Now that you know why you should buy the Breville brand, all that’s left is deciding which of these is the best Breville espresso machine for you. I love trail running, rock climbing, coffee, food, and my tiny dog — and writing about all of them. I start every morning with a fresh Americano from my home espresso machine, or I don’t start it at all.
The barista express allows you to grind the beans right before extraction, and its interchangeable filters and a choice of automatic or manual operation ensure authentic café style results in no time at all. And you lose the automatic milk frothing feature that the Bambino Plus has. So unless you find an outstanding deal on the Barista Pro, getting the Bambino Plus and a superb separate grinder might make more sense. We frothed both whole milk and almond milk and noted that the frother worked every bit as well as those on most semi-automatic machines.
No work on your part except for pulling the lever and transferring the portafilter to the brew head. The Impress system doesn’t allow for special dosing tools, but it’s infinitely easier than doing the tamping yourself. The Barista Express has a set of buttons and an analog pressure gauge, which makes it look outdated compared to other espresso machines with a LCD display.
Some machines have built-in grinders, but unlike super automatic machines, users still have to fill portafilter with ground coffee. Those built-in grinders, by the way, have a tendency to be underpowered and lacking in grind settings, so with a couple exceptions we’d recommend having a separateburr grinder. Once you’ve ground and tamped your coffee with a semi-automatic machine, you lock the portafilter in place and push a brew button. Some machines, like Breville’s espresso makers for example, brew for a preset time that you can adjust. Others, like the Gaggia, require you to both start and stop the brew.
There’s a lot to like about Breville BES870SLthe barista express espresso maker.It’s inexpensive, easy to use, and gives you enough control to allow you to burnish your Barista skills; all good things. The top-loading 8-ounce hopper feeds into a stainless-steel conical burr grinder. Rather than having a preset number of grind settings, you’ll find a dial, conveniently located on the front face of the machine. You can just adjust it from fine to coarse, dialing into your particular flavor preferences. You can choose between one ounce single shot or two ounces double espresso shot. There is a default volume for each button, and Bambino lets you program each option manually.
We especially love its Thermoblock Fast Heating System and nifty pressure gauge, which allows you to make perfect drinks in less than a minute, and its hot water function that can be used for preparing tea and instant soups. Be sure to also take advantage of the adjustable steam wand, which comes in handy breville espresso maker when you’re in the mood for a latte or cappuccino. Water is another very important feature in high quality espresso machines. The Barista Express features a 1600 Watt thermocoil for maintaining precise water temperature and an electronic PID temperature control for increased temperature stability.
Because the volumetric flow meters in this machine aren’t as precise as their commercial counterparts, espresso shot volume varied drastically from the preset buttons. Our main issue with the Breville Barista Pro was its lack of precision grind settings, and the Barista Express Impress has even fewer. With only 25 grind settings, it was tricky to dial in the espresso perfectly, though we were able to pull great tasting shots of both coffees we used for testing after some fidgeting. While we’d appreciate a little more wiggle room between settings to dial in the perfect shot, most people will still be able to pull a nice tasting shot of espresso without too much trouble. The pre-infusion pressure ramping on this machine might be more forgiving for novices, but made it hard to dial in the grind with precision. When a coffee puck is saturated at a lower pressure, it allows for the water to create a more even pathway through the espresso puck.