Best Breville Espresso Machine

Breville (Sage in Europe) started making espresso machines in 2001 and has quickly established itself as one of the best brands in terms of quality, price, and reliability. Focusing more on designs for the coffee enthusiast, they have a loyal fanbase in the coffee community. They also have great options for those who want espresso-making to be easy.

The best Breville espresso machine is the Barista Pro. A fantastic espresso machine that is user-friendly and can hold your hand while you perfect your espresso shots. For those looking for a machine to do all the work, there is the Oracle Tocuh.

We’ve tested all the Breville espresso machines to pick out our favorites to recommend to you.

1. Breville Barista Pro Espresso Machine – Best Overall

The Barista Pro sits in the sweet spot of affordability and functionality. Sure, nothing is automated, but everything about it is designed to make pulling espresso incredibly easy. It’s the upgraded model of the immensely popular and still excellent Barista Express. You get a better grinder with 30 settings and a superior boiler system in the upgrade.

I get that you have to manually foam the milk but it’s not hard. If you want to do latte art that is a touch tougher. But simple espresso drinks like flat white, cappuccino, or latte are all achievable with minimal practice.

There are double-walled baskets for espresso beginners so you’re going to get decent espresso while learning. Then the single-walled for when you’re confident and want to get the best flavor. Top tier espresso from a very reasonably priced machine.

2. Breville Oracle Touch Espresso Machine – Best Super Automatic

Excuse me whilst I gush as I love the Oracle Touch. It’s my favorite espresso machine.

With 45 grind settings precise dose, volume, and coffee and milk temperature adjustments you can get coffee however you love it. The Oracle Touch will do everything for you, you just need to move the portafilter.

The milk wand will steam your milk to the exact temperature and foam level you want at the same time your perfect espresso shot is being extracted. Save these settings under your own custom drinks for zero-effort recipes in the future.

It’s also possible to use it entirely manually if you prefer. So an espresso nerd and a casual coffee drinker in the same house can both enjoy the Oracle Touch. We just wish it was more affordable.

3. Breville Dual Boiler Espresso Machine – Best for Espresso Fanatics

The Breville Dual Boiler is an espresso fanatic’s dream machine in many ways:

You have separate boilers for the coffee and steam, so there’s no waiting around and no concerns over temperature. You can also monitor the extraction – either time it yourself or set the specific volume and let it work.

The pressure gauge allows you to monitor the pre-infusion and extraction pressure. This will help you diagnose any possible issues with shots. It also has an over-pressure valve (OPV) which stops any potential espresso disasters.

The downsides are you need a separate grinder. Breville offers the Smart Grinder Pro with the Dual Boiler in a very nice package deal. Sometimes it is cheaper than the machine on its own! The Smart Grinder Pro is one of the best affordable electric grinders available with 60 grind settings. Whilst not all of these are suitable for espresso, the upside is you can use this grinder for other brewing methods too.

4. Breville Barista Touch Espresso Machine 

The Breville Barista Touch espresso machine is a great automatic option for those who want espresso to be a bit easier. You still need to manually tamp and trim your grounds as well as move the portafilter into position, but the machine does the rest. 

As well as the standard drinks options, you can save 8 custom coffees to the Barista Touch. So you can have whatever coffee you like saved to order at a touch.

It’s around $300 more than the Barista Pro so you have to decide if it’s worth that extra cash for automating the espresso and milk from your machine. It’s still exceptionally good quality coffee for the price compared to many other super-automatic espresso machines.

5. Breville Bambino Plus Espresso Machine – Best For Small Kitchens 

The Bambino Plus is not really a “budget” option in the Breville range, more of a “compact” one. This is great since we don’t all have sprawling kitchen counters to fill with our collection of coffee and cooking toys. Instead, the Bambino Plus is designed to allow those with space limitations to still get a great Breville espresso machine.

You get the same amazing quality coffee extraction and steam for milk, just in a smaller package. But this does mean you need to be a separate grinder to get the best from it.

The automatic milk foam is a really nice feature and makes it an easier machine to use than many others at this price. While not cheap enough to be truly “budget” its about as cheap as you can get and still extract exceptional espresso shots.

If cheap is what you’re after, check out our comparison of the Bambino Plus vs the Bambino.

6. Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine 

The Breville Barista Express espresso machine is still a great option 10 years after release.

Everything you need to pull superb espresso at home with a very reasonable price tag. It’s been a favorite of espresso nerds for years now, and many are still using 10-year-old machines for their daily coffee.

The only real issue with the Barista Express is its been left behind. Breville has improved all aspects of its espresso machines in the last decade. When you can get it for $600-650 then it’s still really excellent value as it’s a superb machine. But anything above that and you are much better off paying the relatively small amount extra for the Barista Pro or Touch.

