The New Breville Barista Express Impress Espresso Machine: Tested and Approved

#1 The Automation

The best part of this machine is the automation. Out of the box, it’s pretty primed to make you a great shot of espresso, even if you’ve never touched an espresso machine before. Part of this automation is tamping, a point in espresso-making where it’s very easy to mess up. It’s the evening out of your espresso grinds once they’re in your portafilter, to create the “puck.” Tamp too light and/or unevenly, and the water won’t be able to fully saturate your grinds. Tamp too hard and you might end up with a too-bitter espresso. One of the only ways to figure out how hard you’re tamping is to literally push down on a scale, which seems like a lot of extra work for an afternoon latte.

So Breville automated this part of the process. The big cylindrical part of the machine is the tamper. Press down on the slot machine arm, the interior mechanism tamps the espresso into the puck, and if everything is right, you’ll light up the scale to the smiley face. If the tamp doesn’t light up to the correct line (under-dose) or goes too far (over-dose), it gives feedback to itself so everything should autocorrect for next time. I found it did take a couple of attempts to recalibrate, especially when you're changing beans, so expect to have to sacrifice a shot or two.

#2 The Grind

Having a coffee machine with its own built-in grinder is truly one of the world’s ultimate luxuries. No more fine coffee grinds on your countertop or a mess of grinds all over the kitchen floor at 6 am. And, not only does this espresso machine have a built-in grinder, it has so many grind settings that you can fully customize your final cup.

I spoke to another editor for The Spruce Eats who has owned the previous, non-auto version for about three years and uses it at least twice a day. One massive problem with it, he says, is the mess. Despite the built-in grinder, you end up with grinds overflowing everywhere—unless you buy some add-ons (a dosing filter). This one is perfectly clean.

Since the tamping and dosing are automated with regular feedback to the machine, you can play around with the grind size to start your barista journey. You have 25 options to choose from, all via an internal burr grinder. My machine is currently set to a faster extraction, which the tamp accounts for, and makes a shot of espresso in seconds. Once you figure out where your happiness lies, then you can level up to advanced barista and start experimenting with manual modes.

#3 The Coffee

Let’s be honest, all of this automation and customization would be useless if the machine wasn’t able to get enough pressure to give you great coffee. Thankfully, it does. All nine bars of pressure extract the perfect shot with thick, rich crema. While that’s pulling, you can easily figure out how to froth up milk, as a true beginner tester did (and yes, any milk, I tried plant-based ones, too). 

It was the final shots that led my fellow tester and I to discover one of the machine’s only flaws—there are no markings or indents on the drip tray for cup placement. The two holes in the drip tray do line up to where the espresso would drip straight down, but not placing our mugs perfectly led to some splattering and drips down the side. As we drink more morning lattes, I’m sure we’ll perfect even that.

One final note...

This is not a cheap machine by any means. At around $900, it's certainly an investment. Still, all of the testers agreed that its usability, customization, and performance make it a worthwhile splurge.

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Siobhan Wallace is a commerce editor with The Spruce Eats. She's also a former barista and still loves an afternoon latte.