Amazon.com: Breville Barista Pro Espresso Machine BES878BSS, Brushed Stainless Steel: Home & Kitchen

This is a very well-engineered Espresso machine that is a great place for any beginner, and even the intermediate barista. This is probably one of the best machines you can get under the $1000 range from my research.Like any espresso machine, it takes a lot of coffee and trial and error to get used to it. This is because you need to find the optimal pull time and grind size for each bean that you use. I highly recommend Nicoletti Old School Roast for latte-based drinks. For those, I use an internal burr of 4 and grind size of 9 or 10.You can find excellent tutorials on YouTube specifying how to perfect the espresso pull for your bean of choice. The video "How to Dial In Breville Barista Pro" by Lifestyle Labs makes it very easy. However, you can also just use the preset values to get decent results. I wish that Breville had an official course on how to use it for complete beginners, because I was totally lost when I received mine.After a lot of trial and error, I now am making oat milk lattes that taste exponentially better than anything I can buy at a coffee shop, for a fraction of the price. I currently use Elmhurst Oat Milk and Elmhurt Barista Edition because it's the only oat milk on the market that isn't filled with gums or oils.My oat milk lattes are on par with any whole milk latte from the local coffee stores. Needless to say, I'm very happy with this machine.Pros- Easy to use, intuitive interface- Very easy to clean- Very easy to descale/service- Visually appealing- All necessary components in one chassis- One button push for excellent single or double shot drinksCons- Can't steam milk and pull espresso at the same time (all pros recommend doing this, so it's a bit silly that this unit can't).- Steam takes significant time to generate. It also spits out water first, watering down your milk. Whereas Higher end espresso machines will instantly shoot steam that is pre-heated in a chamber)- Grinder is not as precise as many high end grinders; There are no half sizes so it is difficult to fine tune at a certain point. My understanding is that it's not as powerful either and beans often get stuck in the hopper so you often need to tap on the hopper to make sure all the beans grind.

I've had a few different espresso machines over the last decade, and have tried and returned a couple as well. This one is, by far, my favorite machine for several reasons. Throughout the review I will reference differences primarily with the Barista Express, as that is one that I had for some time as well. The overall appearance of the machine looks good. I have the stainless steel version, and it looks sharp and well built. Breville is the only company I know that has the magnetic tamper holder underneath the top of the unit, and it's a nice touch. A place to put the tamper, and always know where it is. Also, the tamper is a nice metal one, rather than the thin, light plastic many other brands use. I also like that most, if not all, of what comes in contact with hot liquids is metal rather than plastic (though the portafilter does have some plastic, but I use a naked bottom portafilter as stated below). I kind of like the ease of the automatic machines that grind, tamp, and pull the shot, but the plastic group head makes me a bit uncomfortable. I try to minimize hot foods and liquids contacting plastic as much as possible. If plastic particles can leach out of water bottles, then heated plastics most likely will leach more. As far as performance, I will touch on the grinder, pulling of the shots, hot water spout, and very importantly, the steam wand: I have seen some complaints about Breville's grinders, and I don't understand why. Granted, I do believe that most of the complaints come from people who are much more advanced in their coffee preparation and understanding than I am. Nevertheless, I do find the grinder to do a good job. It has fine adjustments that you make with the dial on the left of the machine, plus larger scale adjustments that you can make with the grinder itself under where the bean hopper sits. I wouldn't say the larger adjustments are super easy, but definitely doable if you follow the directions. I've made a single adjustment on the grinder itself and only rely on the fine adjustments other than that. As a side note, I saw on an instructional video by another reviewer that you want to make the fine adjustments while grinding to prevent getting anything stuck. I'm not sure if this is necessary but I do it just in case. I am impressed by how little of a mess the grinding makes. The dosage amount and grind size is consistent once I dialed everything in and left it there. Plus it's easy to switch from single to double dose. Pulling shots is rather straight forward as well, but does take time getting things right. As far as getting it right, that's more dependent on the size and dosing of the grinds as well as the tamping force, but you see the results during the shot pull. I don't use the included portafilter because I've always liked the appearance of the naked bottom portafilters, so I found one on Amazon that's sized for this machine. The naked bottom ones look cool pulling the shot, but make a bit more of a mess than the standard portafilter, and are a little less forgiving than the included one. With a fairly good grind size and amount, you can get good consistent shots. With my Barista Express, I noticed that the second pull was usually more bitter and not as good tasting as the first shot, if pulled within a few minutes of each other. With this machine, I can pull a double shot, steam the milk, then pull another double shot without any issues or difference in taste. The Barista Pro also has the three second heat up time vs the thirty second or so on the Barista Express, which isn't a huge deal itself but I believe the newer heating unit is more advanced and allows for the better second pull. The hot water spout is angled and can dispense right into the cup after the shot is pulled without having to move the cup to a different location. Also, I like the angled spout versus the one on the Barista Express. As far as the steam wand, it doesn't seem like there is much advertised or discussed about the improvements of the steam wand versus the Barista Express, but in my opinion, it is far more powerful. I had a lot of difficulty getting the correct texture of milk for latte art, but with the Barista Pro, the steam wand seems much more powerful, faster to steam the milk, and can more easily achieve that proper texture and consistency for good latte art (my latte art isn't very good, but I'm going to blame that on my skills rather than the steamer). For fairness, I will say that my skills have improved some since having the Barista Express, but I definitely feel a significant difference with this steam wand. Such that I feel that alone makes it worth the increased price compared to the Barista Express. I have also tried an automatic machine. I would say that the automatic machines are easier to use, less of a learning curve (though there is still somewhat of a learning curve) and most give you the option to make a regular drip coffee as well. They don't usually have as good a shot pull or taste as a unit like this one, and personally I like the "artsy" part of going from grind to shot manually. To conclude, I would definitely recommend this machine to anybody who is looking for very good espresso drinks that are better than what you will usually find in coffee shops, at the comfort of your home. If you're willing to learn how to use the steam wand well for lattes and cappuccinos, I feel this machine is better than the Barista Touch, and better than other machines in this price range. Within a few months, the machine pays for itself versus getting a latte a few times a week at a coffee shop.