Getting the ratio of ground coffee to brewed coffee is easiest with a small set of digital scales – as a ballpark figure, you should generally aim for a ratio of grams of espresso in the cup to ground coffee of around 2:1), but we managed to get very drinkable results just by eyeballing the process and using familiar espresso cups. This made it easier to gauge how much coffee was being produced with every extraction. 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.

Before the Oracle machines, there wasn't really an option for these people. They were either forced to put up with the best that bean to cup machines can offer, begrudgingly enter into the home barista hobby, or forget the idea of home espresso altogether. Is the Sage Oracle Worth It? One of the biggest challenges I've faced (especially given I've honed my skills while using so many different espresso machines for relatively short periods of time, using machines that have been sent to me on loan, is with inconsistent jugs of milk.But if you want to get closer and closer to your perfect flat white, latte or cappuccino, you can tweak these settings until you're happy with it, and then save that exact setting as a new drink.

If you're thinking of buying a bean to cup coffee machine for around a grand to fifteen hundred quid, and you're wondering if it's worth spending a few hundred more on the Oracle, personally I believe that the overall cup quality (espresso quality and milk texture quality) is going to be better with the Oracle and Oracle touch than with any bean to cup machine on the market.At the time of writing, all machines in the Sage range except the Barista Express, have the European Etzinger burrs, so the Oracle has better-shot potential due to the superior temperature stability and precision, but mainly via bypassing the integrated grinder and pairing with a premium espresso specialist grinder. You can control the brew temperature over a much bigger range than usual, 10 degrees in 1C increments, from 86-96, and you also have control over preinfusion power, and a much bigger range of preinfusion time than with any other similarly priced dual boiler espresso machine I've come across.

The Bambino doesn't have the auto steaming feature, and that's a good feature for anyone who doesn't want to texture their own milk, but if you're not bothered about that then you'll save some money by going for the Bambino, and the shot quality is the same. The Bambino Plus is the more premium version of the two Bambino machines, and it's one of Sage's most popular coffee machines, certainly one of their most popular stand-alone espresso machines. The Smart Grinder pro is probably as powerful an engine the entry level machines such as the Bambino, Duo Temp Pro and Bambino Plus can really take, in that pairing with a higher-end grinder wouldn't yield big improvements, but with the Dual Boiler, the tires would only just be getting warmed up with the Smart Grinder Pro, it has the ability to take much higher tuned super charged engine.

Nespresso Machines

The Uno is the cheapest in the range (and yes I agree, it's still not cheap for a Nespresso machine), and it only has pre-sets for coffee (espresso, ristretto, lungo), you have to also select the milk texture and temperature, and press the steam button, and then the wand auto froths the milk for you. So, that's the nutshell version of the review, now to get more in-depth for anyone who wants more of the nitty gritty, starting with: What kind of coffee machines are the Oracle and Oracle Touch? While bean to cup machines usually have a grinder with 5-10 grind adjustments, the Oracle has 45, all within the espresso range, which gives the ability to “dial in” which is something you can't really do with the usual 5-10 grind settings. This means you can just press the milk icon first if you want the espresso to pull after the milk steams, or do it the other way around, and in either case it means you don't have to stand in front of the machine for a minute or so. Then, there are people who either have a keen palate where espresso is concerned, for whom nothing but well extracted “true” espresso will do, or they just love the idea of being able to produce great quality espresso regardless of whether they currently have the palate to enjoy it (this was me several years ago).