Sage - The Oracle Touch, Brushed Stainless Steel

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Ultimately if we're asking if the Oracle is worth it, meaning is it worth spending the additional money on vs a more affordable coffee machine, then we have to focus on cup quality. If you are trying my coffee beans, I'd highly recommend the blends, Chocolate Brownie blend, Fruitcake blend, Fruit & Nut blend & Classic Italian blend.

What are they? These are traditional espresso machines with partial assistance, to reduce the learning curve and the effort required.The cleverness doesn't end there though, the user interface on the Precision Brewer gives you control over brew temperature, bloom time, bloom volume and flow rate, so this means you can play around with these variables to dial in the beans you're using, to get as close to perfect as possible. I'll go into more detail on the touch a bit later on in this review, but for this really brief nutshell version, I'll just say that the touch is the touchscreen version of the oracle, a bit more flashy to look at, a bit easier to use initially, although in the long term once you find your feet with it, I think the standard Oracle is just as easy to use. There are five factory pre-set coffees, which you can fully adjust, and 8 spaces for your own completely custom coffees. Cheers for the comment, and I agree to a certain degree, but this isn’t a Sage-specific issue, it’s a model-specific issue. Who are they for? I would be sarcastic & say “people who want to drink filter coffee” ;-), but there's more to it than that. Sage only make one filter coffee machine, and it's really quite a special filter coffee machine. These are for people who are really particular about their filter coffee.

I think my wife (who works with me full-time in the studio) probably got fed up of waxing lyrical about the Oracle every time I used it ;-), it's just very impressive given the amazing convenience and the level of cup quality it's capable of. This is a brilliant machine capable of fantastic espresso and espresso-based coffees, paired with a decent grinder and in the hands of someone with some barista skills, See my review: In my humble opinion, when it comes to push button milk texture, there's no coffee machine on the market (or at least I haven't seen it, if there is one) which can rival the quality of the milk texture that the Oracle range is capable of. Not only the quality of the texture but also the control over both the texture and the temperature.

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The Barista Touch Impress makes more sense to me than the Barista touch. I used to say when talking about the Barista Touch, that I just didn't quite get why someone who would want a touch screen would want assistance on the milk side of things, but not where espresso is concerned. When I said it wasn't for everyone, though, I don't think the Barista Express is the best choice for people who're really looking for home barista experience. In my opinion the Barista Express is the most mainstream-focused Sage coffee machine with integrated grinder. Quite often I'm asked whether I'd go for the Gaggia Classic Pro vs Sage Bambino Plus, that's a very common comparison question, but I think the Duo Temp Pro is a much more obvious comparison to the Classic. So in a nutshell, the Barista Express is a great value for money option if you're not aiming for home barista use and freshly roasted beans, but if you are heading in that direction I'd recommend having a look at the Barista Pro instead. Who are they for? As with integrated grinder espresso machines, this kind of machine is best suited to people who want to develop home barista skills. You can reduce the skill requirement by using the dual walled baskets they all come with as well as the traditional baskets, but if you don't want a learning curve, you'd be much better looking at the assisted machines.

The Barista Express takes slightly longer (20 seconds or so) to get up to steam ready vs the thermojet machines which start almost instantly, and it's slightly slower to steam milk than the machines with the thermojet. It does a great job of milk texturing, it just does it a bit slower than the Barista Pro.The Creatista range of Nespresso machines from Sage are basically the Bambino Plus but for Nespresso pods, with three different options, all of which have auto steam wands. Not only can you tweak and save the milk texture and temperature for each drink, but you can choose a default milk or milk alternative type (Moo, Oat, Soy, Almond) and the texture levels and temperatures are automatically tweaked accordingly.

Nope. Well, you can I suppose, you can do whatever you like – but if you're asking if you should, then the answer is definitely no. This is a high quality espresso machine with standard, traditional espresso baskets, it doesn't come with pressurized (dual walled) baskets, so it's intended for freshly grinding coffee via the integrated grinder. If you're thinking about using pre-ground decaf – just buy high quality freshly roasted decaf, keep it in air-tight storage, and switch beans when someone wants a decaf. This leads nicely to: Is It Easy to Switch From One Bean to Another With the Sage Oracle & Oracle Touch? This is one of Sage's least sketchy machine in terms of longevity and repairability out of warranty period, as there's just so little in terms of electronics or non-standard parts, but the Gaggia Classic is very difficult to compete with where longevity and durability is concerned. They last decades, as I know as mine is 20 years old. If you pull your first shot with the Oracle as soon as the machine displays that it is up to temp and then pull your second shot 20 mins later, for example, just keep in mind that you're likely to encounter some differences in the shot. For the best consistency, I'd recommend leaving your machine to heat up for 10-15 mins before pulling each shot, and then flush hot water through the group and the portafilter into your cup (to warm everything up including your cup) for the same amount of time before each shot. The brew boiler and the group are connected via dual pids, and the group is heated, so this gives the kind of temperature precision that is incredibly rare unless you go quite a bit higher with the spend. Firstly, descaling the Oracle Touch – who should do this and how often? I’ve read conflicting opinions online for sage double boilers about whether this should be attempted at home or not.

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I first wrote my Sage Oracle review several years ago when Sage Appliances very kindly sent the Sage Oracle to me on loan for a couple of weeks. This post has been completely rewritten now that I know so much more about espresso machines and coffee in general. If you're considering getting into the home barista hobby at the very entry level, and you were thinking along the lines of DeLonghi Dedica, Swan Retry and so on, and doing some modding or buying an aftermarket standard basket portafilter, I'd recommend considering the Bambino instead. For anyone who’s battled forlornly with a manual espresso machine, the Oracle Touch is a revelation. If you're comparing the Duo Temp Pro to the Bambino and Bambino Plus, it's old school vs new school. The Bambino and Bambino Plus have programmable shot buttons, 3 second warm up time, the Plus has auto steaming. So these machines are all about user friendliness and creature comforts, but generally speaking, I'd expect the Duo Temp pro to go on for much longer after the initial warranty period vs the Bambino and Bambino Plus.