Breville 800ESR

Maggie

My partner and I are interested in spending around $200-$400 on a home espresso machine. We will be opening our own cafe in the future and would like to use the home machine to practice decorating the froth, and to enjoy a good quality brew. I should say at this point that we also enjoy drinking hot chocolate.
We've been looking at the new Breville E800ESR Chilli Red machine. We love the colour, the self-purging feature,the tank capacity and the over-flow capacity and the 2-year warranty. We have sent an email to Breville asking if we can also use the machine to make hot chocolate.
We were wondering if any of you had an opinion about this model, or any suggestions for machines in a similar price range.
Regards, and many thanks for this wonderful site.

admin

Hi Maggie - we did a domestic espresso machine review in our Winter issue last year, although I don't think this particular model was around then. Generally, the 'appliance' brands - Breville and Sunbeam - have done a good job in bringing to market cheap, but also quite capable, home machines at a very reasonable price (Sunbeam has tended to be the innovator in this regard, but Breville follows closely). They are both good brands for the average home user - the only thing I would question is whether using one of these is good preparation for eventually starting up your own cafe. If 'decorating the froth' is all you're interested in, then they should be fine. However, generally speaking, working on a commercial machine is quite a different experience from working on a small $300-$400 unit. Hope that helps; any other comments, anyone? -A

mattyj

If you want the red breville, go for it. But keep in mind that all these mahcines (sunbeams, brevilles) are exactly the same machine, dressed up differently, with slight differences in features. Here's what I mean: they all use the same thermoblocks, filter baskets, showerscreens & group seals. Where they differ is things like the ball jointed steam arm on the breville, the digital readout on one of the sunbeams, self-purging features (even my three-year-old now-retired-to-the-garage sunbeam did that) and body shapes. So with that in mind, I'd go for the cheapest with the most features. IMHO, that breville is a bit overpriced.

avitephen

hi Maggie i used to own a cheaper sunbeam and i had alot of difficulties making microfoam.. if your after practice in texturing milk or wanting to play with late art i would defiantly suggest getting something with a largish tank rather then a single thermoblock. the reason is that by the time you have textured your milk you have to wait a while for the machine to heat up again before you can pull an espresso shot and this delay will muck up your milk. (if you do it the other way around the crema usually dissolves so you cant get the amber crema interacting with the white milk that late art relies on) if your set at that price maybe you could get two really cheap machines (ive seen the sunbeam risretto at $69) and use one to make coffee and the other to texture the milk. if your looking at doing this as a profession later on you might as well fork out a little bit more money and get a higher end domestic ( Rancilio Silvia,  Gaggia Classic or  Via Venezia) i recently bought a sunbeam EM6900 and thanks to its twin thermoblock system that has a water heating system dedicated to steam production and one to espresso, it can produce espresso while steaming milk no worries.. (which means i can pour good microfoam milk over fresh crema) u gota do a lot of research to figure out which machine best suits you and determine if the budget your set at is going to bite you later on