Cool beans
While there are many espresso machines to choose from, Breville’s latest offering – the Express Impress makes drinking cafe-quality coffees at home extremely simple. Metropol’s over-caffeinated gadget guru Ian Knott goes without sleep for about a month.
I spend too much on coffee. Long gone are the days when you could get a decent fix for $3.50. Most are in the $7-$10 range these days and it soon adds up if you’re grabbing even just one a day.
So when the chance to review the Breville Express Impress came up, my tastebuds, and more importantly my bank account, got excited.
The Express Impress takes a lot of the manual guesswork out of making a good coffee. It remembers the favoured dosage and grinds the beans from the hopper to suit.
As any barista will tell you, there is an art to tamping the grinds down. The correct pressure and a slight seven degree twist is what’s required. A tamping arm on the side of the machine provides the perfect tamp, as easy as pulling the handle on a slot-machine.
A double extraction head then pours a single or double shot of perfect syrupy espresso into a shot glass or directly into your cup, which can be pre-warmed on
the heated top of the machine.
You still need to do your milk manually with the provided milk jug, but I find this all part of the fun. Do your milk just right and you feel like you’ve earned your coffee.
There are some fantastic milk and latte art tutorials on YouTube, be sure to check them out.
For a shade under $1000, the Express Impress will pay for itself in no time, even if you are a casual cafe customer. And it’s clever enough to remember just how you like your favourite brew.
Breville Express Impress Espresso Machine
- Small footprint on your bench, but big enough to navigate around easily.
- Remembers the correct dose of coffee grinds.
- Tamping arm provides the perfect amount of pressure every time.
- Large refillable water tank.
- Available in silver or black.
- Comes with several accessories to make any coffee you like.
- Drip tray prevents any accidental spillages.
