Which Breville Espresso Machine Is Right for You?

While Breville has become one of the biggest names in luxe kitchen appliances of all stripes, we think of Breville espresso machines as the company’s calling card. Its countertop coffee makers are well-reviewed on sites all across the internet, including this one. But with the brand’s matching stainless-steel, quasi-industrial look, it can be really hard to tell all the different models apart and to figure out which one will actually do all and only the things you want it to.

I’ve used dozens of different espresso makers over the course of my time writing about coffee gear, so I’ve gotten attuned to the details. Below, you’ll find all the comparisons you need, sorting out what’s the same, what’s different, and which features you should actually care about.

What Breville espresso machines do we recommend?

The nice thing about Breville’s lineup is that, for the most part, as the options get more expensive, each machine just stacks an extra feature or two on top of the model below it. That makes for a general consistency no matter which one you pick, and all you have to do is decide how many bells, whistles, and touchscreens you want. We think these four machines represent the best combinations of features for the most people—and offer the best value. But if you’re looking for something particular, jump down for information on all 12 of the espresso makers you can currently get from Breville.

What is similar across all Breville espresso makers

In general, I’ve found that all Breville machines can perform the single most important task for an espresso maker: brew good coffee. Brevilles are not, for the most part, the professional-style machines that have jumped from hip coffee shops to the countertops of coffee obsessives. They’re more automated and offer fewer opportunities to tinker, but they do two things that are important for quality espresso. First, they brew with proper pressure. Most machines come with a way to monitor brewing pressure. Baristas typically cite 9 bars of pressure as optimal for espresso, and Breville models hit that number.

Second, they brew with consistent water temperature. You can tweak the temperature on some Breville machines, but the default is 200℉: again, industry standard.

Breville machines are user-friendly. Even the more expensive feature-laden models have easy-to-operate interfaces that you can brew with immediately after unboxing—no cumbersome setup necessary.

There is also a standard set of accessories across machines: a spouted portafilter (the thing you lock into the machine to brew), a set of single- and double-walled brewing baskets, and a milk frothing pitcher. Half of the machines come with built-in tampers, but the rest all come with lightweight tampers. (I’d recommend upgrading with something like this Normcore tamper for better results.)

What you should know about Breville’s espresso machines

Breville’s most diminutive offering packs a number of nice features in its tiny package. It heats up in about four seconds, which is faster than any other espresso maker I’ve tried, and its slim footprint, close to eight inches less wide than Breville’s top of the line Oracle models, means it can work in even the smallest kitchens. Unlike most of Breville’s more expensive options, the Bambino Plus doesn’t have a built-in grinder. That means you’ll need to get a good burr grinder and take the step of filling the brew basket. Most good stand-alone grinders come with a wider range of settings than built-ins offer, so you’ll have more control over your grind size. But it is an extra step, and an extra thing on your counter—and they can get a little messy. Consider adding a dosing funnel to put over the portafilter to avoid spills.

The Bambino Plus’s big breakthrough is its milk steaming technology. The machine has three settings with textures that range from a smooth latte to a super-frothy cappuccino, and it automatically steams the milk for you. Simply place the pitcher under the steam wand, push the button and let it do its thing. Automatic milk steaming has long been standard on fully automatic espresso makers, but not always with consistently good results. Breville seems to have figured it out, and the frother on the Bambino Plus produces a thick blanket without any large bubbles and enough texture to try your hand at latte art.

If you want to be hands-on with your espresso, the downside of the Bambino Plus is that it doesn’t allow for much customization or provide much feedback. For example, there isn’t a pressure gauge, so you don’t know if you’re brewing a shot with the correct pressure. There’s also no way to adjust brewing temperature. But it’s one of the best espresso machines for beginners thanks to its relatively low price point and a streamlined interface that doesn’t overwhelm you with options.

