Breville BES860XL Barista Express Espresso Machines

Really great cappuccino and espresso

Rating:

By Rick Vincent

I bought the Breville BES860XL Barista Express espresso machine a couple weeks ago and have already used it like a dozen times. The espresso is so good that I can't stop using it. We are big time coffee lovers in our family and have spent more than enough money at our local coffee shops. That was the main reason for buying the Barista Express, to get high quality espresso and cappuccino without spending $5 for each cup.

Everything we noticed on this machine is heavy duty, especially the stainless steel used throughout. Many of the other machines that we looked at just weren't built as good even though they were almost as expensive. While I haven't had it for very long I'm confident it will last for a long time. We also take good care of it which is important.

Brewing with the Breville is simple. You just fill it with fresh coffee beans, choose which filter you want to use, press the button to fill the filter with the fresh grounds, tamp with the heavy tamper, and hit the brew start button. The espresso comes out perfectly every time with a very nice crema on the head. And the flavor is as good as Starbucks, seriously.

Grinding the beans is also quite fast and not nearly as loud as you would expect. This is good if you don't want to wake the family up at 5 a.m. if you are an early riser like me. I've never had a coffee grinder before and it really makes a difference in the flavor. This is something I didn't realize until I actually used it.

One thing that really impressed me is the low amount of time it takes to get your espresso. You can literally go from turning it on to drinking your cappuccino or espresso in a couple of minutes. No warm up time is necessary, even for making steamed milk. The steamer itself is also a terrific feature on this machine. You don't need to add much milk at all to get a full cup of froth in no time. Very nice.

The Breville Barista Express BES860XL not only brews up a great cup of whatever coffee based drink you are craving, it's a joy to use. We highly recommend it.

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