Sage the Duo-Temp Pro Espresso Machine, Coffee Machine with Milk Frother, BES810BSS - Brushed Stainless Steel

Product Information

To put it simply, it’s a great water heater. With it, you get coffee that’s brewed at just the right temperature. The Duo Temp Pro is considerably cheaper than the Barista Express, which is the next model up from Sage Appliances. It produces rich and flavoursome espresso, so we think it provides good value for money. This model has a fully automatic steam wand and a whopping eight texture levels and 11 temperatures for the milk. Auto purge of the wand means less cleaning for you to do.

You think you might enjoy the home barista hobby but you're just not sure, so you want a machine you can use either fully manually, in what I call “geek mode” or with assistance. Not only is the Touch Impress cheaper (almost half the price!), I think it the assistance works better, and I think the overall user experience is also better, and although the Oracle touch has the edge for espresso quality, there's really not a huge amount in it due to the fact that they both have the same grinder. What are they? These are traditional espresso machines with a level of assistance that makes them ultra-convenient and user-friendly. So in a nutshell, the Barista Express is a great value for money option if you're not aiming for home barista use and freshly roasted beans, but if you are heading in that direction I'd recommend having a look at the Barista Pro instead. If that assumption is incorrect and you're in the States or Australia or some other country which is probably warmer and drier than the UK, you'll probably know this machine as the Breville Barista Pro.While at the moment the biggest question I get about the Barista Pro is whether it's worth it vs the Barista Express, I think the question most people will be asking now the Barista Express Impress is available is whether they'd be better going for this, given that it's the same price as the Barista Pro.

It features the PID (temperature control), automatic and manual shot pulling with low pressure pre-infusion. The most obvious similarity between the Breville Duo Temp Pro and the Breville infuser is their appearance. I'll get more into the differences a bit later in this post, but what the thermojet is all about, is speed. Automatic and manual milk steaming (3 temp settings and 3 texture settings with the auto steaming), auto purging steam wand – it's an impressive little machine. Pressurized portafilters can correct issues with the grind size. They’re best used with slightly coarser grounds and maintain even pressure for a more consistent brew.

Analysis and Test Results

The Breville brand is owned in the UK by an American firm called Newell Brands, and they sell coffee machines using the Breville brand, but they are not the same as the Sage coffee machines that sell as Breville in other parts of the world. This assumption, though, is incorrect – as I discovered when I first used the Express and the Pro side by side. What it does is auto-purge the steam wand before pulling a shot. This allows excess hot water to drip into the machine’s drip way.