This coffee machine has been my surprise heatwave hack – but I’d still make one big change

I used to think I’d never join “nothing gets between me and my morning coffee” brigade, but getting older and becoming a dad quickly changed my mind. Now even roasting summer heatwave temperatures haven’t been enough to stop me reaching for a morning cup – or rather they haven’t with the KitchenAid KF4 on brewing duties.

KitchenAid’s newest fully automatic bean-to-cup coffee machine isn’t just a brilliantly simple way to make hot coffee. It also offers iced options for staying cool when the mercury rises. After living with one for a few weeks, I’ve fallen for its one-and-done approach, even if it’s one that isn’t quite as all-encompassing as a true coffee snob would want.

At $1399/£899 it’s also not the most affordable option in its class, but if you value ease of use and don’t mind the minutiae of coffee making, it might deserve a spot on your kitchen counter.

What the KitchenAid KF4 does well

This is a very tidy looking coffee machine. The water tank hides at the rear and the bean hopper is fully integrated, so there’s little to break the boxy shape and sharp lines. KitchenAid does a version in white but the matte black model I was sent for testing was a more natural fit for my kitchen decor. I love that it takes up very little width on my kitchen counter. Having to reach around the side to find the power button was a strange choice though; I’d have preferred it up front, right next to the 3.5in touchscreen.

Setup is a breeze, with almost everything already assembled out of the box. There’s no bulky paper manual, just a QR code to scan; the bright and crisp colour touchscreen then walks you through the basics like installing the included water filter, filling the water tank, adding coffee beans and priming the machine.

The priming stage is about as loud as the KF4 ever gets; it’s Quiet Mark certified and has enough sound dampening material inside that it’s one of the most quiet coffee machines I’ve ever tried. Grinding and brewing are both significantly quieter than my Sage Barista Express Impress. The brew head slides up and down to make room for larger cups.

There’s just a single bean hopper here, so changing beans means emptying it and purging what’s left in the system. A separate slot for ground coffee can be useful for occasional visitors that don’t drink caffeine though. The stainless steel conical burr grinder has five settings, adjustable with a dial hidden behind the right side panel.

Getting around the onscreen interface is a cinch, with touch-sensitive shortcut buttons at the sides for jumping straight to the drinks menu, user profiles and cleaning options.

KitchenAid’s AutoMilk system is just as simple as the rest of the machine; you just connect it to the brew head using the supplied tube. It can steam, heat and froth milk as required, but can’t do cold foam, so iced lattes and cappuccinos are a no-go. The milk container can be can be kept in the fridge between brews, cutting down on cleaning, but as they’re not dishwasher safe you’ll need to keep the marigolds handy.

My iced coffee heatwave saviour isn’t quite perfect

There’s a healthy selection of hot drinks on offer, including americano, caffè latte, cappuccino, espresso, espresso lungo, flat white, latte macchiato, and macchiato, all in single or double shot. You can adjust the coffee strength, amount and temperature for each drink, with up to four user profiles for different members of the household. Each profile can only save four custom drinks though, so anyone that wants to really dial in their drink might run out of slots quickly. That’s especially true if, like me, you find the default espresso and milk volumes a little low.

Making my way through the menu, each hot drink was consistently well extracted, with a nice amount of crema on top of espresso shots. I rarely felt the need to tweak the Intelligrind settings from their defaults to get a more full-bodied flavour. Full-fat dairy milk was the best bet for getting thick foam, but it also did a decent job with non-dairy alternatives like oat and almond. I can’t fault it for consistency or temperature.

I was much more interested in the iced options though. There are just two – coffee and espresso – with each reportedly using a lower brewing temperature than their hot equivalents. However, when I broke out the thermometer it seemed like the iced coffee setting wasn’t significantly cooler than a regular hot coffee.

You’re prompted to load your glass up with ice before each pull, but the dilution is taken into account. After filling my cup with four to six cubes and waiting a couple of minutes after brewing before taking a sip, a large iced coffee was perfectly cool. The flavour profile wasn’t watered down, but couldn’t quite match machines that do full-on cold brew extraction for a more mellow taste. Proper coffee fiends will want that function, but this still earns the silver medal for convenience and taste.

I’ve taken to making two cups first thing and putting the second in the fridge to have early afternoon, just as temperatures in my home office get unbearable – but not so close to bedtime the extra caffeine interrupts my sleep.

Where the KitchenAid KF4 falls short

Pain points? The KF4 certainly has a few. Its bean hopper isn’t the largest, meaning I was refilling it more often than the Sage machine that normally has residence on my kitchen counter. The drip tray and grounds bin are other casualties of the reduced footprint, meaning more regular emptying.

I thought it could’ve been a bit more generous with the foam in tall frothy drinks like cappuccinos; even at the highest settings for milk amount it was a little lacking for my wife’s taste when picking a single shot. The milk proportions are better for a double shot, but obviously that means twice the caffeine.

It’s also overly keen to clean. As well as automatically flushing the system every time you turn the machine on or off, it also demands you clean the milk system after every milky drink. This involves emptying the drip tray and grounds container, plugging the milk hose into the tray, then placing a container under the nozzles to collect the flushed water. I’d be fine doing this once when turning off the machine, but not after every single drink. It’s a real drag – so much so that my wife went back to using her Nespresso Aeroccino milk frother and just asking the KF4 for black coffee drinks. That said, the option to evaporate all water from the system is a very welcome way to reduce mould build-up.

Finally, it’s not a truly smart machine. There’s no built-in Wi-Fi and no smartphone companion app. The touchscreen only goes so far. A Delonghi Prima Donna Aromatic isn’t all that much more but its mobile app is a genuinely useful way to keep track of its maintenance and cleaning schedule.

Should you buy the KitchenAid KF4 in 2026?

If you want tasty coffee quickly – be it hot or cold – and with minimal fuss, the KitchenAid KF4 delivers. This a wonderfully straightforward fully automatic espresso machine that’s a great choice for compact kitchens and is priced competitively with rivals that are equally convenient.

I do wish it wasn’t so insistent on cleaning cycles after every milky drink though, and a cold brew option would’ve been nice; as full-bodied as its iced drinks taste, they’re not quite as mellow as a machine that does a proper cold extraction.

What are the KitchenAid KF4’s technical specifications?