Barista Express Impress

I love my impress express. Got it for $499 at TJ Maxx. The TJ by me always has Breville machines so check there if you have one.

Sage Barista impress - bought it before xmas and can't fault it. I like all types of coffee so americano's flat whites caps... its expensive but still cheaper than buying coffee and its way nicer than the stuff you buy in most coffee shops once you find a decent bean source.

Hey all, I'm in the market for a PID controlled, single boiler machine for experimenting with brewing light to dark roasts. I'm upgrading from a Sage Barista Express Impress which tbh I have not enjoyed using at all for 2 years so far, partly because it's grinder is dogshit. I'm in the UK so we have fairly limited options here but as I'm going to be doing 90% espresso, 10% milky drinks from this I've decided that a single boiler is appropriate for me. No point in spending more on a dual boiler, and HX ones seem to take too long to heat up for me. I've come across the ECM Classika PID which is at the top of my list atm at 1,259.00, which leaves a good bit of my budget free for a grinder. Any other machines I should be looking at in this category? Also keen to find out the best grinders in the £250-£500 budget.

I have the impress because my girlfriend wanted a machine she could just use without much effort, because she doesn’t care that much about coffee. So it’s set up for her to use and honestly once I dialled it in it makes a pretty good coffee. She just hits the button, tamps it down and away she goes. I did recently convince her to try giving the beans a lil spray and using the WDT tool and she seems to think it makes it better, so that’s a small win. I have my own grinder, a timemore, so I can play around with grind a bit more. I really like the setup, but I know that’s a bit OTT because I essentially bought a second grinder that costs about the same as the whole machine, which destroys the point, but it was a compromise haha

Podwater eewww. Never had a nice coffee from a pod machine. If you want simplicity, maybe a bean2cup will suffice. A filter machine such as Moccamaster or Wilfa Performance are one button machines - or look at a french press, aeropress and mokapot. When I first looked into espresso I very nearly got the Sage/Breville Express Impress (coming from a broken DeLonghi b2c machine). I was a bit scared of the technicalities of full espresso setup and ideally I needed something my Mrs would be happy to use. I put on my big boy pants though and went with the Cafelat Robot (and recently pour over). Fresh ground beans and a decent grinder will be your friends. Get whatever suits your circumstances and tastes - is it just you? What drinks do you like? Will you need foamed milk? Etc etc Check out all the subreddits on here for superautomated, mokapot, french press, aeropress I’ve had a nespresso at my brothers and find them harsh. ESE pods at work. Equally grim. I have a French press which I’ll use about once a month. An aeropress if I’m away. A mokapot which is gathering dust. A pourover set up for home and work - my trusty Robot at home. I have a Kingrinder K6 I use for everything except espresso (which I currently use a DF54 for).

The SBP is not a semi automatic it’s fully manual. It gets a lot of coverage on here as a decent entry level machine which I get, but to me it’s too lightweight and toy like. The Sage Express Impress is more semi automatic and easier to use which is why I considered it. The in built grinders with Sage are not amazing though. Similarly, people look at the Ninja machines but I hear a mixed bag of people happy with them or those having to send them back with issues. I would suggest looking on YouTube at some Sage/Breville machines - CoffeeKev does a lot of informative ones. I would also suggest going into an electrical store and physically seeing the machines. It’s a big outlay so you need to weigh up exactly what you want. Like the type of drinks you want etc in my previous post. It may well be worth dipping your toe in the water first with something like an aeropress, coupled with scales and hand grinder. You can then get used to that and start to look at espresso options - if you hang about on here and YouTube