Breville Barista Touch IMPRESS is an additional model variation to Breville’s espresso machines with touch displays. This model comes with a few added features that will make your user experience even better.
Read the detailed comparison below on what the differences are between the Barista Touch and the Barista Touch Impress
4 Differences Between the Barista Touch and Touch Impress
The Breville Barista Touch Impress improves on the Barista Touch with several new features:
1- assisted tamping
2-special settings for non-dairy milk steaming.
3- additional beverage presets
4- step-by-step guidance on your coffee grinding and brewing.
All of these new features help you as a beginner or intermediate user to make the best espresso shot or milk texture, using any kind of milk you prefer.
Controls and Touch Display
While both models have a clear and colored touch screen display that makes it easy and enjoyable to use the machines, both work slightly differently:
The Barista Touch’s screen displays menu of drinks, upon selecting one, you get to choose your customization settings like grind size, milk texture or temperature and all those things. Then you hit the brew button and the machine gets to work.
The Barista Touch Impress allows for the same, but with an added benefit. It guides you and gives you REAL TIME feedback if you’re doing a step wrong.
For example, if your grind did not fill the portafilter enough, or if you overfilled. Or if your tamp is not correct… you get to see those on your display and correct them before you brew your shot. Which leads to a great shot of espresso every time.
![Breville Barista Touch vs Barista Touch Impress [The Impress Version Wins!]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tT98aaHw2Lk/0.jpg)
Assisted Tamping on The Barista Touch Impress
With the Barista Touch, you’re manually tamping your coffee grounds. But with the Barista Touch Impress, it is equipped with Breville’s Impress Puck system.
While it’s not entirely automated tamping, like what you’d get out of the Oracle Touch, it’s ‘Assisted Tamping’.
With the portafilter is still attached to the grind/tamp area, you will press down a tamping lever, and on the display, you see if you have tamped enough or if you need to tamp harder. The tamp is always finished with a 7-degree twist that polishes the puck and gets rid of any excess grounds.
Auto Milk Steaming
Both Breville Barista Touch and Barista Touch Impress have auto steaming features with milk texture and temperature selections. However, the Barista Touch Impress has one extra feature… alternative milk settings.
Barista Touch Impress has special settings for Oat, almond or soy milk. What it does is calibrate air injection time and temperature to get the right texture out of each type of milk.
Preset Coffee Recipes
The Barista Touch has 5 preset drinks: Flat White, Latte, Cappuccino, Espresso, Long Black
The Barista Touch Impress has the same recipes and has three more additional presets:
- Babyccino: This is basically frothed milk only
- Hot Chocolate: this guides you to making hot chocolate recipe using frothed milk and any additional chocolate syrup or powder.
- Tea: uses the hot water dispenser to make tea.
Memory Function
Both models allow you to save your customized recipes under a name and icon of your choice. The Barista Touch allows for 8 saved recipes, while the Barista Touch Impress allows for 5 saved recipes.
Similarities Between The Two Models
- 30-step grinder settings
- 54mm portafilter size
- ThermoJet heating system and single boiler
- Similar accessories – Except for the Funnel which is only included with the Barista Touch
![Breville Barista Touch vs Barista Touch Impress [The Impress Version Wins!]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9CctFW-eqW0/0.jpg)
Breville Barista Touch Or Barista Touch Impress – Which Should You Buy?
Two things will impact your decision here:
1- Budget – the Barista Touch Impress is higher in price, which is reflected in its added features.
2- How much guidance you need with your espresso preparation…
While both models have automated features in them, the Breville Barista Touch Impress goes an extra mile with it’s step by step guidance and real time feedback. It helps you with things that goes wrong the most with new espresso machine users:
Tamping wrong – grinding too much or too little – Milk texturing
These are crucial parts of a great espresso shot, and take the most time to get correctly. With the guidance of the Barista Touch Impress, you get to see if each step is correct and what you need to fix it in case you did it wrong.
Then there’s the Alternative milk setting, which will make all the difference to any one who enjoys their coffee with non-dairy milk. As you know, these types of milks are pretty hard to texture due to their different fat content and texture. Selecting the alternative milk setting changes how to frother steams, brings up the temperature higher and steams longer, depending your milk selection.
If you feel like those extra settings are of no use to you, and don’t mind taking your time to figure things out, you can save some money by going for the Breville Barista Touch instead.
![Breville Barista Touch vs Barista Touch Impress [The Impress Version Wins!]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cpD537q_n40/0.jpg)
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