This precursor to the Bambino Plus does everything its more recent sibling can do, minus the automatic milk-texturing. It has a steam wand, but you have to hold the milk jug as you use it and monitor the progress so you know when you’re done. The steam wand on the original Bambino doubles as a hot water dispenser to make Americanos or tea, a feature the Bambino Plus lacks. It also costs about $200 less than the Bambino Plus, making it another solid beginner machine, especially appealing for anyone who doesn’t always want foamed milk with their coffee.

The Breville Infuser is an older model without a built-in grinder that isn’t available on the American Breville site any longer, but retailers like Amazon still carry it and you can find it in Breville’s Canadian and Australian stores. Newer models with more features have leapfrogged it in terms of popularity, but as a longtime driver of Toyotas, I think of it as the Corolla of the Breville lineup. It’s reliable—I used one for almost five years—and does everything most people want from an espresso machine. It brews quality espresso and, while it takes longer than the newer automatic machines, it textures milk well. The Infuser is the least expensive model you can buy that comes with a pressure gauge to give you real time feedback on whether the grind of a shot is fine enough and the tamp is strong enough. The Infuser steam wand operates with the turn of a dial instead of the push of a button. This is a personal preference, but I think it offers a nicer tactile experience than pressing a button. The dial also operates the hot water dispenser if you turn it the other way. Holding the single and double shot buttons simultaneously also lets you adjust brew times to pull a more customized shot. You can also adjust the brew temperature by up to four degrees in either direction, but because it doesn’t have a digital or touchscreen interface, the adjustment involves a slightly convoluted set of button pushes. The same is true for the Barista Express and Express Impress.

Basically just an Infuser with a built-in grinder, the Barista Express has the same brewing interface, milk-steaming operation, and pressure gauge. This is Breville’s least expensive all-in-one machine, and you’ll notice as soon as you start looking at the specs. The grinder has just 16 grind settings. An entry-level espresso grinder like the Baratza Encore ESP has 20 dedicated espresso settings and 20 more for drip or French press coffee. The Barista Express also uses a less-to-more knob to adjust the amount of ground coffee, with no unit markings provided. It is perhaps the one truly challenging-to-use control on any Breville machine. That lack of precision means that the Barista Express will require more trial and error than newer Breville models that adjust the grind automatically. Because of some of those limitations, you’ll get more consistent coffee if you use the included double-walled filter baskets that ensure you brew to the right pressure.

A gussied up Barista Express, the Pro comes with nicer Baratza burrs in the grinder and 30 grind settings to fine-tune espresso shots. That alone is probably worth the extra money because improving your grinder is the quickest way to improve the quality of your espresso. Unlike the face of the Infuser or the Barista Express, which only have a pressure gauge, the Barista Pro has an LCD interface that shows you grind size and grind time, as well offering customization of pre-infusion time (when hot water blooms the grounds without much pressure) and water temperature. The Barista Pro has the same steam wand and hot water dispenser setup as the Infuser and the Barista Express.

The Barista Express Impress was the first (and is still the least expensive) espresso machine with Breville’s smart grinding and tamping technology. That combination comes as close to getting rid of any user error while still giving you the feeling that you’re actually doing some work to brew your cup of coffee. The built-in grinder is calibrated to grind 18 grams of coffee at its midpoint setting (I weighed the results several times and they came within half a gram). The smart tamper has a lever that compresses the coffee with 22 pounds of pressure every time. The tamping system also has a light-up indicator to let you know whether you’ve compressed your coffee too much, not enough, or just the right amount. If you pull the smart tamping lever and it registers too little coffee in the basket, tap the grind button again and it will top it off to the correct amount. The machine will remember the total grind for your next dose.

Despite all of this, I’d advise some caution. In my experience testing a number of machines with built-in grinders, I’ve found that they tend to be less powerful than stand-alone burr grinders, which means they can jam up. Breville’s built-in grinders are probably the best of the bunch—newer models use high-quality Baratza burrs—but just know that, while they’re convenient, built-in grinders are harder to fix or replace if something goes wrong with them.

Read a full review here.

