Breville the Barista Express™

Update 9/19/2020-- The machine continues to may fantastic coffee. Enjoying some right now. One of our most used small appliances during the pandemic. Will never go back to SB again. It compares very poorly to what I can make at home now. Have run the descale cycle once because the light turned on, but I think it is set to turn on at a certain number of cycles rather than based on actual scale build up since we use RO water and scale build up is minimal. In any case, certainly does not hurt. Another tip I've got is to get yourself some disposable earplugs and set them next to the machine. The decibels during steaming can be really high and they hurt my ears. I also keep a quick read thermometer on the machine to know when my steamed milk is at the temp I like. Update 6/17/2020: This has ended up being one of my favorite birthday presents I gotten in years. Prior to owning the machine my family had a $100/week Starbucks habit. Since purchasing this machine 4 months ago, we've spent maybe $40 at SB. With COVID19, we've been at home and using this machine several times per day. The coffee it makes has only gotten better as we've learned to calibrate it. It has more than paid for itself in a few short months. It is well designed. We drink mostly Americanos so the hot water dispenser with automatic shut off is one of my favorite features. We were able to reprogram the machine to raise the water temperature very easily. The only glitches have come with the grinder which is a bit temperamental with certain beans, but these have been minor. The coffee the machine produces is delicious with a good amount of crema. I run a cleaning table through the machine about once per month, but because we have a reverse osmosis filter on our tap, we have had no need to descale. I highly recommend using reverse osmosis filtered water in the machine to cut down on internal build up. The machine is fairly easy to clean and has a lot of nice touches like the little float indicator that tells you when you need to empty the drip tray. We also like the ability to calibrate shots. I am raising our review from 4 to 5 stars since it seems that our poor experience with the first machine we received was just luck of the draw and we really have no complaints with our current machine. It is wonderful! Update: 2/18/2020 Amazon agreed to swap out the lemon (see original review below) for a new Breville Barista Express. It arrived today. I set it up and ran two cleaning tablets (3 cleaning cycles) before I even tried to make my first cup of espresso. I let the machine warm completely and set the grind size at 5 as suggested. Pulled my first shot and the new machine performed perfectly with the pressure reaching and staying in the middle of the gray extracting zone as it should. The shot was smooth with beautiful crema. I took the opportunity to program this shot so that it would be exactly 1 oz using my little espresso cup. I then pulled a double shot and did the same thing programming the machine to fill two of my espresso cups. Again the pressure was perfect at the level 5 grind size setting and the coffee is absolutely delicious with a beautiful smooth crema. Apparently the first machine I received was a dud. I'm glad Amazon allowed me to swap and will be sending the old one back tomorrow. I've changed my rating from 1 to 4 stars. If the new machine continues to perform as it did in its maiden voyage, I will revisit the rating and perhaps raise it to 5 stars. I highly recommend that anyone who buys one of these start off with a couple of clean/descale cycles before trying to make coffee. Save yourself a headache and a lot of wasted coffee. Pros: Very attractive and sturdy. The hot water dispenser is super convenient for making Americanos which is what I drink. I now don't have to heat up a separate kettle of hot water. It's great. The built-in grinder is really nice and its automatic function that also allows manual operation is convenient. The programmable temperature and shot amount adjustments are great. Cons: Because it takes so much water to keep the machine clean and operating well (it flushes itself after each use of steam or hot water) the water receptacle has to be refilled OFTEN (around every 3-4 coffees for me). I wish the machine had a bigger water tank. The drip tray also needs to be changed fairly often because the machine flushes itself, but this is does not bother me as much and it is not as often as the water tank. The grinder amounts tend to fluctuate and I'm still trying to figure out what adjustments or cleaning will might fix this. I'm not impressed with their customer service. When I tried to get help for the first unit I purchased (which ended up being defective), it took a couple of days to get a response and then that was an email with the exact same information contained in the user's manual (I guess the assumption was that I had not read it) along with a flat dismissal that there could be anything wrong with the machine. Thankfully, Amazon dealt with the problem quickly by replacing the machine so I did not have to rely on Breville. I hope that I have a better response if I ever need to contact Breville in the future. Original review: I've wasted almost a pound of coffee over the past day trying to get the pressure on this machine to the "espresso" level that the instructions say is required. The machine will not go beyond the "pre infusion" level. I have cleaned it with the cleaning tablet as suggested in some of the reviews and I have adjusted the grind fineness and grind amount to every combination I can think of. Both settings are currently at the maximum levels. I've tamped the coffee harder and also used less pressure. NOTHING works. Like I said, I grew up with espresso as it is a daily drink in my culture. When I was little, my mom made it a the little stovetop espresso pot. My last espresso maker was a $79 Mr. Coffee that lasted almost 7 years and made very decent coffee with a nice crema everytime. No fuss. Then it finally broke and I can't find that model. I didn't want the new models with milk receptacles. Yuck! Anyway, I thought, well if I'm going to spend over $200 on Mr. Coffee, why not just splurge and get the Breville. The coffee I've so far gotten from this machine is thin and acidic and has almost no crema. As I've said, I have tried everything suggested. The pressure gage only reached the correct level on two shots after I had just cleaned it and then it went back to barely registering. IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS DIFFICULT TO MAKE A DECENT CUP OF COFFEE! Right now I feel like all these 5 star reviews are a product of the psychological phenomenon that happens with very expensive wine, where people report it tastes better because they don't want to seem stupid for paying so much and not liking it. I will update if it turns out I'm just missing the magic key to having this thing not be a ridiculously expensive pain in my coffee loving butt. But I'm not feeling hopeful.