Three Breville Coffee Machines Compared

Coffee Magazine Editor-at-Large, Melanie Winter and Publisher, Iain Evans put all three machines through their paces and came up with this comparison article, so you can easily choose the machine that suits your budget and your coffee making needs.

The Breville Barista Express

This espresso machine is the original from Breville and its popularity in our South African market has been nothing short of extraordinary. This has largely been because of three main factors: The built-in burr grinder, the brew unit and the steam wand.

Coupled with the fact that it has always been at a price point which is well below the commercial brand's single-group options AND the fact that Breville includes the grinder, the tamper, the milk jug and the water filter – means that coffee lovers simply need to open the box, add water, add coffee and can start slinging cappuccinos like their local espresso bar!

For more than a decade, this model has been providing the route for so many entry-level home baristas. If you want more details on the three key things that this machine offers (built-in grinder, the brew unit and the steam wand) you can research these quite easily, but take it from us, you aren’t going to find a better turn-key home espresso solution at this price, anywhere else.

The Breville Barista Express Impress

Based on the same basic build as the machine above, the Express Impress has one huge innovation that sets it apart: the AI or “machine learning” component of the Impress Puck™ System. Taking the guess work out of your dosing and tamping, the Impress Puck™ guides you simply to get the best possible espresso shot.

After each dose (how many grams of coffee and how finely the coffee is ground – the two VITAL components of any espresso shot!) the machine uses an assisted manual tamping mechanism to check and adjust these critical parameters to ensure that you get the perfect shot.

The machine lets you know if you’ve dosed too much/too fine OR too little/too coarse. So from the very first dose, the Impress Puck™ System, with every manually assisted tamp, learns and adjusts while letting you know where you are in terms of producing that perfectly balanced shot!

This espresso machine is slightly more expensive than the Barista Express, but it is well worth it for consistency and ease of use.

The Breville Barista Touch Impress

Finally, the Breville Barista Touch, finishes off the range with some seriously impressive technology. It has the same excellent built-in burr grinder, brew unit and steam wand, but all of these are expertly controlled through a touch screen and it has an automated steam wand system! You are effortlessly ensured a delicious beverage.

The three main components of any café-based beverage are adjustable, programmable and expertly executed. For example, if you wanted a tasty flat white you would simply choose the “Flat White” picture from the touch screen – and the machine would instruct you, the user, to move through the “Grind”, “Brew” and “Milk” parameters, with easy toggles to give you exactly what you want at each stage.

This means that you don’t need to know anything about making coffee, as the machine guides you through each part of the beverage making process OR if you are super fussy about your coffee, you can tweak every part of the process to your liking – and save it for future coffees. Plus the automatic milk steamer means you can focus on perfecting your latte art!

The three espresso machines above from Breville have something for everyone and will soon have you making coffee like a professional barista in your own home!