Breville Oracle Touch Review: Breville’s Super-Automatic Espresso Machine

Breville’s Oracle Touch espresso machine is an astounding all-in-one piece of machinery that offers espresso-based drinks as well as custom creations on its touchscreen. It stores beans, pulverizes them, passes them into a portafilter, stamps, and pre-infuses, then finally pulls the shot. Comes with dedicated espresso and steam boilers. Can foam milk with a range of consistencies simultaneously pouring the shot.

The Oracle offers an incredible amount of modifications and hands-on time. Meanwhile automated enough that making a bad drink is almost impossible. You’ve reimbursed nearly as much for motor cars. But for those who are willing to spend over $2,500 on this espresso maker, our Breville Oracle Touch review argued that it has indeed made an outstanding machine for the customers.

Since the price is high for this machine, it’s within your right to have high expectations from it. Breville sees to it too! You’ll be excited and happy to use this machine. So, it is packed with way more functions and traits that you don’t imagine getting in a single espresso machine.

Among the superb, yet efficient functionalities and features of the Oracle Touch espresso machine are the following:

Built-in Conical Burr Grinder

With this embedded burr grinder you can flawlessly get the perfect grounds to get the full and natural flavor of your coffee. With a press of a tab, you can grind the exact amount of ground every time.

Automatic And Hands-free Grind, Tamp, And Dose

This is the most wonderful feature of this machine. The ability to relish hands-free tamping and dosing. The grinder offers a precise amount of ground. After that, there’s the automatic dosing part. For the automated tamping, it has an integrated tamper. A tamping fan works with pressure on top of the grounded coffee. Then, smoothens and levels it. Then you have to take out the portafilter for brewing. No spills and no messing around. No need to do any task manually apart from entering the portafilter into the group head before brewing.

Triple Heat System

It has a dedicated steam boiler. The boiler comes with a unified Heat Exchange. It helps thermal stabilization. There’s the espresso boiler with PID technology. It delivers the perfect brewing water temperature. Lastly, an implanted heated group head. It’s a PID-controlled piece. It controls the thermal stability during the entire process.

Automated Touchscreen Display

Swipe and select, and enjoy! The drink menu includes espresso, flat white, long black, latte, and cappuccino. Also, you can change the strength of the coffee, milk texture, and temperature. You can save these changes and make them your customized own drinks, name them, and access them whenever.

Hands-free Milk Texturing

Oracle steam wand steams milk to the required temperature automatically. Also adjusts the quantity of air for perfect frothing. It will also store your preferences. So next time just has to recall the data you set for that type of coffee. After you’re done, it’ll do automatic purging to clear the steam wand.

Simultaneous Steam And Coffee

With this machine, you can simply do milking and brewing side by side. Its dual boilers are dedicated to espresso extraction and milk texturing. So, it’s very easy and fast.

Ideal Water Temperature & Precise Water Pressure

Breville Oracle Touch coffee machine offers such by having digital temperature control, also known as PID technology in it.

During coffee extraction, high pressure leads to bitter-tasting coffee. Thus, the Oracle touch coffee maker comes with the Over Pressure Valve (shortly, OPV) that shortens the maximum pressure when extracting. This trait is only found in a few commercial-grade espresso machines. Also, its low-pressure pre-infusion gives an eventual rise in the pressure. So, coffee grounds will tenderly expand for the even and best extraction.

Adequate Steam Pressure

The steam wand will texture your milk automatically according to your selected temperature and style. Thus, you can get the café-grade rich and silky milk foam that will surely amplify the taste of your coffee. So, an immaculately extracted coffee, with your silky-smooth milk foam will offer you one of the best cups of joe you’ve never had before at home.

There are still other amazing attributes of this machine. We could actually take forever in this Breville Oracle review article, but, it’s better you appreciate and discover them by yourself, we’ll only talk about how to set it up and of course, to actual fundamental uses of it.

Design And Specifications

Out of the package, you can see that this machine is big. And really demands space on your table or counter. The width is 14.7 inches, 15.4 inches deep with the portafilter. And height is 17.75 inches. It’s a bit heavy to move around since its weight is 37.26 lbs.

A premium-made appliance like the Oracle Touch is built with brushed stainless steel casing. Ensuring durability and wiping out dirt and spills easily. There’s a detachable water tank at the back. It has 84oz of water capacity. And it can be filled up to the top. It has a backlit-level indicator and a merged water filter.

It runs at 120 Volt with a power limit rating of 1800W. It comes with a touchscreen display that offers you settings for pre-programmed favorite coffees, customizable drinks, froth level, and milk temperature, adjustable grind controls, coffee strengths, hot water options, and so on. It has non-pressurized and 58mm bottomless portafilters.

Warm-up for estimated brew time is around 10 minutes. While the warming-up for steam is almost 25 minutes. With dual boilers of stainless steel, you can do brewing and milk texturing together. It has an auto-on/off function with a pre-infusion system. It gets an even-quality extraction of your grounds.

It has a swivel foot for dripping down that is very neat and can easily lift the machine for action. The Oracle Touch espresso machine also has a heated tray for cup warming. Dedicated warm water outlet that supplies hot water for Americano as well as preheating the cups and descaling the access point. It has a removable and capacitive drip tray. The trays’ Empty Me! indicator signals when it is full. A tool storage tray also keeps all the tools.

