The Breville Oracle Touch has been a top pick for many at-home baristas for so many reasons. It is favored for its ease of use, making it a great choice for beginners, but also, it has room for you to grow your skills with its manual options. Now there’s an upgraded version of the Barista Express, and it’s called Barista Touch.

If you’ve seen the Breville Oracle Touch which we’ve written about in a previous post, then you know how the Touch system in Breville’s new espresso machines work. It allows you to automatically create barista-style coffee drinks, customize them to your taste and even save your creations under any name you want, all with the simple to use touch screen display.

But that’s not all, of course. So, let’s have a look at the specs of the Barista Touch and see what makes it special.

Features of Breville Barista Touch:

• Color touch screen display with pre-set coffee drinks. Simply press the icon for your preferred drink to start making it.
• Customize the temperature and texture of your coffee drink and milk. You can also save your customized drink under any name you want. You can save up to 8 customized drinks.
• Presets include: Americano, Latte, Cappuccino and Flat White.
• Automatic steam wand automatically textures milk to your liking. Simply select the temperature and texture of milk you want using the touchscreen display.
• 3-second heat up time.
• Pre-infusion function gradually increases water pressure to ensure even extraction of the coffee.
• Automatic purge function cleans the steam wand after use.
• Cradle holds the portafilter while grinding for hands-free operation.
• Magnetic built-in tamper.
• Built-in stainless steel burr grinder.
• Bean hopper capacity: 1/2 lbs.
• Water reservoir capacity: 67 oz
• Stainless steel housing.

Click here to learn more about Breville Barista Touch, read the customer reviews and buy it.

Breville Barista Express vs. Barista Touch, What’s The Difference?

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Title	Breville BES870XL Barista Express Espresso Machine	Breville Barista Touch BES880BSS Espresso Machine
Feature	15 Bar Italian Pump and 1600W Thermo coil heating system Purge Function: Automatically adjusts water temperature after steam for optimal espresso extraction temperature Stainless steel conical burr grinder with 1/2 lb. sealed bean hopper 67 fl.oz (2L) removable water tank with handle Newer model of the Breville BES860XL Barista Express	Intuitive Touchscreen Display: Simplifies how to make your favorite cafT coffee in 3 easy steps - Grind, Brew and Milk. You can easily adjust the coffee strength, milk texture or temperature to suit your taste. Then save it with your own unique name. Crea Automatic Microfoam Milk Texturing: Auto steam wand, allows you to adjust the milk temperature and texture to suit your taste. Delivering barista quality micro-foam that enhances the flavor of the coffee and essential for creating lattT art.Then it cleans Precise Espresso Extraction: Digital Temperature Control (PID) delivers water at precisely the right temperature, ensuring optimal espresso extraction. Faster Heat Up Time: Innovative heating system achieves the optimum extraction temperature in 3 seconds. Ready to make your best coffee without the wait. Hands Free Operation: Innovative grinding cradle allows any at-home Barista to grind directly into the espresso portafilter. Integrated Coffee Grinder: With a single touch, the integrated conical burr grinder with dose control,delivers the right amount of
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Controls:

The first biggest difference between the two machines is the touch screen, which is the most innovative part of the Barista Touch. The Barista Express has buttons and dial control for choosing your espresso shots and grind controls.

Microfoaming and Steaming:

• The Barista Touch has automatic milk foaming and texturing, and you get to choose the texture your like as well as the temperature.
• With the Barista Express, microfoaming is manual and there’s no temperature selection. So, getting the exact texture and temperature you want will take some practice.

Customization:

• With the Barista Touch, there are a number of drink selections to choose from, as well as your own customized drinks. You get to save up to 8 customized drinks, and customization options include the grind settings, milk texture, temperature and volume.
• On the Barista Express, you can customize your drinks by choosing your grind settings and reprogramming the volume for each espresso shot. There’s no temperature settings or milk texture settings. And there’s no way to save a full customized drink recipe under a name. However, your reprogrammed espresso volumes will be saved.
• Apart from those features, both Barista Express and Barista Touch have the same bean hopper capacity, water reservoir capacity, built-in grinder and pre-infusion/purge functions.

