Just imagine: the ease and speed of use of a bean-to-cup machine and the taste quality of a real espresso. All without needing to know (the difficult) method of espresso extraction.
It seemed impossible just a short while ago, but now it’s possible with the new Breville Barista Touch Impress.
It skilfully combines the brand’s know-how with technology that fully assists you in preparing your coffee.
Actually, no, it’s the machine that takes care of everything, and you become its assistant.
Now you have to ask yourself: is the coffee really up to scratch?
If the machine is so easy to use?
Is the milk foam produced with the automatic steam nozzle sufficiently textured?
I’ve been testing the Breville Barista Touch Impress for several weeks, and here’s my complete and most objective review of this amazing machine!
Who is Touch Impress?
Breville Barista Touch Impress is the brand’s latest addition. Perhaps that’s why it has a fairly compact format. And yet, it already has all the assets of a great one and, above all, a touch of modernity. It expresses this through a color touch screen that you’d never expect to see on an espresso machine.
(I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post)
Another feature I really like is the rounded shape. If you’re familiar with Breville models, you’ll know that the machines are quite “square”. The Barista Touch Impress offers us softer shapes and a more successful design.
Where most brands play on the tradition and style of the Italian machine, it knows how to turn codes on their head, while still retaining very classic design touches.
The result is a visually stunning machine that is easy to install in the kitchen.
Supplied accessories
This is one of the great advantages of Breville machines: they come with everything you need to make your own coffee and cappuccinos.
- 54 mm steel filter holder
- 480 ml stainless steel milk jug
- Non-pressurized 1-cup or 2-cup basket
- 1-cup or 2-cup pressurized basket (for practice or emergency use if you only have ground coffee)
- Water hardness test strip
- Cleaning tablets
- Various cleaning tools
- The Razor (to remove excess coffee if necessary)
If you really want to be fully equipped, I’d advise you to buy a knock box too, otherwise you’ll get coffee everywhere. A coffee scale is also very practical, although not compulsory with this machine, but it will enable you to fine-tune your espresso and is always good to have at home when preparing your coffee.
List of beverages that can be made with Touch Impress
- Flat White
- Latte
- Cappuccino
- Espresso
- Long Black
- Babyccino (!) (my kids love it)
- Hot chocolate
- Tea
- 8 beverages can be customized and saved by modifying their parameters.
The benefits of Sage Barista Touch Impress
There are a few elements that undeniably make this machine a real discovery, a nice surprise, and maybe even the next espresso machine on your counter.
The Impress system: for a perfect wafer
This espresso cake preparation system was introduced with the Barista Express Impress.
The Impress Puck is an innovation that does the job by simply pressing a lever on the side of the machine. This activates a built-in tamper to even out the coffee grind.
If you know anything about the principles of espresso extraction, you’ll know how crucial each step is to a good cup of coffee. One tiny mistake and your espresso could be at worst undrinkable, or at best not very good.
It’s more than just a squeeze, it’s a replica of the barista’s perfect technical gesture, i.e. a 10 kg squeeze and a 7° twist. Breville takes details seriously.
Touch screen: access to all Touch Impress settings
The presence of a touch screen on an espresso machine is so rare that it deserved to feature prominently in the machine’s name. And so it is with Breville Touch Impress. A screen can be found on the Oracle Touch, for example (but in this case we’re not in the same price range).
The screen works well and gives us access to all the customization options (coffee, plant milks, etc.) as well as cleaning and maintenance options. The screen is functional, but I would have liked a little more response.
The screen is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, enabling you to set up and save your drinks quickly and easily. Up to 8 drinks can be set in this way. The display also guides you through every step, including maintenance and steam nozzle handling.
It can also be used to select and adjust settings for different types of milk.
Elegant, well incorporated and truly useful, it adds real value to the machine’s operation.
The mill: the centerpiece
Baratza quality
It takes a lot to make a good cup of coffee. But the quality of the mill is undoubtedly the most important factor of all. As you know, I repeat this quite often in my videos.
On this model, we particularly appreciate the use of a Baratza mill. Lovers of manual machines, and who therefore use a mill, already know the value of Baratza.
