I just can't fathom why they'd give this machine, a traditional portafilter espresso machine, less grind settings than they give all of their bean to cup machines, very odd! Depending on where you’re located, the price gap between these two home espresso machines is of about 100 EUR, with the De'Longhi La Specialita Arte being the more affordable one. Since the price difference between the two models is not that big, before you make your decision, I believe it’s very important to make a comprehensive comparison and see which model delivers the better value versus the price you pay, especially on the long run. I hope my thoughts below can help you in the buying decision process. We’re looking at: This machine can be used in manual mode too, the only thing is you have to use the touch screen, it doesn't have analogue buttons, and while changing to manual with the Express Impress is a button press, you have to go into the settings on the Touch Impress to toggle modes. Except for the Sage Dual Boiler, and the Oracle & Oracle Touch (which are based on the Dual Boiler) all of Sage's espresso machines feature on-demand water heaters instead of boilers.

Whether or not any tank-fed machine can actually feature “true” pre-infusion is a matter for debate among much cleverer people than me, (I'm not even a proper Barista I just play one on YouTube) but pre-infusion would usually be done at line pressure from a plumbed in machine before the pump is then engaged, and tank machines don't have line pressure so it always pumps pressure, but, Sage machines are set to in some way mimic line pressure by limiting the pump pressure initially and then ramping up to full pressure. If you're wondering how it compares to other machines from brands like Breville and De'Longhi, I'll cover that in the main review, so let's go: Sage Barista Express In-Depth Review

The Barista Pro also makes a bit less of a song and dance about cooling the heater after steaming milk. With the Barista Express (and the Express Impress, as it has the same original Sage thermocoil) it hisses for 10 seconds or so after steaming milk, which is the sound of cold water flushing the heater to cool it down. For this method, you’ll use a measuring tape (preferably the retractable steel one with 1/32 inches divisions) and your smartphone for calculations. Here’s how to do it: With this needle tamper, you don’t even have to worry about that. Similar to other coffee tampers from Barista Space, these come with unique height adjusting system. This allows even repeatable shot of espresso every time, resulting in improved quality and barista performance. What does the Breville Barista Express come with?

These kinds of machines really are intended for home use. Whether you could get away with using the Barista Express for your business would depend on how many coffees you think you’ll be selling per day, and how busy you might be in one short period of time. Ideally, the 58 mm in diameter are the most common portafilter basket size on the market, while the other relatively rare, especially in commercial machines.So again, if you know you're going to be using freshly roasted beans and standard baskets, that's another reason to choose the Barista Pro or one of the other integrated grinder options. If you’re thinking of something like up to 20 or so double espressos per day, the machine would be fine with that, but if you might do this within a period of just a few hours and a lot of them are cappuccino, flat white or latte for instance, you may find a machine like this will be too slow, as you can’t steam milk and pull shots at the same time, as you would if you were using a dual boiler or heat exchanger machine which allows you to pull shots while you’re steaming milk. Stop using the built-in grind time adjustment: Just stop, please! It is wildly inaccurate, and only really works for those using the more forgiving dual-wall baskets. Please invest in some kitchen scales that have at least 0.1g accuracy and either weigh your beans out beforehand (putting them straight into the empty grinder hopper) or by taring your scales with the portafilter on it, and weighing the output of the grinder if you want to keep your beans inside the hopper (which I don't recommend as it gets rather warm after some use and that does the coffee no good). Another reason why the portafilter size is critical for you is the espresso tamper. The tamper is the tool you use to press the ground coffee into the basket of the portafilter to keep them compact and ready for pressing.