Click here to learn more about the Breville Barista Express, read the customer reviews and buy it.

Barista Touch vs. Oracle Touch, What’s The Difference?

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Title	Breville Oracle Touch Automatic Manual Coffee Machine BES990	Breville Barista Touch BES880BSS Espresso Machine
Feature	Breville Oracle Touch	Intuitive Touchscreen Display: Simplifies how to make your favorite cafT coffee in 3 easy steps - Grind, Brew and Milk. You can easily adjust the coffee strength, milk texture or temperature to suit your taste. Then save it with your own unique name. Crea Automatic Microfoam Milk Texturing: Auto steam wand, allows you to adjust the milk temperature and texture to suit your taste. Delivering barista quality micro-foam that enhances the flavor of the coffee and essential for creating lattT art.Then it cleans Precise Espresso Extraction: Digital Temperature Control (PID) delivers water at precisely the right temperature, ensuring optimal espresso extraction. Faster Heat Up Time: Innovative heating system achieves the optimum extraction temperature in 3 seconds. Ready to make your best coffee without the wait. Hands Free Operation: Innovative grinding cradle allows any at-home Barista to grind directly into the espresso portafilter. Integrated Coffee Grinder: With a single touch, the integrated conical burr grinder with dose control,delivers the right amount of
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Link	More Info	More Info

Now let’s compare the Barista Touch to its more expensive competitor, the Oracle Touch.

Boilers:

• The Oracle Touch is a dual-boiler machine. This means you can extract espresso and heat and foam milk at the same time. You can also change the temperature of the boilers using the machine settings.
• The Barista Touch is a single boiler, so you have to do each task one at a time. As for the boiler temperature, it is pre set and can’t be changed.

Capacity:

• The Oracle Touch is a larger machine. It has a 84 oz water reservoir. The water reservoir can be filled from top of the machine using a filling slot on the top front part. But if you need to take out the tank for cleaning, it can be pulled from the back of the machine easily.
• The Barista Touch has a 67 oz water reservoir capacity. The reservoir is removable so it can be easily cleaned or filled.

Portafilter Size:

• 58mm on the Oracle Touch.
• 54mm on the Barista Touch.

Grinder:

• The Oracle Touch automatically grinders, tamps and polishes. So all you have to do is set your portafilter to the grinder’s cradle and lock it and it will do it all.
• With the Barista Touch, you’ll have to place your portafilter in the grinder cradle and push to activate the grinding. You’ll also level off the grind and tamp it manually.

Auto Start Settings:

• The Oracle Touch can be programmed to automatically start and turn off at any set time. It won’t brew your coffee at the set time, but it will start, heat up and be ready for you to use at any time you need it to.
• This option is not available on the Barista Touch.

Dimensions:

• Barista Touch: 12.5″ x 13.25″ x 16”
• Oracle Touch: (L) 16¼” x (D) 15″ x (H) 18″

Click here to learn more about the Breville Oracle Touch, read the customer reviews and buy it.

Which One To Buy?

• Like any other buying decision, it all starts with your budget. Since the Oracle Touch is more advanced and packs more features, naturally, it is more expensive than the Barista Touch.
• Features wise, The Oracle Touch does everything for you. Grinding, leveling out any extra grind and tamping. Milk texturing is also done for you. Espresso extraction and milk foaming can be done at the same time, since it’s a dual boiler machine. So there’s no wait time.
• If you don’t mind doing some of the work, like holding the portafilter to collect the grind and tamping manually, or the wait between extraction and milk foaming, then you’ll be happy with less expensive Barista Touch.
• On the other hand, it’s important to keep in mind that the Oracle Touch is larger, while the Barista Touch has an overall smaller footprint. At 18” high, you’ll want to make sure you can fit the Oracle Touch under your cabinets, or have the space for it, before you buy it.
• If automation is not your thing and you’d rather do everything manually, or semi-manually, then the Barista Express is definitely worth considering.

