Full transcript
0:08So this is a review of the Oracle Touch espresso machine.
0:12Now it's made by a company called Sage in the UK,
0:14or better known as Breville in the rest of the world.
0:17Now, I'll start with the truth, which is,
0:19for a decade, I haven't had an espresso machine at home.
0:23And to be honest, I haven't really wanted one.
0:26When people ask me, "What espresso machine should I get
0:28"for my house?", well, I ask them a question back.
0:31"Do you really want a new hobby?"
0:34Because that's what espresso at home is.
0:36For most people, it's an investment in equipment,
0:39but it's also an investment in time.
0:41When I got started working in coffee,
0:44I started selling little domestic espresso machines
0:46and I know all too well that the romantic idea
0:49of getting up at the weekend, reading the paper,
0:51making a little cappuccino, that's very appealing to people,
0:55but it's not true.
0:56You skip the bit where you turn on the machine,
0:58you wait for it to get hot,
0:59then you dial in two or three shots
1:01to see how things are tasting,
1:02then you pull a couple of shots,
1:03and then you spend some time cleaning up.
1:05And for me, well the idea of paying two pounds
1:08for someone else to do that, to make me an espresso,
1:11that seemed like a good deal.
1:12Now at home, I typically just brewed filtered coffee,
1:15so taking this home for a little while,
1:18well that was the first time in literally ten years
1:20I've made espresso at home
1:23and it was interesting.
1:24This is a 2,000 pound espresso machine
1:27and that's quite a lot of money these days
1:29and a lot of money to invest in an espresso machine.
1:32Especially in one that's labeled as a bean to cup.
1:39For people who didn't want to hobby,
1:41that was kinda your choice, right?
1:42If you didn't wanna do all the hard work,
1:45then you just push a button and the machine did its best
1:47and you got coffee.
1:49And they all had a problem that made them quite finicky,
1:51quite difficult to extract well with
1:53and prone to breaking down.
1:55There were trying to work out how to get coffee
1:56from a grinder into a brewing chamber
1:59and then to get rid of it.
2:01And that moving of ground coffee both wet and dry
2:04is pretty difficult to do
2:06and Sage's solution is pretty simple.
2:08You just get the human to do it.
2:10So this machine comes with a portafilter and a grinder
2:13and it's all built in as one
2:15and you're going to be the one that moves ground coffee
2:18around, that's going to be your contribution
2:20to the brewing process.
2:21So, the way this thing works is kind of interesting
2:25because it's kind of against the typical
2:27obsessive, geeky, wanna control every factor
2:31and they know espresso making is hard
2:32and so what they've done is take away some of the variables.
2:37What this means is that the way the grinder works
2:39is that when you lock it in, click it into place
2:42and you click across to the right hand side,
2:45it'll start grinding.
2:47It'll grind, dose, tamp, the whole deal, all in one go,
2:52leaving you a prepped portafilter ready to brew.
2:55So you lock that in and you hit go.
2:57Now, it's a touchscreen, and this means you've got
3:00lots of choices and what it lets you do
3:02is choose the different kinda drinks you wanna make,
3:05choose the grind setting and choose the brew time
3:07for each one, and that's another key part.
3:10This doesn't let you control the amount of liquid
3:12going through, like a volumetric might
3:15or with weighing scales or something like that.
3:17It's gonna brew at a fixed pressure
3:19for a fixed amount of time.
3:21Now this is no bad thing.
3:23By and large, what you might wanna do
3:25is use your consistent dose setting
3:28and therefore use a consistent brew time
3:30and then simply adjust the grind setting,
3:32finer or coarser to get the desired amount
3:35of liquid that you want in the kind of ideal brew time.
3:39So I'll just set the brew time to 28 seconds,
3:42I'll just use my grind setting
3:44to control my espresso brew ratio.
3:48Speaking about brew ratios.
3:50This things, the set up it has,
3:52it doses quite a lot of coffee into the portafilter,
3:54it's kinda dependent on the basket that you're using.
3:57Typically I brew coffees that taste good
3:59at a one-to-two, to about one-to-two point two
4:02as a ratio, so if I put 20 grams in,
4:05I'm getting between 40 and 44 grams of liquid out
4:08in my desired brew time.
4:10Here, I probably say with those kind of coffees,
4:13you probably want to push them to one to two point five,
4:17so if you have 20 grams of ground coffee,
4:19you probably want about 50 grams of liquid out.
4:22So to be honest, with certain lighter roasts,
4:25shorter, tighter shots of espresso,
4:27closer to a ristretto, even like a traditional,
4:30normal espresso, they're a little bit harder to do.
4:32If you enjoy that kinda thing
4:34and you're very texture driven,
4:35then lighter roast may not be the answer for you
4:37and you may wanna brew with a slightly deeper,
4:40more developed roast that's gonna give itself up
4:42a little bit more easily.
4:43Sage made waves with their first espresso machine,
4:46had the really good temperature control,
4:48all of that stuff is still here,
4:49so they've done the kind of hard work
4:52on consistency and control,
4:54while trying not to overload you with too many variables.
4:59So it brews pretty good tasting espresso.
