Best Coffee Maker with a Grinder Single Cup

Quick verdict: The best single-cup coffee maker with a grinder is the Gevi 4-in-1

This is my roundup of the best single-cup coffee makers with a grinder.

I spent an entire day researching people’s experiences with these types of machines online to put together this roundup.

A coffee maker that can make single servings, as well as larger servings, can qualify for this list. It does not just have to make single servings.

As well as giving you my recommendations, I will also warn you about some that although seem like a bargain at first, are in fact so unreliable that they are a waste of money.

Let’s get started.

Top Picks

Best Overall: Gevi 4-in-1

Best Value for Money: Breville Grind Control

One to Avoid: Power XL Grind and Go (and other cheaper machines of this type)

Best Overall: Gevi 4 in 1

Quality of Coffee

The Gevi 4-in-1 can make excellent coffee that can rival that of any drip coffee maker.

The Gevi 4-in-1 makes excellent coffee for three reasons:

• It heats your water to its ideal brewing temperature BEFORE brewing: Inferior machines heat your water during brewing, rather than before it. This results in watery coffee as coffee extracts less efficiently as the cooler water gets. The Gevi 4-in-1 heats your water prior to brewing meaning that your coffee is brewed at its ideal temperature throughout, resulting in a richly flavored final drink.

• It allows you to brew at the ideal brewing ratio: The Gevi 4-in-1 allows you to brew at the ideal water-to-ground coffee ratio of 1:16. Many inferior machines cannot do this because their brew chambers are too small to hold the required amount of ground coffee.

• It brews your coffee slowly enough for proper extraction to occur: Your brewing water needs to be in direct contact with your ground coffee for a minimum amount of time for all the flavorful compounds in the ground coffee to extract into your brewing water. The Gevi 4-in-1 brews slowly enough for this to occur.

As well as having the fundamental build to make an excellent coffee, the Gevi 4 in 1 also lets you customize every aspect of your brew to your heart’s content.

This means that you can make a coffee exactly the way that you like it.

Quality of Coffee Rating: 9/10

Functionalities

The Gevi 4-in-1 allows you to customize far more aspects of your coffee than any other drip coffee maker with a built-in grinder

The Gevi 4-in-1 allows you to customize the following aspects of your coffee:

• The amount of coffee that you make (from 6 oz to 22 oz)
• Grind size (51 settings)
• The quantity of ground coffee that you brew with (measured as a ratio to the nearest whole number of the quantity of your brewing water)
• Brewing temperature (to the nearest degree Fahrenheit)
• Brewing speed (to nearest 3ml/second)

This is far more controlled than any drip coffee maker that I’ve ever seen before. It is the only machine I have ever seen that lets you control brewing speed to such a fine degree.

While you have the option to select these brewing variables each time you brew, you can also save presets to make the coffee-making process quick despite the number of variables potentially under your control.

Functionalities Rating: 10/10

Ease of Use and Cleaning

The Gevi 4-in-1 has a high-quality touch screen that makes it really easy to use. Some of the machine’s users have said that the machine has taught them how to improve their coffee-making.

The Gevi 4-in-1 is controlled by a touch screen. 

This touch screen has a really intuitive workflow that makes brewing a coffee really easy despite its enormous number of brewing variables.

I’m really impressed with how the machine explains what all its available brewing variables are. The fact that some users of the machine have said that it has helped them better understand how to make better drip coffee is a testament to this.

The Gevi 4-in-1 allows you to save preset coffee recipes so you can make your coffee exactly how you like it with one button press.

Since the machine has a hi-tech-looking shiny finish (it looks like it could have been made by Apply) it will require regular wiping down to keep it smudge-free.

Ease of Use and Cleaning Rating: 9/10

Design and Build Quality

The Gevi 4-in-1 has excellent interior and exterior build quality. It is the only coffee machine with a built-in grinder I know of that does not have regular reports of its grinder clogging up online.

The Gevi 4-in-1 is clearly built with high-quality parts in both its interior and its exterior. The three main benefits of this are:

• Its grinder does not clog up: This is a biggie. Almost all coffee machines with built-in grinders have a tendency for their grinder to clog up because of the steam created when brewing. This Gevi 4-in-1 is the only machine that does not have any complaints of this kind online.

• Its brewing measurements are accurate: Tests (not my own) indicate that the Gevi 4 in 1’s brewing measurements are accurate. This would not be possible without excellent internal build quality.

• Its touch screen is easy to use: Touch screens can be temperamental, but the Gevi 4 in 1’s is very responsive (without being overly so) and just generally easy to use.

All in all, it’s hard to fault the Gevi 4 in 1’s design and build quality.

