Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine BES870XL, Brushed Stainless Steel

I bought this because where I work we are allowed free espresso, day in, day out. And, we closed down over the holidays and I couldn’t face paying commercial rates for my coffee while I wasn’t at work. So, enter: Breville Barista Express.

I’m impressed. After driving a massive commercial machine, it took me about four days of fiddling with this and changing that to get a coffee I was happy with, and probably another three days to get a coffee I was really proud of. But, I got there.

My number one recommendation to anyone buying one of these: read the manual. All of it. Twice.

You’ll discover things like the internal grind quality setting, as well as the one you set with the dial on the side. Extra valuable hints like using a pre-extraction pour of water through the (empty) group head to heat the pipes in the machine, and your cup, so your coffee doesn’t drop 40 degrees as it hits the glass. And many other little hints.

After reading the manual, and checking that all the “bits” worked, I found my biggest frustration was caused by my own misinterpretation of something pretty basic. I couldn’t work out why my coffee was literally running like a tap when I could see that it wasn’t developing enough pressure!! So, I’d kept making the grounds more and more fine.

And then the penny dropped. The pressure needle NOT rising meant it literally wasn’t able to develop any pressure. Which was why the water was rushing through the coffee, and the needle wasn’t moving, at all really. And that meant that I’d actually been making the coffee more coarse, NOT more fine.

I’d checked everything – except I hadn’t actually compared the grounds from the previous grind with the current one. And… yeah, oops. So, I wound the grind setting back – almost all the way to the other end of the scale – and bingo. Needle moved. M

And so, I learned that if I’m not getting any pressure I need a smaller number on the external grind setting…not a bigger one. And from there it was literally two cups and two further adjustments on the grind amount setting, and there it was – a proper crema on top a golden espresso.

The milk process took a bit of adjustment on my behalf. I’m used to a monster machine that can do 500ml of milk in 30-40 seconds; so adjusting how much froth, and when to encourage that froth, took some work. But I’m now at the point where I can make a latte with about 3/4 an inch of foam in a 500ml glass, using the standard-sized jug and not only have it sitting perfectly (for me!) at 65 degrees, but also not spilling a drop of milk. Surface tension is about the only thing holding the milk and foam in the jug at those volumes, but, as long as I hold my hand steady – not a drop wasted. I need a bigger jug…

And that, honestly, is about my only issue with the assembly as it comes out of the box. The “quick start guide” is a great inclusion. I love that Breville has basically accepted that no matter how, I’m, self-interested we are in our coffee, even the biggest coffee snob is going to jump in and make an espresso as soon as they get the machine out of the box – hence the “wash this, press this, do this” one-pager.

It’s great that all you actually have to add to the out-of-the-box setup to make your first coffee is – literally – coffee, milk, water and a cup. My biggest issue now is not drinking so much coffee.

Super happy with this purchase. It looks fantastic in the brushed stainless steel colour, and it really does feel like you’re making coffee on a scaled down commercial machine.

We got this at an excellent price and it came the next day! Thankfully we weren’t without coffee for long! This is our third machine from breville and they last years! We use it a lot and let me tell you this particular machine withstands a lot!!