Breville Oracle Jet Review

We love Breville espresso machines – they look great and produce awesome coffee, mostly with minimal work. The Oracle Jet offers excellent automation and some upgrades over other Breville machines, but it comes with a hefty price tag. So the main goal of our hands-on Breville Oracle Jet review is to answer one big question: is it worth the price?

The espresso from the Oracle Jet is as good as you’ll get from any home espresso machine. It can foam awesome milk, pulls excellent “cold brew” shots, is beautiful, and super easy to use. If you’re making lots of drinks at once, it’s a bit slow. But it’s about top of the market in everything else.

All the positives aside, there are some small quibbles with the Oracle Jet. And we LOVE small quibbles. At the end of the day, you’re paying a lot of money for this machine so we have to make sure it’s perfect for you. So let’s break it down:

At a glance: Breville Oracle Jet Review

1. Automatic grind, dose, & tamp

The Oracle Jet uses volumetric dosing to get the perfect puck. This means when the basket reaches a certain level the grinder shuts off and the grounds are evened out and tamped perfectly for you. It also means you can only have a 22g or 12g dose, depending on which basket you use.

This is fine for most people. But maybe you want an 18g dose and maybe Breville will release a basket for that at some point in the future. Until then, you’re stuck with what you’ve got.

In theory it’s possible to manually adjust this by lowering the spinner tamper fan. But this involves taking apart bits of your machine, is complex, and well beyond our limited engineering knowledge. It would also likely invalidate your machine warranty.

2. Two ThermoJet boilers

Having ThermoJet boilers means the water is heated very quickly to a precise temperature. In other words, your machine is ready to go very quickly when it’s first switched on. The second boiler by the brewhead ensures more precise water temperature through the puck.

It’s all a very fancy way of saying you get better quality espresso, faster.

3. MilQ automatic milk frothing

Another patented technology from Breville, MilQ is their smart system for getting perfect milk temperature and texture, every time. There’s a thermometer in the end of the steam wand that tracks the milk temperature allowing the machine to adjust and add the perfect amount of steam/ air to your milk.

You can choose to use cow, almond, oat, or soy milk.

When the Oracle Jet was first released, the results with the milk alternatives weren’t very good. But firmware updates have improved this over time and at least the oat milk now works really well. We’re still not blown away with the oak or soy milk though.

4. Save custom drinks

For saving drinks you have two options: you can save the recipe to the standard drink, so everyone who chooses a latte (for example) gets the settings you’ve saved. Or you can save it as a custom drink, like Matt’s Latte, so you get your preferred style without changing the standard one for everyone else.

5. Barista Guidance

After each shot, the machine will offer advice if the espresso isn’t quite right. It’ll give you grinder adjustment suggestions to speed up or slow down the extraction for coffee perfection. No guesswork, no learning about over or under extracted coffee – just great coffee every time.

6. 45 grind settings

The new Baratza burrs (the same as on the Baratza Encore grinder) give you 45 settings to choose from to help you dial in your shots more precisely. You can adjust this manually if you’re an experienced espresso shot puller, or you can let the machine tell you which setting you should be using.

The Oracle Jet includes “In-Depth Onboarding” which sounds like a dreadful day at a new job but is actually the machine showing you exactly how to set it up and use it.

The touchscreen is also more responsive than most other super-automatic machines due to the faster processor (yes, just like your computer has.) Swiping to select a drink then moving the sliders around for volume and temperature is quick, easy, and intuitive – I asked my 93 year old Grandad to give it a go, and even he said it was easy!

Whilst it’s super easy to use, it’s not a “push button and walk away” type machine – no Breville machine is. You need to move the portafilter across once it’s dosed and tamped, and put the milk jug under the wand if you’re making a milky drink. But there are very small extra steps.

It also automatically queues up the espresso brewing and milk foaming so, once everything is in place, then you can walk away. It’s nice knowing that when I snap out of my doomscrolling trance, perfect coffee and milk will be waiting for me.

The negative side to this is if you’re making coffee for several people (4 or more), it’ll take a while. You have to make 2 then empty the portafilter, clean, grind, and make 2 more. It’s not designed for dinner parties. But again, few of these types of espresso machines are. The difference here is you’re doing more work than pushing a button several times over 5-10 minutes.

One great features we do love is the “Barista Guidance”.

This monitors the length of time it takes to pull your shot then offers suggestions if it’s too fast or too slow. We found it was pretty much bang on every time we changed beans and needed to dial in again. No coffee knowledge required.