The Barista Touch takes the basic layout of the Barista Express and improves it in a couple ways. The Touch has a better grinder—it has 30 settings rather than 16 and uses upgraded Baratza burrs—plus automatic milk frothing and a touchscreen to select a preset drink or customize the one you’re making. The touchscreen also allows you to adjust grind size, brew time, and milk temperature. The one big advantage of the touchscreen over the buttons of less pricey Breville models is that it comes with a bunch of presets for different drinks like cappuccinos and Americanos that automatically adjust the milk-steaming settings (more foam for cappuccinos, a little less for flat whites). It also offers different settings for alt-milks if you like an oat or almond latte.

The Barista Touch Impress is almost an automatic espresso maker. Almost but not quite. It takes all the features of the Barista Touch (the hands-free milk frothing, the touchscreen with preset drinks) and adds the smart grinding and tamping system of the Express Impress. If you don’t want to bother with tasks like dialing in your grind or finessing a pitcher of milk, this is the Breville Machine I’d recommend. The big difference in operation between this machine and Breville’s more automated Oracle machines (more on those below) is that you have to pull the tamping lever. But choosing the Touch Impress will save you close to $1,000 for nearly effortless drinks. I don’t think the two seconds a day it takes to pull that lever is worth a grand.

Read a full review here.

The Dual Boiler is actually one of the oldest Breville espresso machines still on the market, with early test models dating back to 2011. It’s also the closest any Breville machine comes to the high-end professional machines you’ll find in good coffee shops. As the name suggests, it has two boilers: one heats water for brewing, another heats water for steaming milk. Because they’re separate, that means no waiting between pulling a shot and getting milk ready for a latte. The Dual Boiler offers the ability to set water temperature within a single degree with an adjustable PID controller that’s set with a simple dial. Along with the two Oracle machines below, the Dual Boiler also uses a professional 58-mm portafilter (Breville’s other machines use a 54-mm portafilter). The bigger hardware lets you use more coffee if you want, and a higher coffee-to-water ratio can alter the flavor of your shot, which gives it a fuller, bolder flavor.

Breville doesn’t have any true completely automatic espresso machines, the kind that simply requires you to place a cup under the spout, push a button, and get a cappuccino, milk froth and all. The Oracle series is the closest it comes. Place the portafilter under the built-in grinder and it will grind and automatically tamp your coffee. Then you have to move the portafilter over, lock it in place, and press the brew button. For milk drinks, you need to place a pitcher of milk under the steam wand. Then you have a choice of steaming manually or using the automatic steaming system that’s similar to the one on the Bambino Plus and Barista Touch Impress. The Oracle also has a hot water spout and an Americano button to automatically dispense water into your espresso shot after it’s done brewing.

Breville’s current top-of-the-line machine, this updated Oracle adds a touchscreen that provides additional layers of both automation and customization. The automatic grinding and tamping are similar to the original Oracle, but it comes with five different drink presets (espresso, long black, flat white, latte, and cappuccino). The milk drinks automatically select different temperatures and textures for the milk. You can adjust grind size and tamp strength as well in order to change the flavor profile of the coffee itself. It’s a big bump up in price—the Oracle Touch costs $600 more than the original Oracle—but if you are looking for good espresso that you never have to think about, it will do more than hold your hand through the process. It will pick you up and carry you across the street.

Another machine only available through third-party sellers in the United States, this is the most basic Breville espresso machine you can buy. The Duo Temp (not to be confused with dual boiler) has nary a bell nor a whistle and operates with a dial rather than buttons. Most significantly, it has a single control for both brewing and steaming. Turn the dial to the left to brew espresso, turn it to the right to steam milk. The duo temps here are the two water temperatures that the machine operates at, a lower one for brewing and a higher one for steaming milk. While it still offers the same pre-infusion and PID controlled brewing, it lacks any other real features and does require a couple minutes of waiting in between steaming milk and brewing a second espresso while the machine cools down. If you’re picking between Breville machines, this is purely a budget choice.