Breville espresso. Usually when you think about coffee and anything related to it, you think of Italy or at the very least Europe. Perhaps one of the last areas in the world that you might think of when it comes to coffee culture is Australia. And I’m not bashing Australia. I love Australia and the Australians I’ve met, but I’ve never imagined them to be a coffee culture per se. So I was surprised as perhaps you are that Breville espresso is a company based in Melbourne, Australia.
The Breville espresso machine is one of the single serve coffee makers that are becoming more and more popular. But before we get to the specifics of the Breville espresso maker, let’s uncover a little bit of information about the company behind the name.
Breville was found in 1932 and they started off manufacturing radios and mine detectors during the war. Their name was made up by mixing the last two names of the two founders. Bill O’Brien and Harry Norville were the founders melding their names to become Breville. In the late 50s they focused on the small kitchen appliances for which they have become renowned. An interesting first for the company was that they developed the first sandwich toaster and just like Hoover has become synonymous with vacuum cleaners, Breville has come to mean sandwich toaster in many parts of the world. That toastie maker as it was come to be known was developed in the early 70s.
A pic of Breville Espresso
So with that little bit of history behind us, let us move on to the Breville coffee maker which is what this article is actually all about. As mentioned earlier, the Breville coffee machine is a single serve coffee maker that takes the Keurig coffee pods. For those of you who don’t know, the Keurig k cups are proprietary coffee pods that aren’t like the ESE (Easy Serve Espresso) coffee pods that are available for many a cappuccino machine. There are many of these Breville coffee pods available including espresso pods, though Breville doesn’t make the actual k cups, but there a bunch of companies that do. Some examples are the Timothy’s k cups and others made by Green Mountain Coffee and Tully’s Coffee.
So what can you expect from the Breville espresso maker. These machines which will set you back around two to three hundred dollars are stainless steel. I really like this, as it seems to be getting rarer and rarer nowadays for manufacturers to be using sturdy materials. The default for most espresso machines and even the more expensive ones is plastic. I like stainless steel, to me it speaks a little about the quality and care of attention that Breville is giving to their Keurig coffee machine.
Features of Breville Espresso
The Breville espresso machine also comes with water filtration which can be a nice feature if your water tastes a little off or you’re concerned about the quality of it. However, my personal opinion is that if you are going to be a purist about your coffee flavor profile you’ll want to use distilled water. Nevertheless, a nice carbon filter like the one that Breville provides is useful for just day to day use. Replacing it every 2 months is not onerous either. The Breville BKC700XL also allows for 5 different sizes of beverages to be brewed using Keurig’s patented shower head brewing technology. You can choose from the small 3.25 ounce (96 ml) to the extra large 11.25 ounces or 333 ml. This is all accomplished through a very easy to use LCD display which also has a programmable timer.
A couple of additional handy features is the ability to brew iced beverages. What this means is the Breville coffee maker will brew your favorite beverage as a small concentrated hot drink that you then just add water and/or milk and ice too.
Lastly the water tank of the Breville is a decent 60 ounce or 1.8 liter size, enough to brew individual beverages for the whole family and any friends you might have coming over too. And each person can have their choice of the over 200 available varieties of the k cups… that is, if you have them all. So if you’re looking to try the Keurig k cup system, you will most likely want to take a closer look at the Breville espresso k cup maker.