We usually complain about watery espresso as standard from automatic machines. But Breville is an outlier – straight out the box, the shots are rich and full and the depth of flavor. It’s extremely impressive.

Obviously you can adjust the volume as you see fit, but we loved it from the get-go (after Barista Guidance helped us dial in.)

If you’re just looking for great coffee, the Oracle Jet really does deliver.

It would be an incredible waste of the superb Baratza grinder and the Barista Guidance on this machine not to use whole beans. The only time we wouldn’t is if you’re making an occasional flavored coffee as the sugar/flavorings added to those beans destroy grinders.

You can, of course, manually add ground coffee to the portafilter that you’ve either bought pre-ground or freshly ground in an external grinder. Maybe for a light night decaf? It really depends on how often you feel you’ll need to do this as to whether you think this is a problem.

If you’re a frequent caffeine in the morning and decaf after lunch kinda person, then we’d recommend looking into the KitchenAid KF series instead as they have superb swappable bean hoppers.

The bean hopper on the Oracle Jet holds around 12oz of coffee beans, which is about standard for most automatic espresso machines.

The looks

The stainless steel, classic espresso machine look should never go out of fashion in our opinion. It’s timeless and will look great in nearly everyone’s kitchen, plus it’s easy to clean.

The big, bright screen looks fantastic too. I’m a huge fan of being able to swap it to “dark theme” so my eyes can feel less assaulted first thing in the morning. Seriously, why is this not a thing on ALL machines? 5″ is a little bigger than the screen on many of its competitors, but the machine itself is also a bit larger.

The Oracle Jet is 15″ wide and 16.7″ high, making it quite large compared to much of the competition. This is mostly due to other companies building very deep machines that aren’t as wide. You can decide if you have the extra 3 inches of counter space needed to fit the Oracle Jet or if you need something narrower. Be careful with overhead cabinets and the bean hopper too.

The build

Breville’s build quality is absolutely first-rate. In a sea of plastic espresso machines, they are an island of stainless steel. We don’t actually mind plastic exteriors but it’s really nice for the look and heft of something made mostly of metal.

Being made of stainless steel means everything feels nice to use. The portafilters secure nicely and the drip tray fits very snuggly – it’s all very professional and sturdy.

It does mean the machine is heavy – 26.7 lbs (12.1 kg), but there are some wheels underneath for maneuvering it around your work surfaces without damaging them. And how often are you actually going to move it?

You get a 2 year warranty with Breville which is both reassuring and a real show of confidence in their ability to make machines that last. Obviously if it only lasts 2 years then its pretty rubbish but there’s no reason to suspect there’ll be an issue. We know people who’ve been using the Oracle Touch for over 7 years with zero issues.

The longevity is partly why we love them… though it’s mostly for the coffee.

All machines take a couple of attempts to get it right. The onboarding and Barista Guidance make it a little faster with the Oracle Jet than other machines (like the Breville Barista Touch).

Once you get it right, the coffee quality can be spectacular. As good as a professional – or better depending on how good your local professional is.

This is really top-tier espresso at a touch which for a home espresso machine is seriously impressive. (The caveat being you need excellent quality beans, ideally around 10-14 days after roasting.)

For the best results using our light roast Yirgacheffe beans, we used:
Grind setting 22, highest temperature, 22g dose, 45g output

We’re aware that we frequently celebrate many super automatic espresso machines for producing excellent espresso. But we do think the Oracle Jet is better than basically any other machine except the other Breville offerings… and it’s easier to use than the others currently in the Breville line-up.

We’re also very impressed with the MilQ automatic milk system. There were some early reports of difficulties with non-dairy milks but these have been mostly resolved now thanks to the processor in the Oracle Jet. Breville have easily been able to amend the settings through firmware updates.

The milk foam was basically at professional level when we used both whole dairy milk and our favorite Oatly Barista Edition oat milk. Plus you get the bonus of customization options if it’s not quite right for you on the standard settings.

We’ve not nailed soy or almond milk using it but we also wouldn’t choose to drink them so that might just be an issue with us and not the machine!

“Cold Brew”

OK, so what the Oracle Jet makes isn’t “true cold brew”. It’s espresso brewed at a lower temperature to make your iced lattes and espresso martinis easier to make. Because, yes, espresso martini is a drink option (sadly it doesn’t automatically add alcohol and shake it for you though!)