This is a 40mm steel conical mill, adjustable to 30 positions. This allows you to switch easily between lighter and darker roasts.
Here’s another important point to mention. These are the same wheels found on the Baratza Encore ESP. The brand’s latest espresso model. It’s important to mention that the quality of the grinder and grindstones is so important in the preparation of an espresso.
Automatic setting
Adjusting the grind is always a delicate exercise. Too fine and your coffee will not flow or will be very bitter.
Too coarse and your coffee will run off too quickly and be very acidic .
And this is precisely where the Barista Touch Impress revolutionizes espresso machines for the home, as it will help us adjust the grindstones to find the right flow.
With each new coffee, the machine will ask you to position the grinder on the number 15, the central position, and start a coffee. It then calculates whether the volume in cups in relation to the flow time is correct.
The machine will then ask you to adjust the grinder as necessary to get the right grind.
You are then free to change these settings one or two notches to obtain the perfect coffee. That’s often what I’ve done.
The Barista Touch Impress lets you prepare a real espresso, at home, without any knowledge of barista or espresso extraction. It’s currently the only machine on the market capable of delivering such high-quality results.
As a reminder, the Impress system is not electric: you manually operate the lever on the left-hand side of the machine, and the coffee is automatically compacted to perfection.
The aim of this technique is to ensure that the surface of the wafer is perfectly even, so as to optimize the passage of water over the entire surface. And if ever your filter cake was not optimal when the machine checked it when the filter holder was installed, the program makes you complete your cake.
Espresso quality
This is where it all comes down to it.
Without a good espresso, all other milk drinks will fall short.
You may be thinking that there are already many automatic machines on the market. And it’s true. We’ve got more than enough grain machines to choose from.
But the great achievement of this machine is that it produces a true espresso. I often talk about this in my videos: espresso from automatic machines is good, but it can lack body, texture and aroma. Automation comes at a cost in terms of quality.
And that’s what makes the extraction so good, with this coffee’s beautiful mouthfeel, creaminess and aromas exploding on the palate thanks to the pre-infusion (not adjustable in terms of time, which is a bit of a shame), followed by the infusion itself at 9 bars.
Simply put, it’s impossible to miss a cup of coffee or espresso, thanks to the constant, intelligent support provided by Touch Impress.
The steam nozzle: AutomilQ takes care of everything
Few machines can boast a top-level steam nozzle. They are mainly found on manual machines because of their heating power, and some even have their own boiler.
And yet, on this Breville Barista Touch Impress model, the nozzle is exceptional. To demonstrate its quality, the brand talks of a nozzle capable of producing 1 million micro-bubbles of milk per ml. I was not recounted.
On the other hand, the quality, beyond the quantity, is indeed there, and makes it easy to indulge in the latte art technique by switching to manual mode (with the nozzle raised) if you want to impress your guests.
Best of all, the nozzle is automatic. Just dip it into the stainless steel pitcher (included) for impressive results.
Best of all – and this is where the screen really comes into its own – you can customize your foam. There’s a whole range of temperatures to choose from, from 40°C to 75°C, as well as 8 texture levels for emulsified milk.
And to top it all off, you can specify whether you’re using cow’s milk or a plant-based milk such as almond (or oat or soy).
In this case, the machine will automatically adapt its parameters to obtain a result identical to that of animal milk. To my knowledge, it’s the only machine capable of adapting to milk in order to get the best out of it.
Thermojet, the new-generation thermoblock
We must stop at the thermojet. This is the machine’s heating system. It’s a kind of thermoblock, but improved. In fact, it only takes 30 seconds – excuse me, 3 seconds – to heat up the machine.
Yes, 3 seconds. It’s an impressive result, especially as it consumes 30% less energy than a conventional thermoblock. There is one drawback, however: the machine heats up so quickly that you have to warm up your cup of coffee beforehand, as the cup warmer can’t keep up.
Quite simply, this is the most efficient coffee machine system on the market.
A few more words about Barista Touch Impress
Touch Impress maintenance
When you see the machine’s level of assistance on its display, you know there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to maintenance. Everything is explained and the reminder is automatic. Bear in mind that you will still need to rinse the filter holder or steam nozzle on a daily basis to avoid milk residues.
