Breville - the Dual Boiler™ BES920XL

Before I got my Izzo Vivi, I had a breville dual boiler, in fact I had four of them because that piece of shit is not repairable and breville will just send you a new one.  That’s true to all prosumer machines, good luck finding product support after the warranty expires.  The E61 machines are better because they’ve been in the market for 60+ years and any technician can work on them. They surely still aren’t practical but at least repairable.

Breville bes920 dual boiler has served me well.

Dude this is a pretty high startup cost for something you may not even enjoy the process of. Grab a Breville dual boiler and a Baratza Encore, DF64, or Lagom Casa. Upgrade your machine once you feel you've fully committed and know what you're looking for.

Nice 👌 setup. I would look into getting a machine with dual boiler to get that coffee shop frothy milk if you like your lattes or flat white. I have sage dual boiler and I’m super happy how my milk tastes and looks. The frothers on smaller machines are simply lacking the power. From my knowledge, the only decent budget option would be small Gaggia.

Exactly what I was going to say. I watched a review yesterday, it makes a near perfect coffee every time. You basically just press “go” … the biggest choice is if you’re going to do a heart or a fern on your FW. It would be an anathema to most in here but sounds perfect for your current wishes.

I’ve owned both and the BDB will give you at least as many repair trips as the Bambino. It’s a rather complex machine. Much more so than the Bambino.

Have you ever used a $5000 coffee machine? It’s very obvious from your response you haven’t. I get better coffee than 90% of coffee shops, in my own house, every single day. The closest machine that will produce a similar result is the Breville dual boiler for $1500 a pop + replacement every 3-4 years. I’m not trying to “flex” using your words, but you’re comparing a mahrinda to a BMW, when you want to drive down the autobahn. It’s just not the same.

I second the BDB over Mara X. I considered the Mara X as well as the Lelit Elizabeth but eventually decided on the BDB. There is no better feature set at that price point. The only real drawback is you may have to change some o-rings on top of the steam boiler every few years if they start to leak but that is fairly easy to do. One of the selling points for me was I use the hot water tap a lot for Americanos. HX machines draw hot water from the boiler but unless you flush it often that water can become stale and nasty. The BDB draws hot water from the brew boiler so it doesn't have that problem.

This is a very generous gift! Before getting into it, respectfully are you absolutely positive the couple is interested in espresso to this degree? These are endgame machines that would suit someone who is already an enthusiastic hobbyist, but not great for someone who just wants a quick coffee and isn't really interested in making it a hobby in itself. The other main thing I'd note is the grinder is often considered just as if not more important than the machine itself, and their grinder is not going to be able to do justice to any of these machines. It would probably be better to split the budget and allocate more money towards a high-quality grinder and then a slightly less expensive machine. For example you could get a Lagom P80 and Breville Dual Boiler for ~$3200 combined. A scale for weighing input/output is important at this level too and can run $100 - $300 depending on how nice you go, so it might be worth accounting for that, or the recipients might end up needing to buy it themselves. Accessories (nice stirring tools, funnels, tampers etc) can add up slightly as well. Regarding water, *some* brands of bottled water may be suitable although I'm not sure which ones - it would be important to look up the mineral content to make sure they're not prone to causing scale. Distilled water is NOT safe for espresso machines, it can cause corrosion in the boilers and isn't good for taste anyways. It is possible to add minerals to distilled water to make a perfectly scale-free water with suitable taste (look up "Pavlis water") but again not sure if the couple is really interested to that degree. Of the machines you listed, the Appartamento is inferior to others and is not in the same tier. I don't have experience with the others but would note that a Lelit Bianca V3 is personally my upgrade wishlist machine for now. I have a Breville Dual Boiler today, which is an exceptional machine in pretty much every regard and why I noted it above, it's just not a 20-year lifespan machine in terms of build quality.

I’ll be the shameless reply guy and say i had my Breville Dual Boiler for 5 years now (bought it second hand, so the machine is actually 7 years old) it’s shot count is at about 2700 and it still makes great espresso. I also don’t take great care of it. I use tap water which is semi-hard, i only run clean cycles when machine tells me to do so and i only fix things when they break. Over the years I had to put in about $150 worth of parts into it based on failures i was able to diagnose reading through threads in home-barista.com and following online tutorials. All of these repairs were super easy to do as well and only required basic tools. It’s not “Italian” or sexy looking, but if you want a feature packed, well built machine that will last you a very long time, I’d say, don’t skim on Breville Dual Boiler.