Barista Max Espresso Coffee Machine (VCF126)

Not the Barista Max. Have had so many issues with the steam wand and the other parts.

You can make very good late with a Breville Barista, the built in grinder is good enough, and steam wand works well, all in a compact machine for ~600

I bought a brevillie barista recently and I love it!! :) I’m sure I would’ve loved that too and i got a good price on this model

They exist - but not many do and they (typically) don't really do an exceptional job at either of the two things. A Breville Barista series machine sounds right up your alley. They're quite frankly great machines for the "non-snob" espresso enjoyers. Perhaps you could learn to enjoy Americanos? They're a shot of espresso with hot water added to dilute it - to me they are similar to a cup of drip coffee.

Built-in grinders are always a bad idea— if they break or you want to upgrade, you now need two new items. Get yourself a Breville barista or Gaggia classic pro paired with a Turin SK40 or DF54. Save yourself some $$ by browsing FB marketplace. If she likes pour over, just buy a ceramic pour over lol. I got mine for $5

Honestly, yes. I mean the cheaper ones are okay naman pero when you upgrade to higher quality, you’ll know the difference. We used to have the Delonghi espresso machine na cheapest. I think 9k ata yun. It was fine. But then we upgraded to Breville Barista and omg ibang iba. The extracted shot is really different which manifests sa naproproduce na crema. Having a good and accurate grinder matters as well, and a lot of people overlook this. In dialing and calibrating whatever espresso machine you have, grind size matters so much.

I got gifted the Breville Barista, which is entry level at about £300. It does, I have to say, broadly get lots of good reviews too. Previously I had the Cafe Corso which was mildly worse in almost every respect. I.e. ease of use, steam wand, adjusting, built in grinder, cleaning, mess, end product. The Barista allows you to brew single or double, and the built in grinder is actually (after 3 months) producing really consistent and adjustable grind. The one thing I would say is the pressure isn't all there - too fine a grind and the machine struggles to penetrate. That being said, for low(er) budgets it solves everything. About the quality you'd expect out high street coffee shops, all in one package, very adjustable. Steam wand is fantastic for lattes. It's just the pressure that concerns me and probably the higher brow coffee aficionados maybe doubt the grinder and overall quality of cups. For day to day stuff with beans from a decent roaster though it's doing great for my needs.

Yes. Since 2019 my breville barista machine and breville precision brewer are still alive and kicking. The only issue I only have is breville toaster.

Thing to note about the breville barista - the built in grinder is pretty inconsistent and you won’t be able to steam/pull a shot at the same time which will slow down you down a lot. Would take you at least around 2-3 minutes to a single milk beverage which doesn’t sound like a lot of time but if someone orders 2 or 3 drinks you’ll be stuck there for a while. Id look for a dual boiler machine and maybe a df64 or similar. Might be worth asking some local roasters if they have a setup to rent or sell for cheap :)

A dedicated grinder serves a few purposes. 1) infinitely easier to deal with switching beans if that’s something you’re into, especially if you start single dosing vs throwing a pound into the hopper. Even just switching between cafe and decaf is a huge pain in these combo machines. 2) for $300-500 range, the grinder you’d get may last you a decade or more unless you really really want to level up the hobby. For instance the DF54 or 64 is like a Mercedes S-class in terms of overall performance vs the built in Breville grinder which is more like a Ford Pinto. 3) you’ll get much better ability to dial-in grind sizes and amounts vs built in The Barista lineup, which I started out with also, is just annoying enough when it comes to things like pulling more than one shot or steaming milk at the same time. If budget is an issue at least the bambino + df54 is probably the way to go. If you’re Ok spending a bit more but really leveling up the machine, I’d say just jump to the Breville Dual Boiler and a df54 or similar grinder. The BDB is a huge jump up from the barista series. That said, if you’re sticking to the sub $1k mark, I’d say maybe the Turin legato v2 paired with a DF54. A far superior machine than the Bambino or the Barista. It’s also worth mentioning that the 58mm portafilter on the Turin is much more standard so you won’t need as many Breville specific accessories.