Breville Barista Touch Review

We’re cautious about espresso machines that look like a step up but aren’t. And the Barista Touch is exactly that kind of machine. It sits next to the Oracle Touch on Breville’s website, shares the same touchscreen interface aesthetic, and at $1000 it’s easy to assume it’s a more affordable version of the same thing. It isn’t. Understand what it actually is, and it’s a genuinely excellent machine. Buy it expecting something it isn’t, and you’ll be frustrated.

The Barista Touch is a “tweener” machine with integrated grinder, touchscreen, and automatic milk steaming in one package. Once your beans are dialled in, using it every morning is genuinely effortless. The caveat is that the espresso workflow is identical to the Barista Pro, which costs $150 less. The touchscreen and the auto milk are doing all the work that justifies the difference in price.

With weeks of testing espresso shots, milk textures, settings, coffee bean types, and sleep-deprived workflows. We’ve tried to figure out if this machine is the right fit for anyone, or if it somehow ends up in “no mans land” of espresso making.

✅ Buy the Breville Barista Touch if:

• You want café-quality espresso drinks at home without having to learn manual milk steaming. The MilQ system handles temperature and texture automatically. This is the main reason to choose the Barista Touch over the Barista Pro.
• You use your coffee machine every day and want the experience to feel good, not just functional. The touchscreen makes using the Barista Pro a great experience. And saving custom drink settings means your routine gets faster over time.
• You’re comfortable with the manual espresso side of things. Dosing into a portafilter, tamping, and keeping an eye on your shot output. If that sounds fine, the Barista Touch delivers the rest with very little friction.
• You value build quality and brand reliability. Miele has a (justified) long-standing reputation for premium appliances. The build quality is superb, and the machine comes with a 2-year warranty as standard.
• Counter space isn’t tight. At 12.4″ wide and 12.8″ deep, it needs its own dedicated spot.

❌ Skip it if:

• You want the absolute best espresso. On coffee flavor alone, both Jura and Breville espresso machines are better than Miele. Though it’s marginal in Jura’s case.
• You need a simple machine. The CM 6360 isn’t hard to use, per se. It’s just that there are easier machines for a similar price.
• You regularly drink iced coffee. This machine focuses only on hot espresso and hot milk-based drinks.
• You’re looking for the best value for money. You’re paying a premium for Miele’s brand and build quality. If price-to-performance matters most, then DeLonghi machines offer a better bet.

1. Automatic MilQ Milk Steaming

This is the reason to choose the Barista Touch over the Barista Pro, full stop. Select your drink on the touchscreen, place your milk jug on the sensor, and the machine steams to your chosen temperature and texture level automatically.

You get eight texture levels from silky flat-white milk right up to dry cappuccino foam, and eight temperature settings between 104 and 167°F. Once you’ve found your preferences, save them to your custom drink, and they’re set every time.

2. Touchscreen Interface

The 3.5-inch full-colour touchscreen doesn’t just look good. It changes how you interact with the machine day to day. Adjusting your grind, changing brew temperature, navigating the cleaning cycle, or tweaking your shot time: all of it is a few taps rather than hunting through button combinations.

3. 30-Setting Integrated Grinder

Thirty grind settings is a meaningful range for an integrated grinder. More than the 16 on the original Barista Express, and the Baratza conical burrs are the same ones found in the Barista Pro, which is reassuring for grind quality.

4. ThermoJet Heating System

Three seconds from pressing the button to the machine being ready to pull a shot. That’s not a marketing claim to be sceptical of: it really is that fast, and it makes a genuine difference to the morning routine. The caveat is that a 3-second heat-up is for the heater only.

For best results, a quick turbo flush (pulling a shot with no coffee and the pressurized double shot basket) before your first shot of the day will bring the group head up to full brew temperature and warm your cup at the same time.

5. Custom Drink Presets

The small number of defaults doesn’t matter so much since you can save 8 drinks exactly how you like them. Perfect for lovers of a niche coffee drink. We love a genuine Spanish-style cortado, for example.

Getting started is straightforward. Fill the water tank, install the water filter, add beans to the hopper, and follow the touchscreen prompts for the initial flush. The screen walks you through everything clearly, and there’s nothing technically demanding about the process. The first cup is achievable within 20-30 minutes of unboxing.

The day-to-day workflow:

• Place your milk jug on the sensor and the MilQ system steams automatically
• Select your drink from the touchscreen
• Lock the portafilter into the dosing cradle and press to grind
• Check the dose, trim with the razor tool if needed
• Tamp firmly and evenly
• Lock the portafilter into the group head

The shot control is timed rather than volumetric, which is the one thing worth knowing before you start dialling in.

The default is 30 seconds for a double. If your grind is too coarse, the shot will run fast and you’ll have a weak, watery espresso in 30 seconds. Too fine, and it’ll be small and over-extracted.

Get yourself a set of scales for the first few sessions with each new bag of beans: stop the shot manually a couple of grams before your target weight, check the taste, then dial in the time to match. Once that’s done, the machine handles the rest and you don’t need to watch it.

One specific annoyance: the milk jug has to be fairly close to the portafilter to sit on the temperature sensor correctly. It feels slightly cramped and can catch you out when you’re tired.

Unlike the Barista Touch Impress, you also can’t queue the milk to start automatically after the shot finishes, so you’ll be switching between modes manually.

Our Breville Barista Touch Settings

We settled on grind setting 17, double shot basket, and default brew temperature. From there, shots ran consistently at 25 seconds and the espresso was excellent: balanced, deep and rich, with a real fruity and chocolatey character. Good crema, proper body, the kind of result that makes you stop noticing it’s a home machine.