7. Breville Bambino Espresso Machine – Best Budget

The Bambino is the cheapest espresso machine that Breville makes with its “4 Keys” philosophy. This means you get great temperature control, pre-infusion followed by even pressure for optimum extraction, plus high-temperature steam for perfect milk.

The Cafe Roma has been discontinued and was never at the quality level of the Bambino for a fairly similar price.

If you’re on a tight budget then a Breville Bambino paired with a superb manual grinder can get you fairly close to some very expensive espresso machine quality coffee. All while taking up very little space in your kitchen.

The Bambino Plus has the bonus of automated milk. But for those who like to get stuck in and want a DIY coffee set up to outdo the local cafe then the Bambino is an amazing budget option.

8. Breville Oracle Espresso Machine

The Breville Oracle is an incredible espresso machine. The LCD screen allows you to precisely time your extraction either manually or by volume. It also automatically delivers perfectly foamed milk at the precise temperature and texture you desire.

Plus, there are an astonishing 45 grind settings to choose from and one-touch Americano for black coffee drinkers.

We love the Breville Oracle, but we’re also coffee nerds so taking time to adjust settings and do things ourselves is what we love. If you want to be taken care of by your machine rather than the other way round then the Oracle is quite daunting.

But if the Oracle Touch is feeling like a stretch then you can get the same amazing quality of coffee and milk but for a few hundred dollars less.

9. Breville Infuser Espresso Machine

Weird superhero-esque name aside, the Breville Infuser is another espresso machine that is absolutely superb but feels a little left behind by the newer models. Sporting a very handy pressure gauge along with PID temperature control, volume or manual shot control, and excellent milk frothing, it’s a really good all-around machine.

When paired with a high-quality espresso grinder then you get beautiful espresso shots. We enjoyed getting our workflow nailed down for perfect extraction. It’s just been left behind by better Breville machines that make things easier for the average user.

Maybe only for those looking for a reasonably priced espresso machine to complete their setup. The pressure gauge does make it easier to use than the Gaggia Classic Pro for example. But its in no-mans-land in the current Breville range.

10. Breville Barista Express Impress

If you love the idea of controlling your espresso shots but are a little daunted by all the steps, Breville has an answer for you.

The Breville Barista Express Impress is the newest addition to their espresso machine range and is designed to keep one thing constant: tamping.

This would be nice if we were looking for a Breville machine with a little more automation but not much extra cost. I’m not entirely sure how many people were looking for that but clearly enough.

The automatic tamping works well, we got really good pucks and espresso when using the Express Impress. I’d just say that tamping isn’t that difficult and there are tools to help you that are much cheaper.

So while the Express Impress is an excellent espresso machine, we wouldn’t spend the money on automated tamping.

11. Breville Duo Temp Pro Espresso Machine

The Duo Temp Pro is a stripped-back espresso machine with the bare bones needed to make exceptional espresso at home. Like many of the espresso machines above, it has all the tech that we’ve mentioned before which is critical to great coffee but without any of the help.

The only real issue is that it’s in the same price range as the Bambino Plus and more expensive than the Bambino.

We didn’t think the Duo Temp Pro is really a better espresso machine than those two so we wouldn’t recommend it over either of the Bambino models.

Image	Product	Details	Cost ($$$$$)
Best Overall	Breville Barista Pro	13 x 12 x 13 inches Automatic 30 Grind Settings	$$$	Check Price
Best Super Automatic	Breville Oracle Touch	14.5 x 14.7 x 17.5 inches Super Automatic 45 Grind Settings	$$$$$	Check Price
Best for Espresso Fanatics	Breville Dual Boiler	14.8 x 14.7 x 14.7 inches Automatic No in-built grinder	$$$$	Check Price
Best for Small Kitchens	Breville Bambino Plus	12.5 x 7.6 x 12.2 inches Automatic with Automatic milk frothing No in-built grinder	$$	Check Price
Best Budget	Breville Cafe Roma	9 x 9 x 12 inches Semi-Automatic No in-built grinder	$	Check Price

Breville and Sage are the same company. When breville started selling appliances in Europe there was already a company using that brand name based in Germany. To avoid confusion with consumers, Breville sell their products under the brand name Sage. The products are exactly the same, it’s just a different badge on the front of your coffee machine.

Effort Level Required

Depending on how much work you want to put in to get your espresso, the Breville espresso machine range has different options. They start at the semi-automatics (a little effort needed) to up the super-automatics (as close to zero as you can get):

Semi-Automatic

These require you to grind, dose, tamp, start, and stop the espresso shot and foam the milk. Basically everything except heating the water and applying the pressure is up to you. This gives you a huge amount of control over your espresso but requires a lot of input.

