Barista Touch Impress

I had a superautomatic. (Note past tense.) What I loved: push-button ease of brewing many different drinks. Easy enough for everyone in my family. What I didn't love: Drinks were at best "okay." Guests (like my parents, inlaws) were still, for whatever reason, apprehensive about/scared to use it. Clean up and maintenance just sucked. Lots of crevices and nooks on the inside that needed q-tips to reach; the inside stayed moist from the evaporating pucks and was prone to mildew/mold; 100% plastic, everywhere, except maybe a metal screen in the brew unit -- some of the plastics exposed to high temps were developing microfissures on the surface that I was worried would lead to failure in the future. We switched to a Barista Touch Impress. Very slight learning curve for the non-coffee nerds in the house, but the guidance system and automations are good enough that everyone can use it. Guests definitely don't touch it though, we're making all the coffee for them. Since it's *just an espresso machine* it's your standard drip tray cleaning, group flushing, and periodic descale. But the big win is that the drink quality is simply a level above superautomatics and now we can only beat what we make at home in a few specialty coffee shops. For less budget, the Ninja Luxe with the tamper (if you can swing it) would be an even better value. I'd take that over any superauto, any day. Just for completeness though, even though it's probably not a fit - if you didn't want an "all in one" type system but still wanted to maximize ease of workflow, I'd consider a Sette 270Wi (grind by weight) - $600 new (although they are easy to fix, great parts supply, so used is an option), alongside a less pricey machine. The Casabrews 5418 Pro is $200 and has fast heatup like the Bambino. However, you'd have to step up to the Bambino+ ($500) to get auto-milk, if you have family members that won't learn how to froth.

Buy a Sage touch impress. 3mins with heating up for 98% of what 100% manual labor can do. For me the perfect Cappuccino every morning and during work breaks. I love that thing so much.

What I like about the Touch Impress is that it will tell you whether or not youre too fine or too coarse on the grind based on the time it took to pull the shot. Super convenient. Also you can save those settings and name so that it appears on the touch screen. One last thing the built in tamp reads the amount of ground and the compaction all on its own.

Breville/Sage Barista Express hands down. Lets you tinker a bit, which can prepare you for the “big leagues” if that’s your goal. Otherwise they produce consistent, amazing results, are built like tanks and I consider them a great investment. I bought my first Barista Express for $500 new, prices went up over the years and I sold it 6 years later for $500. Literally had a free espresso machine for 6 years. I moved into the super automatic world for 2 years and couldn’t stand it. Sub-par quality or just “meh” results, and these machines were 4x the price of the Breville. I’m back to Breville again with the Touch Impress. I’ve had it for 3 years already and again, same quality, amazing coffee. And I’ll sell it in a few years for likely around what I paid for it. Next move is to the big leagues with a La Marzocco Linea Mini R! Good luck and most importantly, enjoy the journey!

I ended up getting a Breville Impress Touch simply because I got tired of making lattes for everyone. Now they have a relatively easy machine to work with. 🥲 I still mourn for the other machines I could have bought for that price. (And for my little Gaggia gathering dust in the closet because I simply have no more counter space)! 😭

This. Nespresso Breville touch Impress. Been a solid machine over a year and two shots a day. Not a hiccup.

It will definitely be a better machine. With that budget, maybe look into the Barista Touch Impress. It would be a bit more work, but the machine will guide you (you need to pull down the lever and move the portifilter from one place to another). Will make much better coffee. Avoid getting a Sage Oracle, they still have the old worse built-in grinder.

The Touch Impress has an automatic milk frother. You fill the pitcher between the min and max lines, place it under steam wand, and it will stop when ready. I have that for my Bambino Plus and it works well.

I like the Breville touch impress. Consistent easy repeatable results with my own beans. But I wish I had the oracle jet. Slightly nicer.

Short answer: Quality. Long answer: You need to try it out yourself. I went to my local Williams Sonoma and tried out the Philips Lattego, Delonghi Dinamica plus and Jura Z10. And also the Breville impress touch semiauto. I was pretty sure I would get the Delonghi. But after we tried the Jura, it really was no match. The Breville Semiauto and Jura Z10 were the same quality, others just tasted vastly inferior. So I’d recommend calling a local williams Sonoma, asking if they do demos and if they have the 3-4 machines you’re interested in trying and try them out.

Don't spend 1k on touch impress. Get a regular Bambino or Bambino plus on sale + pair it with a great low maintenance grinder like Eureka Specialita (you can get it at around $500). Bambino is the same machine as touch impress, but the grinder is years ahead, and this combo is far more future proof as you'd just need to replace bambino if you ever need to, and the grinder would outlive you.