5:02I got some very tasty shots out of it.
5:05It was pretty easy to use.
5:06It required reconfiguring how my brain works a little bit
5:10with the fixed dose and fixed time
5:12and just manipulating with grind,
5:14but I didn't mind that too much at all.
5:16One thing that this machine does incredibly well
5:19and Sage has done for a little while now,
5:21is steam milk beautifully.
5:24Now this, the automatic steaming of milk,
5:27is not new on commercial equipment for sure.
5:30You know, there's been big commercial espresso machines
5:32that have been able to automatically texture milk
5:34to a really beautiful foam.
5:36Certainly you can pour a great latte out with it,
5:38that's been around for a while,
5:40but these guys have been doing it more and more
5:42on domestic machines and the quality is frustratingly good.
5:46When you can do something that good at home,
5:49you really have to question why this kind of technology
5:52just isn't everywhere all the time.
5:54And I get that the lack of craft may upset some people,
5:58but there's really no excuse left in the world
6:01for serving anything other than
6:02a really beautifully textured milk drink.
6:05Even if you can't pour latte out on the top,
6:06it should still have great texture.
6:09That technology is now very much available.
6:12So a couple of quick things,
6:13you can program your milk temperature.
6:15It has a little thermocouple on the end of the steam wand
6:18there that senses the milk's temperature
6:19and stops at the right point.
6:21You can adjust texture of the milk as well
6:24and one neat little feature is
6:25when you're finished steaming,
6:26when you push the steam wand back in,
6:29it purges itself automatically.
6:31Again, just thoughtful use of technology
6:33to make our lives a little bit easier.
6:35A few quick likes and don't likes.
6:38Things I like:
6:38The touchscreen.
6:40Actually, it's great.
6:41This is not a Wi-Fi enabled machine,
6:43but having a touchscreen means you can do
6:45walkthroughs for setting it up,
6:47you can do troubleshooting, you can offer a lot of guidance.
6:50The touchscreen is perfectly fine in terms of usability.
6:54I think that's a really nice upgrade
6:56to these kind of machines.
6:57I think the steaming is excellent.
6:59One thing, and I particularly love,
7:02is that when you remove the drip tray
7:04and if you twist the dial,
7:05you can just move your machine around the counter
7:08really really easily.
7:10That's just great.
7:12I love that you can load water in the top,
7:15so you can fill it from the front
7:16if you've put your machine in your kitchen
7:17it's the back, but you still have
7:19a fully removable water tank
7:21that can be accessed from the back.
7:23That's kind of nice thinking.
7:24Things I don't love as much:
7:26The grinder does suffer the same problem
7:28that many other grinders do,
7:29which is as it gets hotter as you use it more,
7:31it's grind setting does shift a little bit.
7:34So what I would tend to do is,
7:35because I would just make a couple of drinks in the morning
7:37and that was it, I would have the machine switch itself on,
7:40about half an hour before I wanted to get up,
7:42it was nice and hot, I would come down,
7:44pull a shot, clean up, be done.
7:46If I had to pull two, three, four or five shots,
7:49then I know my grind would change,
7:51but at the end of doing that,
7:52I would just reset my grinder back to the original lumber.
7:56That way when I woke up the next morning
7:58and it was ready to pull it's first shot of the day,
8:00it was at the right grind setting
8:02and grind settings held pretty well for me in testing.
8:05For me, the grinder is okay,
8:07I kind of wish I had more control again
8:10and again, I wish I had a little bit more control
8:12over the dose going in.
8:14Typically these doses are pretty high
8:16and that's not how I usually brew coffee.
8:19So again, I'm probably not the target audience here,
8:22but I have to be honest in the things
8:24that I would want to change or want more control over.
8:27And lastly, there is the price point.
8:29It's 2,000 pounds.
8:30That's not cheap and that I know that's not a bad thing,
8:33you get a really well built, good quality machine,
8:37you get good support in the UK and other places,
8:40but you can't help but mention that price,
8:42it's a little bit higher than a lot of other
8:43domestic bean to cups.
8:46That said, I would anticipate that you're gonna
8:48have a lot less issues.
8:49This can run you through your own descaling programs,
8:51it's just less parts to go wrong
8:54compared to a traditional bean to cup.
8:55In summary, if you are an espresso obsessive
8:59and you wanna play with your coffee,
9:01this is probably not the machine for you.
9:02It won't offer you enough control,
9:04enough granularity about your coffee brewing.
9:06If you're someone who does actually want that
9:09coffee at home, cappuccinos in the morning,
9:11a little flat white, but you don't want a new hobby,
9:15well I guess Sage have built this machine for you
9:17and I have to say they've done a pretty good job.
9:20Thank you very much for watching.
9:21If you wanna comment, if you wanna ask a question,
9:23ask it down below, I will do my best to answer every one.
9:27If you enjoyed this, let met know.
9:28If you have someone in your life
9:30who got one of these for Christmas,
9:32send this their way, go and see them,
9:34go and have a coffee, see what you think.
9:36I'll be back with some more reviews in the new year.
9:39Thanks for watching and have a good one.