The Easiest Way to Make the Best-Tasting Espresso at Home
The Oracle Touch uses an intuitive touchscreen to prepare and re-create on command your favorite espresso drink.
The Characteristics
(Bloomberg) -- In its native Australia, Breville is synonymous with toasters. But since expanding to the U.S. in 2002, the company has been quietly unsettling a wide field of established brands with durable, high-performance induction burners and food processors. Its latest coup is in the automatic espresso market: The Oracle Touch uses an intuitive touchscreen to prepare—and re-create on command—your favorite espresso drink. An integrated conical burr grinder removes guesswork, and a steam wand, powered by a dedicated boiler, textures milk to your taste without requiring a doctorate in coffee science.
The Competition
Although it looks like an industrial-grade machine, the $2,500 Oracle Touch is meant to help java fiends make cafe-quality drinks at home. Jura Inc.’s $5,500 Giga W3 offers 31 espresso drinks, compared with the Oracle Touch’s five, but Breville’s precise temperature control produces more balanced espresso. The $3,000 Prima Donna S from De’Longhi SpA also has a double boiler to heat water, an integrated burr grinder, a self-cleaning milk wand, and a memory function to store preferences, but only the Breville regulates water pressure to prevent bitterness and get an even extraction.
The Case
The Oracle Touch’s exacting technical standards for temperature, timing, pressure, and steam are the highest available to non-baristas. Once you load the commercial-style portafilter, all the tricky functions—grinding, dosing, and tamping—are automated. The dedicated steam boiler creates ideal milk temperatures for silky lattes. The machine’s big selling point, though, is the color touchscreen that lets you customize and save favorite drinks, whether you like to add more foamy milk for a dry cappuccino or an extra shot (or two) for a potent Americano to kick-start the day. $2,500; brevilleusa.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Justin Ocean at jocean1@bloomberg.net.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.