Like the Kitchen Aid, the positioning of the display means you would have to have your machine a certain way round, which might not be the best use of space, but if you’ve invested in something like this, there’s every chance you’ll be giving it pride of place in your kitchen. However, it can feel slightly clumsy at certain points of the process - the brew basket actually rests on top of the carafe which means you have to get rid of it before you can pour your coffee. The coffee also has to be brewed without the carafe lid on so you do lose some heat. Some of these elements have apparently been changed in a newer ‘Connoisseur’ model of this machine, but some coffee lovers may find that the quest for simplicity has sacrificed some of the ease of use. Did you know that coffee is the most widely consumed drink in the world? Everyone likes their coffee slightly differently – sweetener or sugar, oat milk or full-fat, strong or weak. When you make your coffee at home this also gives you more flexibility with the recipes. Making a great cup of coffee at home… You may already have a drip filter coffee machine in your home or certainly come across them. It brews ground coffee via a shower head that drips through a paper or mesh filter.

Sage is the UK and European version of Breville that you will otherwise find around the rest of the world. They realise that you may want to just push a button in the morning without the faff, but also recognise that you also may want to tweek and tinker with the grind to make that perfect cup of coffee.A switch on the side allows you to dispense hot water for tea or steam to heat up milk in the supplied jug. And at the bottom there’s a large removable drip tray to catch any mess or spills. Performance This video from Sage shows the level of detail that they go into when designing a coffee machine of this quality: Barista quality performance with an intuitive interface that displays all the information you need to create third wave speciality coffee at home. The integrated grinder delivers the right amount of ground coffee on demand, for rich full flavour. With a ThermoJet heating system, 3 second heat up time and precise espresso extraction, you go from bean to cup faster than ever before. The online customer service and engineering team are super knowledgeable about their products and can walk you through steps to try and fix the machine. Choose “my brew” from the menu and you can select the exact temperature that you want the water to be delivered at.

The machine offers the usual ‘pause and pour’ feature, and has a warming plate too. It has a ‘dosage ladder’ in its filter which is says will help guide you on how much coffee to use, but we found this a bit fiddly and preferred to opt for going for a certain number of scoops. For the price, we think the design (not to mention, that KitchenAid branding that will pair perfectly with the best stand mixer) is a real winner. The Bambino machines have a pre-infuse option like the larger Sage espresso machines that you can manually adjust. Add the coffee and water and press go. Your coffee is delivered in just a few minutes. Quality Of Coffee 10/10 Rest the portafilter on the group head and activate the grind by pushing the button behind the rest. Like professional machines, the Bambino Plus can deliver third wave speciality coffee. This is made possible by the 4 keys formula. Delivering barista quality performance using a 54mm stainless steel portafilter with 18 grams of coffee for full flavour and a powerful hands-free automatic steam wand that makes microfoam milk for you ready for latte art. With a proprietary ThermoJet heating system the machine is ready to start in 3 seconds.

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To texture the milk, set the end temperature on the LCD screen to the desired amount of foam and submerge the steam wand. You are also able to program your own customised coffee into the machine by selecting the size of the espresso (single or double), the heat of the milk and the amount of foam. Because the Sage Oracle has a dual boiler you are able to texture your milk at the same time as pulling a shot of espresso. The machine is also preprogrammed with 8 of the classic coffees that you can select straight out the box.