Video Reviews:

Breville Barista Touch Review:

Breville Oracle Touch Review:

When I first stumbled across the SAECO Pure super-automatic espresso machine, the SAECO Minuto immediately came to mind, thinking they were the same machine but under different names. Upon further investigation, turns out, they’re not the same. So in this post, we will be discussing the difference between these two machines.

SAECO Pure vs. Minuto:

Features:

Both machines have similar basic features like:

• Push-button bean to cup operation.
• Classic wand milk frother/ hot water dispenser.
• All options are reprogrammable.
• 5 grind settings from fine to coarse.
• Automatic grinding and descaling.
• Adjustable coffee spout to fit different cup sizes.

How Are They Different?

• The Saeco Minuto is actually more advanced than the Pure;
• The Minuto has a ceramic grinder that preserves as much oils and flavor as possible without burning the beans, where the Pure has a metal grinder.
• The Minuto’s pressure can be adjusted to low so it brews a regular cup of coffee and adjusted back to 15 bar for espresso brewing. The Pure does NOT have this feature and can only make espresso and espresso based drinks.
• The Minuto has an LED screen and memorization features so it can save different drink settings at the same time. The Pure does not have any display.

Which One Should You Buy? The Saeco Minto Focus or Pure?

Click here to learn more about the Saeco Pure, read customer reviews and buy it.

By now it’s obvious the Saeco Minuto Focus offers more features that the Pure, but you have to decide for yourself if they’re features you need or not. One of the Minuto’s most notable features is its dual pressure feature that allows you to brew coffee as well as espresso, a feature that many super-automatics lack.

Another factor that will affect your decision is budget. The Minuto is more expensive than the Pure, around $300 more, so that’s another thing to consider.

You can visit our post about the SAECO Minuto Focus to learn more about it by clicking here.

 

If there’s only one downside of superauto espresso machines with built-in coffee grinders, it would be the big price tag attached to them. They offer a great convenience of brewing you the freshest cup of coffee on demand, but it usually comes with a price. But NOT always!

The usual price range of an espresso machine with built-in grinder would be $800 to $1000+, but we’ve managed to find a few really great machines that go for $600 to $400! That is QUITE a steal for such machines. So, let’s have a look at them…

Breville BES870XL Barista Express Espresso Machine with Grinder:

• Full stainless steel housing.
• Conical burr grinder with 1/2 lbs capacity.
• Adjustable grind settings.
• Automatic water temperature adjustment for perfect espresso extraction.
• 1600W stainless steel heating system.
• pre-set, manual and reporgrammable esperesso shot volume.
• Steam wand for milk frothing.
• Built-in tamper.
• 2 Litre (67 ounce) water reservoir.
• Available in three colors

Click here to learn more about the Breville BES870XL Barista Express and read the customer reviews.

Philips Saeco RI9753/47 Odea Go Plus Automatic Espresso Machine:

• Built-in ceramic grinder, which never rusts, gives you a better grind and a quieter operation.
• No wait time between milk frothing and espresso extraction.
• Steam wand with pannarello attachment which helps create better foam.
• Adjustable coffee grind settings.
• Adjustable coffee volume and strength.
• 50 ounce removable water tank with water filter.

Click here to learn more about this machine and read the customer reviews.

 

Philips Saeco Vienna Plus Automatic Espresso Machine:

• Adjustable built-in conical burr grinder.
• 12 ounce bean hopper.
• Opti-Dose adjustable doser.
• 57 ounce water tank.
• Adjustable coffee volume and grind strength.
• Steam wand with pannarello attachment.
• Stainless steel boiler.

Click here to read more about the Saeco Vienna Plus and read the customer reviews.

 

 

 

Disclaimer:

Prices, or budget indicated is valid as of the time of writing the post. Prices may change without notice. Kindly visit ‘Learn More’ links provided above to see the latest prices.