Design and Build Quality Rating: 10/10

Value For Money

The Gevi 4-in-1 is so expensive that it offers poor value for money despite its obvious strengths.

The Gevi 4-in-1 is an expensive coffee machine, far more expensive than any other in this article.

Although it is excellently built, you can still make a similar standard of coffee on a cheap manual pour-over, given enough trial and error.

It’s definitely a luxury purchase, rather than a value purchase.

Value For Money Rating: 5/10

Gevi 4-in-1 Pros

It gives you far more control over how your coffee is brewed compared to other machines.

It has a very, very high build quality meaning that it can make excellent coffee and will rarely break down.

Its brewing system is far away enough from its grinder that steam will not clog up your grinder.

Its touch screen is very smartly designed, from both a physical and UI perspective making the whole machine really easy and nice to use.

Gevi 4-in-1 Cons

It is very expensive.

Best Value For Money: Breville Grind Control

Quality of Coffee

The Breville Grind Control (BGC) makes very good drip coffee, especially at lower serving sizes (including single serving sizes).

The Breville Grind Control makes excellent coffee for three reasons:

• It brews at a consistent temperature: The BGC heats your brewing water up to its ideal temperature before your brewing begins. This means it makes better coffee than most machines that heat your water during brewing, resulting in a watery coffee due to poor extraction.

• It brews slowly: Most drip coffee machines rush the brewing process creating a bland coffee. The Breville Grind Control brews a single serving of coffee in around two minutes. This is long enough to ensure full extraction and therefore a fully flavored drink.

• It has a good quality burr grinder: You need a burr grinder to make good coffee, end of the story. The BGC has such a grinder.

One flaw with the BGC is that its brewing chamber is too small to brew large volumes of coffee while still maintaining the ideal 1:16 coffee-to-water ratio.

This means that it will make a watery coffee but only in larger serving sizes.

Its single-serving sizes of coffee will still be excellent.

Quality of Coffee Rating: 8/10

Functionalities

The Breville Grind Control gives you enough control over your brewing variables that it should be able to satisfy all but the biggest coffee nerds.

The BGC lets you control:

• Grind size (6 settings)
• Quantity of ground coffee used (called “strength) (8 settings which can be calibrated)
• Brewing temperature (to the nearest degree Fahrenheit)

Although the BGC gives you a quantity of ground coffee used on a scale of 1-8, you can adjust the quantity of coffee that each of these settings corresponds to in the machine’s calibrate mode (here is how you do this).

Although the machine gives you a good deal of control over your brewing, it would be nice to be able to control brewing time.

I own the Breville Precision Brewer, and I can control brewing time with that, so it feels like an emission that you cannot do with the Breville Grind Control.

Functionalities Rating: 8/10

Ease of Use

The Breville Grind Control’s dial-operated digital display screen makes it very easy to use.

The BGC is mainly operated by a dial-controlled digital display screen. 

This lets you control your coffee’s strength and brewing temperature as well as telling you the quantity of coffee that you will brew based on the amount of water that is in your tank.

The machine will brew with whatever water you put in your tank. 

While this may make the coffee-making process slightly more laborious, I like the fact that it forces you to resist the temptation of brewing with old water left in your tank from last time (this can seriously “tank” your coffee’s taste).

The machine has enough clearance space to accommodate a 20 oz travel mug. There is absolutely no way that you will not be able to fit your mug under the machine’s spout.

The machine’s grinder is controlled by a mechanical grinder on the dial itself. This, again, is really easy to use.

Ease of Use Rating: 9/10

Design and Build Quality

The machine has a high internal build quality as evidenced by the excellent coffee it makes. Its grinder does have a tendency to clog up, however.

The Breville Grind Control has superb internal build quality. 

This is mainly evidenced by the fact that it can heat up your water all the way to its ideal brewing temperature prior to brewing.

You need a good quality heater to do this. More affordable machines cannot do this due to the price of the heating system required. 

If a manufacturer has included such a powerful (and expensive) heating element, they will not have skimped on other areas of the machine’s brewing system (it would be pointless to do so).

This means that the Breville Grind Control should be able to brew consistent quality coffee year in and year out.

Although much of the exterior machine is made out of plastic, this plastic tends to be thick. No part of the machine feels flimsy.

The machine uses a high-quality burr grinder, which is another reason why it makes such good coffee.

Its grinder does have a tendency to clog up, however.

You can take apart its grinder to unclog it (it even comes with a handy little brush to help you clean it), but very occasionally it cannot be unclogged.

The entire machine is rendered useless when you cannot unclog the machine’s grinder. This is therefore a big design flaw with the BGC.

