted it to, and it said it did, well at a somewhat high price I feel it deserves 4 stars.