If you’re interested in, or used to, controlling the whole espresso-making process then the semi-automatic machines are ideal for you. You can save money by not paying for automated features you don’t need or want. The Dual Boiler is the best option in this case.

Automatic

Automatic espresso machines are basically the same as semi-automatics but they’ll time the espresso extraction for you. This is usually done by setting a specific volume of water. Almost all automatic espresso machines can be operated like a semi-automatic if you prefer to manually stop the shot. But there’s that extra level of automation for those that want it.

The more expensive automatic machines will also froth the milk for you. This will usually cost significantly more but it can be a great feature if you love milky coffees but don’t want the learning curve of steaming your own milk. We recommend the Barista Pro for those looking for an awesome automatic. If you want a touch more automation but don’t want to splash out on the top-end machines, the Barista Touch is also a great choice.

Super Automatic

Super Automatic espresso machines, or fully automatic espresso machines, do it all for you. Simply press a button and the coffee is ground, dosed, tamped, and extracted plus the milk is foamed. These are the most expensive machines you can buy.

Most will come with a lot of options to customize the final product, so you can get that semi-automatic level of control without the human error. But you’ll have to pay top dollar. If that sounds like your ideal coffee set up then the Breville Oracle Touch is the one for you.

Do you Have a Grinder?

If you already own a great grinder then a machine without one is a better option – why pay more for something you already have? If you don’t own a grinder then you need to factor that into your costs. You can get a decent budget grinder for around $70, but a really good grinder will set you back around $150 at least. If it’s an electric grinder that also doses the coffee then it’s going to be over $200. Just something to factor in when looking at prices.

The Breville Dynamic Duo dual boiler espresso machine and Smart Grinder Pro is a package deal aimed at the espresso geeks. This is actually an awesome deal if you’re looking for an espresso machine with a separate grinder. 

Very High Build Quality

Breville builds all of its products to last. There is no planned obsolescence here. There are many avid coffee fans who are using their Barista Express daily that they bought in 2013.

User-Friendly

All Breville machines are well thought out and designed to be as easy to use as possible. All the way down to the clearly marked slot for the portafilter, ease of use is a priority.

PID Temperature Control

Precise and consistent temperature is critical to perfect espresso extraction. Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID to you and me) is a complex way of ensuring the water temperature stays within a very narrow range.

Stainless-Steel Designs

Plastic in coffee makers is a big thing. A lot of people don’t like the idea of plastic being anywhere near their coffee grounds and a big plastic box isn’t everyone’s idea of a great-looking coffee machine. Breville uses mainly stainless steel in its designs. This can reduce the options for various finishes, but does give a solid and timeless look.

18-22g Dosage

Breville feels the reason for poor quality espresso often lies in the fact people are using 10-14g of coffee for each shot. Instead, Breville uses 18-22g in their portafilters, giving a richer and fuller espresso flavor.

266°F Steam Temperature

Another focus of Breville is the milk frothing temperature. Using steam at a consistent 266°F (130°C) heats the milk quickly and makes getting the ideal combination of texture and microfoam simpler. Cheaper espresso machines will have steam that is not hot enough to achieve this.

200°F Brewing Temperature

The idea that 200°F is a great temperature to brew espresso at is hardly new. Breville’s focus is on the consistency of that temperature for even extraction. This is where the PID temperature control is so important.

9 Bar Extraction

Again, 9 bar extraction for espresso isn’t a new idea. But Breville is focusing on that pressure being consistent during the extraction process. They also make sure there is a low-pressure “pre-infusion” stage which is critical to getting the best flavor from your beans.

So, once you’ve bought the best Breville espresso machine, you also need the best espresso beans for that perfect coffee experience.

We’ve compiled a list of the top coffee beans for espresso, with recommendations from across the coffee world. These are all amazing compliments to your new Breville coffee maker.

The Barista Pro is undoubtedly the best Breville espresso machine currently available. It has the perfect balance of amazing features and affordability. An argument can be made that the Oracle Touch is the best espresso machine money can buy but it’s just a bit too expensive for many espresso lovers.

Other options in the Breville espresso making lineup all serve their specific niches in the coffee community. From the Bambino Plus for those short of space, the Café Roma for those on a budget, and the Dual Boiler for espresso fanatics.

No matter which option you go for, you are in for a treat. They’re all really good espresso machines, all you have to do is choose which one is perfect for you.

Matt Woodburn-Simmonds

Matt's coffee obsession started in 2006 when working as a Barista. A tendency to turn up to work hungover kickstarted his coffee journey which quickly turned into a love affair. As he moved on to work as a Restaurant Manager and Sommelier, the obsession continued to grow. Now, his passion is helping others to enjoy better coffee at home.