Coffee settings
Breville has taken the gamble of offering a machine similar to a manual espresso machine, but with a high level of assistance.
You’ll be able to adjust the parameters of your coffee, but you won’t have as many options as with some high-end grinders or well-used manual machines. In practice, however, the quality level of Touch Impress already satisfies 90% of users.
The Breville application
So no, the Touch Impress is not a connected machine. Don’t be disappointed. A connected machine won’t be relevant until it fetches the milk jug from the fridge, or the mug from the cupboard.
On the other hand, the Breville AR app lets you have fun putting this machine (and all the others from the brand) in your home environment thanks to augmented reality. In concrete terms, it’s used to choose the color of household appliances. The Touch Impress is available in just one color.
What conclusions can we draw from this Touch Impress
This Barista Touch Impress is simply an excellent machine. It offers the quality of a semi-automatic machine, but with the level of support you’d expect from an espresso grinder.
It’s a judicious and intelligent approach, designed to open doors for those who dare not venture into a world requiring too much adjustment and manual involvement. The touch-screen accompaniment avoids this pitfall, while offering similar quality thanks to the Impress system. It compacts, evens out and then controls the coffee cake to produce an impressive result.
The coffee is like velvet, rich, generous, creamy and subtle. Whether you change the bean every day, or have fun testing the different milks and textures of the mousse, you’ll always notice the difference. And it’s a real pleasure.
Technical data
- Width: 40 cm
- Depth: 35 cm
- Height: 33 cm
- Milk system: automatic steam nozzle
- Filter holder: 54 mm
- Interface: touch screen
- Connected machine: no
- Cup warmer: no
- Mill type: steel, Baratza brand
- 2 simultaneous coffees: yes
- Hot water: yes
- Hot milk: yes
- Material(s) : Steel
- Water tank volume: 2 l
- Grain bin volume: 340 g
- Number of seed trays: 1 tray
- Weight: 12 kg
Breville , a brand to discover, or rediscover
Brand history
Breville is a new brand in the world of household appliances. More precisely, she was born in 2019. In fact, this is the European branch of Breville, an Australian brand that has been present in the world of household appliances for more than 70 years, and tends to focus on the top end of the market.
Until then, Breville had sold part of its production to Europe, but under various other brand names. And so it’s not until 2019 that the brand takes the decision to conquer the European market under its own name.
This brief history is important, as it demonstrates both the brand’s long-standing expertise, and its determination to look to the future with more contemporary products, using the latest technologies. And in the world of espresso machines, that’s a position that’s rare enough to warrant mention.
Breville Barista Touch Impress
I recommend this machine:
- You are looking for a machine that strikes an impressive balance between automation and quality
- You want a semi-automatic machine with the user-friendly assistance of a bean-to-cup model
- It heats up in just 3 seconds, making it incredibly efficient.
In summary:
The Breville Barista Touch Impress is a compact machine that features a modern design with a color touch screen, allowing users to navigate settings easily.
It comes with essential tools, including a 54 mm steel filter holder, stainless steel milk jug, and various baskets for different coffee preparations.
Additional accessories, like cleaning tablets and The Razor (for removing excess coffee), enhance usability.
Users can create a range of beverages, including flat whites, lattes, cappuccinos, and even babyccinos.
The machine allows for customization of up to eight drinks, enabling you to adjust parameters to suit your preferences.
Its unique feature, the Impress System, ensures optimal tamping of the coffee, replicating the barista’s technique for a perfect puck.
It simplifies the espresso-making process while maintaining quality.
The responsive touch screen provides quick access to drink customization, cleaning routines, and maintenance guidance.
Users can easily adjust settings for different types of milk and save preferred drink parameters.
The automatic steam wand excels in producing microfoam, essential for latte art.
The Thermojet Heating System heats up in just 3 seconds, making it incredibly efficient.
- The Impress system that allows for optimal tamping
- The enhanced steam wand
- The screen for complete guidance on how to use the machine
- Diversity of available beverages
- The screen lacks a bit of responsiveness