"I was asked to review a range of compact grinders for Bella Barista. I was a little nervous about such a review, partly because there are some fairly poor cheap grinders out there and i had visions of having to spend some time with quite a few of them."

Luckily the parameters for this review covers only 4 grinders with price points from £125 - £299 at the time of writing. Looks like the people at Bella Barista took to heart my mumblings about not having really cheap grinders in stock.

Now i have often said that you can't get a decent grinder for less than £150 and you will usually have to spend a lot more, so i am a little sceptical about grinders at the cheaper end of the scale. I was also looking forward to playing with the MAHLKONIG Vario.
This is the current darling of the compact grinders and sells like "Hotcakes", whatever they are.

So from left to right (in the photo above) are:

Mahlkonig Vario
Eureka Mignon
Ascaso Metal polished i1
Ascaso Metal i2

My objective was not to complete a highly detailed review of each coffee grinder covering all its technical features, you will find this type of review in abundance on the web in true sales, or enthusiast sites, together with a listing of capabilities, myths & pseudo science. Sometimes reviews cover an afternoon's use of the grinder and have only positive things to say, or worse still are by an enthusiastic owner who has just "upgraded".

I wanted to live with each one for 3-4 days making lots of coffee for myself and friends. In short i wanted to get as close as possible to the "ownership" experience. You will read good and bad about each grinder, hopefully remembering that all grinders have good and bad points. If you find a coffee grinder that doesn't have good or bad points...well it's probably because you have not been told about them

I start my reviews with the cheapest grinder first and save the best/most expensive till last. All grinders were tested with exactly the same coffee and shots pulled on my Izzo Alex Duetto twin boiler machine at 93C.