Those results were with a medium-dark espresso blend. The 30 grind settings and Baratza burrs gave us enough range to find a clean result without pushing to the extremes of the dial, which is a good sign. If you’re somewhere between settings 10 and 25 with most blends, the machine has room to adapt when you change beans.

We also tested with a medium roast single origin. The Barista Touch handled it, though it required moving a few settings finer and took an extra couple of shots to find the right extraction. If you’re working with lighter roasts regularly, be patient with the dial-in: the grinder is capable, but lighter beans can be less forgiving. Medium-dark blends are where this machine is most at home.

The MilQ system was consistent. Temperature was within a couple of degrees of target whenever we remembered to measure it, and the texture was genuinely good for automated steaming.

Having so many foam and temperature settings means you’ll almost certainly be able to get milk really close to what you want using the automatic system. Whether its hot, old school dry cappuccino foam or near-zero foam, just above warm milk for cortados.

You can get better results by learning to use the wand in manual mode. It takes a little practice to get really good, especially if you’re trying to do multiple different milk styles. You may decide the effort isn’t worth the payoff, and the automated milk is good enough. 

The integrated grinder is a real asset here: fresh grounds make a material difference to espresso quality, and the Baratza burrs in this machine are good enough to reward it. Medium-dark roast blends are the sweet spot for the grinder’s range and for the machine’s extraction profile.

You can easily use pre-ground coffee as it’s a manual tamping machine. Just be aware that your shot times are for the beans in the hopper and not necessarily the same for the pre-ground decaf or flavored coffee you’re using. You may need to dial them in separately and remember the shot time.

The grinder was OK when it came to lighter roast, high elevation, single-origin beans. But not amazing. It can handle those coffees if that’s what you love, but it isn’t where it excels.

The Looks

From a distance, the Barista Touch does look like a smaller Oracle Touch. That’s not an accident. Stainless steel finish is classic Breville and the touchscreen and curved edges are very similar.

Up close, it looks like the mid-range machine it is, but it’s still a handsome piece of kit, and it looks significantly nicer than the Barista Pro. It comes in brushed stainless steel and a couple of other colors, depending on where you’re buying.

We had the standard steel version, which fits easily in most kitchens. And we’re boring, so it’s our favorite.

At 12.4″ wide by 12.8″ deep by 13.4″ tall, it’s more compact than it looks in product photos. Still a dedicated-counter machine, but not oppressively large.

The Build

Breville’s build quality at this price range is consistently solid. The portafilter locks in firmly, nothing flexes or rattles, and the stainless steel group head and basket feel like parts built to last.

The ThermoJet heater is a meaningful upgrade from the Thermocoil found on the Barista Express range: faster to heat and more thermally stable shot to shot.

One thing to be aware of with the 54mm portafilter. If you ever want to upgrade to a third-party bottomless portafilter or explore the wider accessory market, 58mm is the industry standard. Not a dealbreaker, and with more of these machines about there are increasing options at 54mm size.

Breville’s out-of-warranty support is one of the better things about buying in this range. Parts are available, machines can be serviced, and older Breville espresso machines are still running in kitchens years after they should have been replaced.

We were pulling balanced, deep, richly flavoured espresso with real fruity and chocolatey character. Good body, good crema, and a clean finish. The kind of result you’d be happy to serve to someone who knows their coffee. It took some time, maybe 10 shots before we were really happy with it.

The consistency was genuinely impressive for an integrated grinder machine. Shot-to-shot variation was minimal once the grind was locked in, and the machine didn’t require constant tinkering across a bag of beans. That said, when you switch to a new bag, expect to spend a session finding your settings again. The timed shot system means the brew ratio can shift if your new beans grind differently at the same setting.

Lighter roasts work, but they take more work. Expect a few extra dial-in shots than with medium-dark blends.

Milk

Honestly, the auto-steam impressed us. Temperature was consistently within a couple of degrees of target, and the texture, while not matching what an experienced manual steamer would produce, was smooth, well-incorporated, and more than good enough for a well-made flat white or cappuccino.

For people who’ve never manually steamed milk before, the MilQ system is going to give them results that would take weeks of practice to match with a traditional steam wand.

The ceiling is lower than manual steaming at its best. If you’re experienced with a steam wand and care about achieving genuinely exceptional microfoam, you’ll feel the difference. For everyone else, this is a significant quality-of-life feature that consistently delivers good results with no skill required.

The touchscreen takes a lot of the pain out of cleaning. Backflushing and descaling are both guided through on-screen prompts and take the guesswork out completely.

Daily: Wipe down the steam wand immediately after use. Empty and rinse the drip tray. Quick wipe of the group head.

Weekly: Backflush with the cleaning disc and a cleaning tablet (both supplied in the box). The touchscreen guides you through the cycle automatically. Takes around 5-10 minutes.

Periodic: Descale when prompted by the machine, typically every 2-3 months depending on water hardness and usage frequency. Budget around 30 minutes. Descaling solution is included in the box to get you started.

However, it is undoubtedly an excellent espresso machine. Certainly the best mid-range Breville espresso machine you could opt for:

It’s easy to dial in, gives you a heap of options to customize your coffee, and pulls a great-tasting espresso. The design and build quality are as good as any so, for most people, it will prove to be a great espresso companion for a long time.

The biggest problems are the other Breville machines:

If you want more control over your espresso, there’s the Dual Boiler (with separate Smart Grinder Pro) or the Barista Pro. For those looking for more automation, there’s the insanely good Oracle Touch. 

However, when it comes to our Breville Barista Touch review, we believe it sits as the perfect compromise of cost and usability for most people. 

Don’t forget to Buy Your Breville Barista Touch Today

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.