Hot froth for your lazy evenings

The sound of coffee beans being freshly ground, and the aroma of the rich brew filling up your senses in a few minutes - there's something to be said about having your own coffee machine at home. And if you can do all this by just clicking one button, then it's pure bliss.

The new Seaco Intelia from Philips is a coffee-lover's delight. The processes are simple and non-messy, the taste of the brew good. After a hard day's Iwork, we decided to test the machine to check just how powerful a brew this churned out.

Once we switched on the machine and the green light told us we were ready to run, we poured two cups of water into the container that slid out. On the right, there is another container where we had already poured a cup of cold milk.

That was about all we had to do. We pressed the button that said ‘cappuccino', pressed another which showed a full cup (another showed half a cup) and hey presto! In less than a minute the coffee was ready and falling willingly into an expectant coffee mug we had kept just below the nozzles. While one of the two nozzles sent out the coffee, the other nozzle stirred and put in frothy milk into the cup. For black coffee, we took the milk away and repeated the process. In less than five minutes we had two cups of hot coffee with the aroma of the Arabic beans filling the room.

The Intelia has an in-built ceramic grinder so that one can put the coffee beans into the tray designated for that purpose. If you prefer powdered coffee, there's a separate slot to put that in too. The best thing about this espresso and cappuccino maker: a user-friendly touchscreen. There are separate options for strength of the brew, cup size and how hot you want your cuppa to be. There's even a hot tray where you can preheat your cup before the coffee.

Price: Rs 75,000
Available at: Leading electronic chainsu00a0