At a Glance (China Coffee Network): On May 1, 2026, the national standard GB/T 46503—2025 “Coffee Machines for Household and Similar Purposes” officially took effect. Led by Midea Small Appliances (Guangdong Midea Life Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd.) and jointly compiled with the China Household Electric Appliance Research Institute and more than thirty enterprises in the industry, as China’s first product standard for home coffee machines, it not only fills a gap in industry standards but also pushes China’s coffee-machine industry into a new stage of standardized, regulated development.
On May 1, 2026, the national standard GB/T 46503—2025 “Coffee Machines for Household and Similar Purposes” officially took effect. Led by Midea Small Appliances (Guangdong Midea Life Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd.) and jointly compiled with the China Household Electric Appliance Research Institute and more than thirty enterprises in the industry, as China’s first product standard for home coffee machines, it not only fills a gap in industry standards but also pushes China’s coffee-machine industry into a new stage of standardized, regulated development.
As an imported product, coffee machines have long lacked a unified standard in the domestic industry, leading to problems such as chaotic parameter caliber, inconsistent performance judgment, and uneven product quality, which not only troubled consumers’ purchasing but also seriously constrained the technological iteration and quality upgrading of the domestic coffee-machine industry.
It is understood that this newly formulated national standard for home coffee machines did not adopt the IEC 60661:2006 international standard identically, but only drew on and referenced the IEC test-method standard, while based on Chinese household usage scenarios and needs, carried out substantive reconstruction—removing subjective, vague, and non-quantifiable comparison technical indicators, and formulating a technical indicator system and test methods more in line with Chinese users’ usage scenarios based on the actual situation of China’s coffee-machine industry and market consumption habits.
For users, the core key to judging a coffee machine’s performance and quality lies in five aspects: coffee volume, coffee temperature, coffee concentration, extraction rate, and coffee crema. The standard clearly puts forward ten major technical requirements for coffee machines: normal working environment, electrical safety, electromagnetic compatibility, off-power and standby power, noise, pressure-control performance, volume deviation, minimum-water-volume brewing capability, coffee-brewing performance, steam performance, etc., transforming what previously relied on users’ subjective feelings into precise, unified, comparable standardized data, comprehensively regulating the industry’s coffee-brewing technical level and product quality.
Industry’s first product standard! Midea-led national standard for home coffee machines officially takes effect.
As the convener (lead drafting unit) of this standard, Midea Small Appliances, in the national-standard formulation process, relying on years of technical accumulation in the coffee-machine field, gave full play to its own advantages, took the lead in technical indicator demonstration, and together with 37 well-known domestic and foreign enterprises and research institutes, over more than a year, through 7 rounds of technical discussion and verification of 518 sets of valid experimental data, completed this highly difficult, strictly required standard formulation, and finally formed a forward-looking and authoritative technical specification.
In terms of the standard’s operability, Midea organized multi-party collaborative participation, inviting complete-machine enterprises, parts suppliers, testing institutions, research institutes, etc., to jointly participate in discussion and verification, ensuring the standard is both scientific and fully reflects the overall industry demands, with strong operability.
In addition, Midea has always pursued excellence in the R&D and manufacturing of coffee machines. Since laying out coffee machines in 2019, cumulative investment has exceeded 120 million yuan; it has established R&D centers in China, the United States, and Germany, and built a brand-new independent high-end fully-automatic coffee-machine production line. It is also the only domestic manufacturer that achieves 100% in-house production of core components and 100% digital inspection of all component processing stages. Midea fully leverages its internal R&D platform and technical advantages to transform user data and R&D experience into standard specifications.
Filling the gap in industry standards, pushing the industry into a new stage of standardization and regulation.
As China’s first product standard for home coffee machines, the implementation of this national standard has important milestone significance for Chinese coffee-machine consumers, enterprises, and industry development.
For consumers, the standard can promote more stable and professional coffee making, bringing Chinese consumers a new coffee-drinking experience more suited to Chinese people.
For Midea, it takes the lead in implementing the standard requirements in its own products, and through supply-chain collaborative technology output, drives upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly improve product quality and technical level, striving to provide practical references for industry quality improvement and accelerate the industrial deployment of standard results.
For the coffee-machine industry, as the first product standard, it fills the gap in the technical-specification field of coffee-machine standards, provides a set of scientific and unified evaluation basis for coffee-machine performance, pushes the industry from past caliber wars to a healthy competition on product quality and technical strength, marking the coffee-machine industry’s move into a new stage of standardized, regulated development.
In the future, Midea will continue to increase R&D investment in the coffee-machine field, continuously lead technological innovation and upgrading, and work with industry partners to jointly enhance the voice of China’s coffee-machine industry in technological innovation and international market position.
Reprint Notice & Disclaimer: This article is reprinted from industry media coverage of the Midea-led national standard. All rights belong to the original publishers.
Related Reading
- Automatic Coffee Machines Recommended for Office Workers
Gree Wins New Robot Patent as Its Coffee Robot Draws a Flood of Orders
Robot Barista Debuts in Wuhan: One Cup in 90 Seconds, in a Real Consumer Setting
Auto-cleaning the brew group of a super-automatic espresso machine: the overlooked cleaning key, and how the Grindel H3 handles it
Which super-automatic espresso machine for when guests come over? Picks for home entertaining
Why beginners should opt for an integrated espresso bundle: avoiding the machine-plus-third-party-grinder trap
Liaoning ICP Security No. 21122402000217