Hey folks, today we're going to talk about
our fancy new coffee machine. We've been telling
everyone about it at works and I got a few
questions in by social media. So I thought
let's do a review video and we can answer
those questions. So this is it here, it's
called a Barista Express and in the U.K. it's
made by a company called Sage. But when we
were thinking about buying one we did a bit
of research online and watched videos like
this one and we discovered that in other countries
around the world it's called Breville. So
in the U.K. it's sage and around the world
Breville. It's the same machine regardless
of which branding it falls under. For this
type of machine, it's about the mid way point
cost wise, but just to warn you it cost us
just under £600 which I know for a lot of
people is a lot for a coffee machine.But trust
me, we have not regretted that at all. It
makes fantastic coffee and my glorious wife,
Kate who's the coffee drinker absolutely loves
this machine. She doesn't regret the price
at all. So very quickly let's try and take
you through the machine and how it works.
I'll try to cover some of the good points
and the bad points. So first thing, I don't
have any water in here so I need to put some
water in it and the tank is at the back. But
what I like about it is it's dead easy to
access. there's a little handle that flips
up and then lets you pull the tank off, nice
and easy. So you just go fill it under the
tank - the tank? fill it under the tap, put
it back on and you are good to go. So let's
get some water. ok, so we've got our water.
On the side, there's a minimum and maximum
mark so you know how much water to put in
and when you have to add water. To put it
back, it just slides back in and the handle
clicks it in place. So we've got water so
what else do I need to tell you about? Well,
this type of machine is called a bean to cup,
what that means is it actually grinds your
coffee as you need it and only the right amount
for that one cup of coffee. So it saves grinding
loads of coffee and then trying to keep it
fresh and wasting your coffee. To be honest,
if that coffee wasn't ground seconds before
you use it, you're not going to get the best
out of it. So there are two things you need
to know then about grinding, bean to cup,
and that's this bit here and this bit here.
This machine has two different bits where
you can adjust your grind. On the front you
can adjust what's called the grind amount
or the amount of coffee you are going to get
out of it and on the side it lets you decide
how course of how fine that grind is. Now
the reason your need that is because every,
different type of coffee bean will give you
a different result, so when you change up
your beans each time, your have to have a
little fiddle about to get it just right because
depending on how much water is left in the
bean, the type of roast, the type of bean,
they'll all be slightly different. So you
use these just to set it and get it perfect.
So the other thing to talk about, talking
about the perfect cup of coffee is that it
has this gauge on the front. It just shows
you there, there's a red needle which shows
you just exactly how much pressure is going
through the coffee, which in turn tells you
how much of those essential oils you are getting
out of the bean and into your coffee. Now
you want that needle to be right up at twelve
o'clock, in the middle. That's the perfect
coffee. If it goes over too much, then your
coffee will be really, really bitter. You
can really taste the difference. If it's not
going up far enough, if it's under again you're
not going to get those oils and you really
will taste it, you'll get a sour coffee. So
let's make a coffee. So, one of the questions
I got on social media from Rachelle was "how
long does it take to make a coffee?" So what
we'll do is we'll go through and we'll make
one and that way Rachelle you can see for
yourself. I also got some questions from Neil,
just asking about the general build and was
it worth the money, so talking about it's
build. The basket. Standard basket you get
with all your coffee machines. One of the
things that I was really pleased about was
that in picking up this basket it feels solid.
It's got a good heavy, solid weight to it.
Much like the baskets I used to use when I
was a barista making coffee in the coffee
shops. So that is a signature of a really
good made coffee machine. But also I'll show
you later on another feature which shows how
well made this is. So to get your coffee it
goes in here, now, there's a little sensor
here at the back so when I press that in it
will start to grind the coffee. Ok. Something
I have learned, you can see there's not a
lot of space here, so when it grinds it drops
it all in a mound in the middle and it's really easy to knock it when you take the basket
out so what I do and you'll see when we're
doing this is that I tend to wiggle the basket
a bit just to disperse the coffee a bit better, so... first thing for Rachelle then, how long
does it take. We're going to switch the machine on and it has to come up to temperature so
it has to get the water up to temperature
to be able to make the coffee. So I'm going
to switch it on. You'll see the lights were
flashing, you have to wait on the lights to
all come on and not flash and that's when
the machine is ready. So next thing, we need
some coffee. Ok that's it ground the coffee you can see it there. So we take it out, now
here's some tips I've learned over the years. First thing, just using your hand, if you
can, try and get that coffee in the centre
ok, cause the next thing we're going to do
is just give it a tap. That just helps the
coffee settle, because there's obviously going
to be air gaps. The next thing we do is called tamping and we use this. That's your coffee
tamp and that's what we use to press the coffee down into the basket. This is one of the little
features I like. It lives there, it's got a
magnet on it. it's the simple things in life!
That means I'm not going to lose this because it's not going to fall down the back of the
cutlery drawer. I think that's a great feature.
So we are just going to tamp by pressing down,
and you can see there that the silver on the tamp, the band has disappeared, it's just gone
below the lips. That's how you know you've
got the right level. Ok now, if you've never
tamped a coffee before, I'll just put this
back. If you've never tamped a coffee before,
you want to be firm with it but don't put
too much pressure, don't put all your weight
on it because you still want the water to
be able to push through the coffee, so that's
us, we've got a nice tamp. How I was saying
earlier about one of the things I like is
how sturdy this machine is. One hand. Our
previous coffee machine couldn't do that,
you had to hold it down when you were putting
that in place otherwise you just chased the
coffee machine along the kitchen worktop.
So one hand. So we're going to want to do
a coffee now, the next thing to know about
is you can adjust, it does a single or a double
shot. I chose a double shot because Kate drinks
double espresso. Ok so you just chose how
much coffee you get using that one and then
you chose single or double for how much coffee
you're going to pour. Now here's a trick,
these cups, sitting up here which I should
mention, this is a warming plate, it actually
gets a wee bit warm, so it means your cups
aren't cold when you put your coffee in them.
But these cups are for single shots so I've
got my double shot cup here and what I'm doing
is I just put that in there because, if I
put that cup on the bottom it's a long way
for the coffee to fall and it just splashes
everywhere so that' all. It's just about not
wasting coffee and not getting the machine
messy, so double shot. Now what you'll see,
it takes between twenty and thirty seconds
to pour the perfect espresso, we can see here
that the needle has gone all the way up to
the middle, it's a nice twelve o'clock so
that's getting all the goodness out of the
coffee but also you'll see it's a nice thing,
steady stream and that gives you nice coffee
with a nice crema layer. So there we go, that's
our coffee poured. It's got a beautiful crema
layer on top, a nice double espresso shot,
perfect amoun. Jobs a good 'un. There you
go Rachelle. That's how long it takes to make
a coffee with this machine.