Accessories

In the process of doing our Breville Oracle espresso machine review, we got this bundle of accessories for the main product that you won’t have with other super-automatic espresso machines:

1. Double spout portafilter handle
2. Milk pitcher, stainless steel-made
3. For cleaning purposes, a blind basket
4. A knock box for racking up used coffee pucks
5. Pro basket for a single shot for the single espresso
6. Pro basket for a double shot for the double espresso

The baskets are not the amateurish double-walled types. But the professional barista kind. All of these mentioned products have the top-quality feel and look of components you’ll get in coffee shops.

Even though this brushed stainless steel-made appliance weighs about 38 pounds, it’s not quite the immovable machine we had forethought. The roller bearings can be released or locked by revolving a knob on the machine are a help. Especially when it needs cleaning or repositioning.

Brewing Capacity And Process

Preparation of espresso-based drinks, customized coffee drinks, and frothing are made seamless and easier with the Oracle Touch espresso machine. The process is straightforward! Starts from the bean hopper. Beans will be put on the grinder. Then coffee grounds will be dispensed into the portafilter. Which will already be tamped and at the prime dose. Then, you can set the portafilter into the group head. Start brewing. Then, finally do the frothing.

It is indeed easy being said. The point about super-automatic machines is that you should set the variables that prepare a perfect cup of café quality coffee. Set each or some variables parameter. Then, it will give consistent results every time you make your coffee. So, below, we will talk about a detailed brewing procedure and what factors you need to get good with when making coffee with this particular machine.

Before you can step into grinding, from 5 pre-programmed coffee drinks, you have to select a drink. You need to warm up your glass or cup to hold the coffee’s prime temperature. Likewise, it’s also required to preheat your filter basket and portafilter for an indifferent reason. Cold portafilter can bring down the extraction temperature. That will also deter the quality of a drink.

Insert the bean hopper on top of the machine. Then, lock-in in its place. You can fill it up with fresh espresso beans. Now let the machine handle the rest. You can apply either a double or single filter basket to be paired with the portafilter, before locking it into the machine.

Oracle Touch espresso machine can grind just the correct quantity of coffee grounds. After this, dispense it into the portafilter. It will face automatic tamping and dosing. Thus, when you take the portafilter out of the cradle, all you have to do is accurately insert it back into the machine’s group head. Before you set the portafilter, it is compulsory to clear out the group head. It will allow water to run for about five seconds to move any residual coffee.

Once you lock in the portafilter correctly (see LOCK TIGHT position), touch the “Brew” tab. It will start the extraction. As already mentioned, you can select between custom, single, or double when you can set the brew timer. Press and hold the “Brew” button if you need to get into the manual extraction setting. You can tap again the “Brew” button to stop it.

Auto And Manual Milk Frothing

For the milk texturing and frothing, you can also do it manually or automatically. For automatic, fill up the jug with cold fresh milk just under the spout position. Then, lift up the steam wand and put it into the jug. Now, lower the steam wand and check that it’s all the way down. Now tap the “Milk” button. It’ll automatically start the milk texturing. The process continues until it rises up to the selected temperature.

For the manual approach, it is almost the same steps. You just need to disable the automatic milk texturing and auto shut-off. How? Lift the steam wand. For around two seconds tap and hold the “Milk” button to get into manual mode. Once there, simply select the “Milk” button. It will start the manual frothing. Tap again when you feel like it’s done.

Now get the milk jug. Wipe the steam off the wand with a fabric. Lower the steam wand and push it downward. Doing so will start the automatic purging to clean the wand for the next use.

1. Has automatic grinding, dosing, tamping, and steaming
2. The built-in tamper. It ensures consistent pressure and result
3. Has an automatic purge on the steam wand and the group head
4. You can pick and choose between manual and automatic processes
5. It comes with a dual boiler. You can steam and brew simultaneously!
6. Delivers great coffee. Makes it look like real barista-level brewing every time
7. Very easy to clean. Has reminders for the next descaling and cleaning cycle

1. It’s an expensive espresso machine
2. The model needs a big space on your kitchen countertop
3. Since it is automatic, troubleshooting is a greater headache
4. The warm-up length is way longer than other super-automatic machines
5. Some users grumbled that the replacement of the water filter is not available
6. There are trivial software bugs. Especially when listing modified coffee drinks

3 Reasons For Oracle Touch

1. Milk Tank: The Breville Oracle comes with a milk tank. But the Jura S8 model does not have this advantage
2. Bigger Water Tank Capacity: The Breville Oracle’s water tank capacity is 2.5L. That’s 0.6L more than the Jura S8s’ (S8’s capacity is 1.9L)
3. Cheaper: The Breville Oracle Touch costs less than the Jura S8

4 Reasons For Jura S8

1. Built-in Milk Frother: The Jura S8 owns an integrated milk frother. But the Breville Oracle touch does not have this
2. Better Kagoo Score: The Jura S8 has a Kagoo score of 82. On the other hand, the Breville Oracle has only scored 74
3. 20 Months Newer: The Jura S8 was released in the market 20 months later than Breville Oracle Touch
4. Better Brand: Jura coffee machines have a rating of 83.8% (average). However, Breville Oracle Touch espresso machine averages 75.1% ratings only

All that being discussed here on the Breville oracle touch reviews, if you are searching for an espresso machine that delivers you with plenty of hand-holding yet comes up with a splendid amount of modification and an almost professional feel with it, the Oracle Touch is exactly what you need.

Happy Brewing!