Review: Breville Oracle Jet Espresso Machine

Every now and then, a single coffee or espresso machine seems to dominate the conversation around what an accessible home device can do.

Among the best drip coffee makers, that machine is the Fellow Aiden (8/10, WIRED Recommends), which drastically moved the target on that elusive intersection between ease of use and terrific taste. Over the past year in home espresso machines, the device that best represents that same sweet spot in the Venn diagram is likely the Breville Oracle Jet, a handsome and unapologetically luxe touchscreen machine with a built-in grinder that makes genuinely delicious cups of espresso.

This doesn't mean the Oracle Jet machine is perfect, or universally admired. The true bean geeks will always want more control, and less help, and a separate grinder. The Oracle Jet's $2,000 price tag will certainly also have your full attention. But I've spent a couple months playing with the Oracle Jet, dialing it in for everything from oily-dark beans to strawberry-bright light roasts, frothing jug after jug of milk both manually and hands-off, and mixing stiff cold-espresso martinis in the pursuit of rigorous scientific inquiry.

I've come away impressed. More than any machine I've tested, the Oracle Jet seems able to thread the needle between easy-to-use bean-to-cup cappuccino machines and the beautiful depth and intensity of high-end espresso made with a portafilter. The device is a beautiful on-ramp to the world of excellent home espresso, for those who don't want to make a whole lifestyle out of the quest for a good cup.

The Big Ease

The Oracle Jet's most salient quality, right out of the box, is ease of use. It's a touchscreen machine, one whose operation will be intuitive for anyone who can figure out a Kindle or an iPad. Selecting a drink is a matter of swiping along through a menu of eight customizable espresso drinks ranging from espresso to flat white to “cold espresso,” plus a few cocktails that arrive with recipes. Hot chocolate or tea options are basically offer steamed milk or precisely temp-controlled hot water.

The Oracle Jet offers a built-in onscreen tutorial for first-time users, options on automatic milk frothing, and machine-assisted guidance on finding the right grind for each bean and brew. Within 20 minutes of unboxing the Oracle Jet, you can find yourself nose-deep in a foamy cappuccino—without even bothering to crack the printed manual.

Firmware updates are uploaded automatically via Wi-Fi, without need of a phone app to manage this—which means occasionally a new drink or feature may sneakily come aboard, or a pet peeve might disappear. (One could wish, however, that Breville told you more transparently what they were updating with each firmware release.)

But unlike the similarly touchscreened De'Longhi Rivelia (7/10, WIRED Recommends), the Oracle Jet is not a fully automatic bean-to-cup machine. Rather, beans are ground from a hopper and volumetrically tamped into a 58-millimeter portafilter using an automated tamper. Then, you pull out the portafilter and lock it to the group head before brewing. Because the portafilter is a standard size, this means manual tamping and touch-ups are still possible. So is grinding with a different grinder if you want to swap beans easily.

From here, the Oracle Jet makes delicious, intense, full-bodied, classic finely ground espresso with all the sensitivity this implies. The Jet is a powerful device for non-pressurized portafilters, with sterling temperature control, an upgraded 45-setting espresso grinder, and a whole lot of flexibility and power. It'll be more finicky than a superautomatic bean-to-cup that grinds a little coarser, so you'll have to be more careful dialing in a shot. But the rewards for success are also much higher.

A Culmination of Brevilles

In part, what the Oracle Jet seems to have done is combine and refine much of what the WIRED Reviews team has liked about any number of Breville all-in-one espresso machines over the years, while fixing some shortcomings.

The Australian kitchen brand has long made an art out of adding extra features to its devices without sacrificing intuitiveness or precision. They've also made a habit of acquiring powerful new technology even if it means taking over a whole company. The Breville Joule (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is my favorite toaster oven in part because Breville absorbed the recipe know-how from Seattle cooking company ChefSteps and incorporated this into an autopilot function.

The new generation of high-end Breville espresso machines has benefited from Breville's acquisition of a much different Seattle company, Baratza—makers of some of WIRED's favorite accessibly priced espresso grinders. The business end of Baratza's excellent Encore ESP conical-burr grinder has slowly been threaded into Breville's Oracle and Touch espresso lines over recent years, fixing an oft-criticized feature of previous-generation Brevilles.

The Oracle Jet incorporates the tablet computer interface from the Oracle Touch dual-boiler machine, but swaps out the slow-heating dual boiler for a pair of fast-heating ThermoJets that heat the water and the group head—which means no more waiting for the machine to warm up.

Note that the Oracle Jet nonetheless performs better on its second or third espresso pull than its first. For ideal results, you may want to run an empty, no-coffee shot of hot water through the portafilter before your first espresso of the morning. The other trade-off is that you can't steam milk and brew espresso simultaneously. You'll instead have to froth milk beforehand, or wait 30 whole seconds to steam your milk while the espresso brews. In practice, this is a problem that's not much of a problem.

Some upgrades have arrived even after the device came out, through a series of firmware upgrades that have added drinks or cleaned up functions. At this point, most of a year after the device's release, each puck I prepped has been hearteningly on the level. Same goes for the volume controls on the water, which reportedly ran long before some firmware adjustments. On measurements over long manual espresso pulls, I've found the water temperature admirably stable.

The milk steaming wand is powerful, especially when frothing manually: You can get some serious bubbles and serious silkiness out of this thing. And, weirdly, the cold espresso is actually pretty good. It's more like lukewarm than cold, a one-minute extraction at just above room temp. But if you dribble it over ice at an extra-fine grind setting, it's a crema-topped, low-acid, cold espresso one might want to mix with either milk or vodka—depending on time of day and who you are. (The three-minute cold brew is a bit astringent and less successful to my taste.)

The device also has other little conveniences, like a handy purge function when swapping beans or making your first cup (double-tap the grinder icon and about 5 grams comes out). It has a removable water reservoir in the back, but you can also pour in water from the front of the machine. And there’s a little lever that'll lower and raise the whole device, so it can roll around on wheels or stay put.

Does it all add up to $2,000? Depends on your budget and what you're comparing it to. But it's all quite nice, it looks nice, the espresso tastes nice, and it's the sort of thing that inspires jealousy in houseguests.

The Usual Caveats

As with many heavily automated machines, there will be things you cannot easily change, and some specific quirks. The shot size is large by default, around 20 to 22 grams of coffee for a double shot. The easiest way to adjust this is by buying a smaller-dose 58-millimeter basket.

And while the Oracle Jet's bean-assist function is quite useful for beginners, it's not overly sophisticated. Mostly it recommends you go up or down by three twists of the grinder dial when changing drinks or if your shot is running long or short. You'll probably find yourself turning this function off after a week or so. Those used to less automated espresso machines may also be irritated by the lack of a visible pressure bar: You're assessing how well your shot's pulling by flow rate, not pressure.

The Oracle Jet is also thirsty, and the hot water spout is splattery, so you'll find yourself refilling the reservoir and wiping it down often. The automatic milk frothing also is not as silky as the excellent manual steaming.

l don't consider these damning flaws. They're far outweighed by the absolute ease, and near-thoughtlessness, with which I can get an excellent cup—and the speed with which I can dial in a new bean. It's the reason I've left the Oracle Jet on my workbench even while testing multiple other machines and grinders. When I wake up, I just want a cup. I want it easy, and I want it delicious. The Oracle Jet provides.