The point of these is to taste great, which they do. I find it a little odd to have iced drinks that require manual shaking, but that’s just me. There’s always the chance that more drinks like these will appear with further firmware updates as the espresso martini and “shakerato” drinks weren’t there when the machine was first released.

WiFi chip

My first thoughts were: “WiFi capability but no app? What is the meaning/point of all this?!”

Since it’s release there have been a raft of firmware updates that have fixed issues, added features, and added drinks to the Oracle Jet. Like when your iPhone updates to the latest iOS version. This is an awesome feature to have as it means your machine should keep getting better.

As Breville gets more information from real people using the machine, they can set more accurate settings in the machine to help you get a perfect cup of coffee.

It also means you might wake up to a new recipe or two every so often. These aren’t going to drop every week or even every month, but it’s surprisingly rare to exist at all.

Quadcore processor

Anyone who knows anything about processors (not me) knows that a quadcore isn’t much. My phone has 6 cores, appropriate as it’s an Apple… I’ll see myself out.

But for a coffee machine, that’s a lot of processing power. This means lots of data is being collected and analysed to keep making your coffee better and machine more efficient. That’s something everyone can get behind. Even if we don’t really understand it.

Maybe it’s just us, but knocking out the used puck and then rinsing the portafilter feels much nicer than leaving it up to the machine. I KNOW my brew unit is clean every time, and it takes all of 10 seconds.

Another thing we love is using a milk jug instead of a carafe – you can’t take the Barista out of me! The milk wand has a nice coating on it to make it easy to clean. Plus it’s so much nicer to put a milk jug in the dishwasher over cleaning out a container. That way, there’s no worries about any of the pipes or connectors going nasty.

You will need to occasionally descale your machine, as with all machines. Again, that large and gorgeous touchscreen makes this easy to do and descaling takes around 20 mins, a pretty standard length of time.

Depending on how much you use your machine, if you use a water filter, and how hard your water is, you’ll need to descale every 4-8 weeks.

Compared to something like a Jura espresso machine where everything happens inside the machine and you only need to do an occasional big clean, the Breville Oracle Jet is very different. It involves doing a few small cleaning tasks frequently. We’re very much on team small tasks over big ones, but you might disagree.

KitchenAid KF8

The KitchenAid KF8 is a more “traditional” automatic espresso machine in that you choose your coffee and let it do the work.

This is obviously simpler and more slick than the multi-stage automation of the Oracle Jet. So if you’re someone who values simplicity over everything else, maybe you’re moving on from a Nespresso-type machine, then this is probably a better fit for you.

The quality from the KF8 is very good, but the Oracle Jet is much better.

If you feel you can handle a little more effort, and I really do mean just a little more, then you will be greatly rewarded by Breville.

They’re basically the same price. Though the KF8 is more frequently discounted, making a little cheaper than the Oracle Jet.

For us, the effort for the superior quality of the Oracle Jet comes out on top. But if you want to just “push a button and go” then the KitchenAid KF8 is probably the better choice for you.

Read next: Our in-depth KitchenAid KF8 Review

Gaggia Accademia

This is still probably the prettiest espresso machine you can buy. The Gaggia Accademia is not only gorgeous, but it produces superb coffee and milk foam with ease.

It falls somewhere in the middle between the KF8 and the Oracle Jet. It takes a little more adjusting to really nail your settings compared to the KF8, but is less work to use than the Breville.

We’d still pick the Oracle Jet. However, if you’re happy for a little extra work in the set up, and want a really beautiful machine, then the Accademia is probably a better bet than the KF8.

Read next: Our in-depth Gaggia Accademia Review

If that is your guiding star – pure coffee and milk quality – then this is the right machine for you. It’ll still do most of the work, even helping you with settings, and you’ll get incredible results.

For how easy it makes things, the Oracle Jet is not a touch and go machine. You need to move the portafilter and put the milk jug under the wand. It will also take a while to make lots of drinks (4 or 5) since it needs to go back and forth from espresso to milk and you need to empty the portafilter etc.

But these downsides shouldn’t put you off. This espresso machine is squarely aimed at anyone who wants coffee as good as the cafe offers but without learning to pull shots or foam milk. You get professional level shots and milk foam done for you.

So to sum up our Breville Oracle Jet review:

It’s absolutely worth the pricetag if you’re want truly amazing espresso and milk with minimal amount of input or effort.

Don’t forget to buy your Breville Oracle Jet 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.