It is the machine’s only design flaw, however.

Design and Build Quality Rating: 7/10

Value For Money

The Breville Grind Control offers decent value for money; very good value for money if compared to other coffee machines with built-in grinders.

The BGC is a high-quality machine, this is reflected in its price although it is nowhere near as expensive as the Gevi 4 in 1.

The machine offers good value for a coffee machine with a built-in grinder, but be aware that you’ll get better value by buying a separate coffee machine and grinder.

Value For Money Rating: 7/10

Breville Grind Control Pros

It can make an excellent coffee, especially at single serving sizes

It is very easy to use due to its digital display screen

It allows you to finely adjust your brewing ratios which gives you huge control over how your coffee tastes.

Breville Grind Control Cons

Its grinder has a tendency to clog up (it can usually be unclogged, however)

One to Avoid: The Power XL Grind and Go (and similar)

Since manufacturing a decent-quality coffee grinder is expensive, you want to avoid the cheaper coffee makers with a built-in grinder. This includes the much-advertised Power XL Grind and Go.

Coffee machines with built-in grinders (single-serve or otherwise) have a fundamental design flaw in that their grinders are prone to clogging up.

When a machine’s grinder clogs up, it is basically useless until you can unclog it.

You, therefore, want a machine that either:

• Has a grinder that is easily taken apart and cleaned

• Has a grinder that is far away enough from the machine’s brewing system that steam will not get into the grinder (this is what causes the clogging up in the first place).

I could not find a machine, other that the two listed above (the Gevi 4 in 1 and the Breville Grind Control) that meets one of these two criteria.

Cheaper machines, including the Power XL Grind and Go, have neither of these, so the machines are endlessly clogged up.

Despite their relative inexpensiveness, machines like these just do not offer value for money so I cannot recommend them.

What to Look for When Buying a Single-Cup Coffee Maker with a Grinder?

I’m now going to go through the features that determine whether a single-serve coffee maker with a grinder is good or not.

Pay attention to these specific features when shopping around for this type of coffee machine.

Quality of the Machine’s Grinder

You want your coffee maker to have a burr grinder that is not prone to clogging up. The more grind settings your grinder has the better.

Burr vs Blade Grinders

There are two types of coffee grinders: burr grinders and blade grinders.

Burr grinders are better than blade grinders because they grind your coffee much more evenly.

If you brew with unevenly ground coffee, then the individual grinds will extract at different rates (finer grinds extract faster than coarser grinds).

This means that some parts of your ground coffee will over-extract, making your coffee bitter and some parts will under-extract, making your coffee sour.

Evenly ground coffee, such as that made with a burr grinder, should all extract at the same rate, resulting in a much better-balanced drink.

Your machine having a burr grinder is so important that I would never recommend a single-cup coffee maker with a built-in blade grinder.

The table below shows whether the machines featured in this article have a blade or burr grinder:

Machine name	Does it have a blade or burr grinder?
Gevi 4 in 1 (Best overall)	Burr
Breville Grind Control (Best value for money)	Burr
Power XL Grind and Go (One to avoid)	Blade

The Grinder’s Tendency to Clog Up

Coffee machines with built-in grinders have a tendency for their grinder to clog up because the steam caused by the brewing coffee can get into the grinder and moisten the ground coffee residue in it.

This is a really big problem with these types of coffee makers, especially as their grinders are often non-removable and therefore hard to unclog when they clog up.

Once your coffee maker’s grinder is clogged up, the machine is pretty much useless (until the grinder is unclogged).

Some coffee maker’s grinders are easier to unclog than others.

I’ll now list each of the machines featured in this article and say whether their grinders have a tendency to clog up and if so then how easy they are to unclog:

• Gevi 4 in 1: I could find no reports of this machine’s grinder clogging up.

• Breville Grind Control: Its grinder clogs up fairly regularly but is easy to unclog as it can be taken apart.

• Power XL Grind and Go: Its grinder clogs up fairly regularly and can be very difficult to clog up as it cannot be taken apart.

Number of Grind Settings

The more grind settings your coffee maker’s grinder has, the more you can customize the way your coffee tastes by playing around with grind size.

Adjusting grind size is the most fine-grained way that you can alter your coffee’s flavor, so having a machine with more grind settings just gives you more control over how your coffee tastes.

That being said, having a machine with a burr grinder, and a grinder that does not clog up easier is more important than having a grinder with loads of settings.

The table below shows the number of grind settings that each of the machines featured in this article has:

Machine name	Number of grind settings
Gevi 4 in 1 (Best overall)	56
Breville Grind Control (Best value for money)	6
Power XL Grind and Go (One to avoid)	1

Does it Brew Your Coffee at the Ideal Brewing Temperature?

