Of course, the manual intervention part of the process means you can also tailor brews to be stronger, depending on how you’ve set up the grinder. That means not too strong and with the benefit of being able to add in lots of hot, frothy milk. I’ve taken to the Breville because it seems particularly good at turning out consistently solid cups of coffee, suited to my taste. (Image credit: Breville) Breville Barista Max+ Espresso Coffee Machine: Performance
The steam/milk frother pipe sites over on the right side of the unit. Back around the front, there’s a grill and tray assembly that catches any spilt coffee grinds and excess fluids. Around the back there’s a large water container, serviced from the top or you can detach it if you prefer. Once you’ve got the knack, it serves up ground coffee very well actually while the digital readout tells you how much is being dispensed into either of the two filter baskets. Suddenly though, the click-into-place action it requires to do this right started to make sense. It took me a few goes to get the gist of this, and I did it wrong more than once.
Prior to that though you have to slot the lever, plus the coffee size insert into the slightly flexible plastic coffee grinder outlet. Almost to the point you wonder if you’re going to break it, although the manual does at least tell you this. Similarly, the handle that you lock into place prior to pouring is really tight the first few times you use it. The plastic coffee grinding receptacle slots into place on the top of the machine and you really have to twist it to reach the required grind number. Meanwhile, some aspects of the design leave you wondering how well they’ll fare over time. There’s a solid plastic tamper tool too, plus a milk jug that’s acceptable in feel, rather than premium. These include the chunky lever that you pop the ground coffee into prior to pouring. It does actually look okay though, and the overall barista effect is nicely complimented by the tools and accessories that come with it. You’ll want to keep it out mind as it’s not the sort of thing that’ll fit in a cupboard particularly well either. Nevertheless, the Barista Max+ does look the part, and does also take up a decent amount of countertop space. What you actually get is quite a lot of silver-coloured plastic, some chrome buttons and the odd flourish of stainless steel. Having been offered the Barista Max+ in either stylish black or classic stainless steel and opting for the latter, I was slightly disappointed to find that it isn’t quite as shiny, shiny as the glossy press images suggest.