The Breville coffee machine doesn’t get too much press, maybe because Breville is not one of the major Italian cappuccino machine makers. In fact, the Breville coffee maker company has an interesting history. It was started in Australia in 1932, and the company was formed by 2 pals who decided that a portmanteau of their names (combining) would be a great way to come up with the name of the company.
Plus a fair way too. That way each owner shares in the name of the company. So Breville is a combination of the last names of the two founders O’Brien and Norville.
Breville is s small appliance manufacturer but didn’t start off with kitchen appliances. Their first foray into the market was in radios and mine detection for the Second World War. In the seventies they became popular for their sandwich makers. And much the same way that Hoover has become synonymous with vacuums, in many parts of the world, Breville has become synonymous with sandwich makers. Now Breville sticks to kitchen appliances, and the small ones at that as well as the Breville coffee machine.
Types of Breville coffee machine
As far as coffee makers are concerned, you can get Breville coffee machines as well as a Breville espresso machine. First we’ll talk about the Breville coffee makers. The first Breville coffee maker is the Breville single serve coffee maker or the Breville BKC700XL. This is the follow up to their BKC600XL. These 2 coffee machines take the Keurig K cups or Keurig coffee pods, although they aren’t your classic coffee pods but rather use a proprietary system. However, having said that, there are over 200 K cups available from companies other than Keurig, such as Timothy’s K cups and others.
I’m going to be honest with you. You can find cheaper Keurig single serve coffee machines that will do what this Breville coffee machine will do, and you can get them for about half the price. The Keurig single cup brewing system is just one example.
Beyond the simple Breville coffee machine
Now when it comes to the Breville espresso machines this is where you’ll have a few more choices. In fact, when it comes to espresso makers, Breville offers you a choice of 4 cappuccino machines. All 4 of these espresso makers are manual espresso makers, also called semi automatic espresso machines. I wrote up a post on these specifically which you can take a look at under Breville espresso.
Most of the semi automatic espresso makers will take the ESE (Easy Serve Espresso pod). These are the espresso pods that you will find at most coffee shops that sell them and they are the international standard for the coffee pod. The Breville Cafe Modena espresso machine is their entry level and serves well for an entry level machine. It uses the thermoblock heating system and brings 15 bars of pressure to bear on the beans. Quite sufficient. Thermoblock allows for consistent brew temperature at the expense of steaming speed and effeciency.
But you’ll find most machines except for the top end coffee makers suffer similarly from the problems related to only having one water heating unit. The problem is that you have to heat water to two different temperatures. A lower temperature for the brewing and a higher temperature for the steaming. Unless your machine has 2 boiler units you will suffer a compromise so this is not just a problem with the Breville coffee machine.
The Breville Cafe Venezia espresso machine is their next espresso machine up from the entry level. A mid-line version, it is made with a stainless steel body which for me is a big plus. It has an easy eject filter system for making exchanging the coffee pods or ground espresso beans easy. It also offers a generous 15 bars of pressure and the machine also primes the espresso (adds a spray or two of hot water) prior to the actual brewing, helping the espresso expand and allow for better flavor extraction.
The Breville Die-Cast programmable espresso machine is the penultimate machine in their line up and comes with 2 porta filters for more experimentation. It is made of die-case metals, allows you to see and tweak the pressure of the water used for brewing through a pressure dial. It also has dual steam wands and is programmable so you can choose from manual shots, custom shots or auto espresso shots.
The last Breville coffee machine we’ll talk about is the Breville Barista Express (BES860XL) and this is their most expensive machine but also their most beloved from reviewers too. And although it is around 600 bucks you get a lot of features at that price. The Breville BES860XL includes everything from the machine before it except for the dual steaming wands. But it also includes an integrated conical burr grinder and tamper. So although this is a manual espresso machine, it boasts that you’ll go from beans to espresso in less than a minute. And I believe it. This Breville coffee machine is definitely worth a look.
All told, we looked at 6 Breville coffee machines in under 1000 words. The last one we just discussed is my favorite and most consumers too. However, you have quite a few choices if you’re looking for a Breville coffee machine from down under.