Pat is an espresso machine enthusiast with a passion for perfecting every shot. With years of hands-on experience testing espresso machines, coffee makers and everything in between, Pat provides detailed, no-nonsense reviews to help coffee lovers find the right fit.
Breville has been improving and expanding on their lineup of espresso machines for years now. The Barista Express and Oracle lines have always been about simplicity and teaching, and they reached a new level of approach-ability with the Barista Express Impress. Now they’ve brought the tamping innovations found in that machine to the Barista Touch Impress, totally upgrading their platform’s ease of use. But let’s back up and talk about what this machine is without comparing it to other offerings in Breville’s Catalog.
The Basics
The Barista Touch Impress is an all-in-one espresso machine that combines grinder and brewer into one unit. This makes it much easier to shop for your first machine, as you don’t have to worry about selecting the right grinder for whatever machine you buy. It’s a thing that might put veteran home espresso masters off of the machine, but it’s not really for that group of users anyway.
Instead, the Barista Touch Impress is aimed at both espresso newbies, and those who want a simple process and workflow. The two things that elevate the Touch Impress are those two words in the name. First, the helpful touchscreen replaces the button based inputs you might expect from an espresso machine. You can use these menus to get a walkthrough on how to craft your favorite coffee drinks with the machine.
The other main feature that sets the Barista Touch Impress apart is its calibrated tamping. While this isn’t a fully automated tamp, it will help you dial in both your grinder and its own tamp pressure over time. Basically, after grinding you’ll pull a tamp lever. The system will determine if there was too much coffee in the portafilter and make adjustments for future brews. By “training” the tamper and the grinder you can use the system to get perfectly dialed in within a couple of shots.
The Details
Another excellent feature of the Barista Touch Impress is the Auto MilQ system. This hands free steaming option lets you simply place your milk pitcher and let it do its thing. The steam system will deliver some good microfoam performance totally on its own. Even better? The MilQ system has options for almond, oat, and soy milk, so if you like alternative milk the system can handle that too.
The Barista Touch Impress uses a thermojet heating system for fast heat times too, heating water in as little as a few seconds. Finally, there is a hot water option for tea and americano enthusiasts.
Who’s it For?
So who is this machine for? Well, we kind of touched on it earlier. The Breville Barista Touch Impress is a really excellent machine for its price point and for any user who wants to get traditional espresso brewing with guided, automated elements. We really should compare this machine to a superauto, rather than other similar espresso machines, but it’s not quite that either.
With superautomatics, you might get excellent coffee (or you might not), but there is something to having some interactivity. Whether it’s learning to one day brew on a classic Italian machine, or just liking a bit more control, the Barista Touch Impress is a great starting point for any new user or someone ready to upgrade from an entry level superatuo.
Want to find out more? Check out our Crew Review below!