You want your coffee maker to keep your brewing water at 195-205 Fahrenheit through the entirety of your brewing process.

Drip coffee should be brewed at 195-205 Fahrenheit, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Coffee brewed below this temperature will be bland because the flavorful compounds in your coffee grounds extract less efficiently in cooler water than in hotter water. 

Less extraction (up to a certain point, at least) means blander-tasting coffee.

While almost all coffee makers can get your brewing water up to this temperature, the vast majority only reach this temperature by the end of your brew.

This means that your coffee will be brewed at a lower-than-ideal temperature for the majority of its brewing time if you use a machine with one of these inferior brewing systems.

You therefore specifically want a machine that heats your water to its ideal brewing temperature before the brewing begins, and keeps it at this temperature throughout the entire brewing process.

The table below shows whether the machines featured in this article keep your brewing water at its ideal temperature consistently throughout the brewing process:

Machine name	Does it brew consistently at optimal temperature?
Gevi 4 in 1 (Best overall)	Yes
Breville Grind Control (Best value for money)	Yes
Power XL Grind and Go (One to avoid)	No

How Far Can You Customise Your Coffee’s Strength?

You want a machine that allows you to easily customize the quantity of ground coffee that you brew so you can easily play around with your coffee’s strength. Ideally, these strength settings will be based on specified coffee-to-water ratios, rather than on an arbitrary scale.

Most single-serve coffee machines with built-in grinders have strength settings that adjust how much ground coffee you brew.

These machines vary in how their strength settings work in two ways:

• The number of strength settings on offer: A higher number of strength settings is generally more desirable as it gives you more freedom to play around with your coffee’s flavor.

• How it measures your strength setting: You ideally want the amount of ground coffee you brew with to be measured as a ratio of the quantity of water you are brewing with (this is called “brew ratio”. Most machines do not do this, however, and just measure your quantity of ground coffee based on an arbitrary number (1-5 for example).

A higher number of strength settings, and measuring your strength by brew ratio, allow you to adjust the amount of ground coffee you brew giving you more control over how your final coffee tastes.

The table below shows:

• The number of strength settings that each machine featured in this article has.
• How each machine measures strength.

Machine name	How many strength settings does the machine have?	How does it measure strength?
Gevi 4 in 1 (Best overall)	At least ten	By brew ratio
Breville Grind Control (Best value for money)	Eight	By brew ratio
Power XL Grind and Go (One to avoid)	None	It doesn’t

How Much Does the Machine Cost?

You get the best value for single-cup coffee makers with grinders in the $200-$500 range.

Coffee makers with built-in grinders are more expensive than a separate coffee maker and grinder of comparable quality.

Given that decent-quality drip coffee makers and coffee grinders start at around $100 each, you are unlikely to find a good coffee maker with a built-in grinder for under $200.

Single-serve coffee makers with built-in grinders can go up to the best part of $1,000. 

The most expensive versions of these types of machines see you pay a premium for features which, while nice, do not actually make that much of a difference to the core functioning of the machine. 

This includes features like being able to customize your brew’s bloom time.

The sweet spot as far as value for money goes with single-serve coffee makers with built-in grinders, is around $200 – $500.

Any less like this and your coffee maker will likely be of such poor build quality that it will be unreliable. Any more than this and you’ll be paying a premium for nice-to-have (rather than essential) features.

How Far Can You Customize Serving Sizes?

You ideally want a machine that can make 8 oz, 10 oz and 12 oz servings of coffee. It’s also nice if your machine can easily accommodate a travel mug.

A “normal” size cup of coffee (for most people at least) is around 8 oz.

Travel mugs usually hold around 12 oz of coffee.

You want a machine that can easily make serving sizes of 8 oz, 10 oz and 12 oz so you can make the type of coffee that you want, regardless of how much coffee you want.

The table below shows whether each machine has customizable serving sizes and whether it can accommodate a travel mug:

Machine name	Can you customize the serving size?	Can it accommodate a travel mug?
Gevi 4 in 1 (Best overall)	Yes, 8 oz, 10 oz, 12 oz (and more)	Yes
Breville Grind Control (Best value for money)	Not automatically, it brews whatever you pour in.	Yes
Power XL Grind and Go (One to avoid)	Yes, 8oz, 10 oz, 12 oz (and more)	Yes

Final Verdict

The best coffee maker with a built-in grinder that can make single servings of coffee is the Gevi 4-in-1.

The machine is simply brilliant, and although it isn’t cheap, it is well worth the money.