What’s the ideal pick for a super-automatic espresso machine? The Breville Oracle Touch vs DeLonghi Prima Donna is both super and semi in many ways. Offering you the flexibility to pick your ideal coffee variables such as coffee strength, temperature, volume, and improve upon espresso flavor and aroma.
And machines like these also let you adjust the milk texture and temperature for even creamier lattes and heavenly cappuccinos. Your café-hopping days are finally over. But between the Breville Oracle Touch and DeLonghi Prima Donna, the former is my most favorite pick.
It’s also better on account of its more advanced touch functionality, coffee customizations, and authentic barista-grade performance. The Prima Donna is good for beginners who crave a responsive, fully automatic, and hands-free espresso experience.
Breville Oracle Touch vs DeLonghi Prima Donna: Comparision Chart
Last update on 2023-03-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Breville Oracle Touch vs DeLonghi Prima Donna: Differences
There is absolutely no competition when you compare Oracle Touch with the Prima Donna. The former is the best entry-level super-automatic machine. It has all the right features and it looks classy too.
1. Design / Appearance
The Winner: Breville Oracle Touch
The most obvious difference between Breville and DeLonghi is the size and the way both machines are constructed. The Breville features a 15.4 x 14.7 x 17.9 inches design. It is made of stainless steel and a ½-lbs bean hopper plus an 84-ounce water tank capacity. A sizeable and convenient espresso machine with ergonomic parts.
The DeLonghi, by the looks of it, has a narrower profile. It measures 10 x 14 x 18 inches. Being more than 5 inches narrower in length but almost the same with regards to its thickness and height. The bean container has a 400g capacity and a 2L water tank which is 64 ounces, smaller than the Oracle Touch.
The Breville has a bean hopper on top with a water tank that you can refill from the top as well. The bean and water storage in the DeLonghi are inside the machine so nothing is sticking out. You can easily access both by opening the lid.
With a larger water tank capacity that is cleverly designed and a classy bean hopper, the Oracle Touch offers more without the bulkiness attached to it.
2. Milk Frothing
The Winner: Breville Oracle Touch
The Breville Oracle Touch replicates the charm and functionality of a barista-grade espresso maker with its steam wand. The DeLonghi Prima Donna, however, features a milk carafe with a specialized Automatic Latte and Cappuccino setting, the LatteCrema.
The LatteCrema perfects all milk-based espresso drinks including the espresso lover’s favorite latte, cappuccino, cafe latte, mocha, etc.
In comparison tests, the Oracle Touch offered better milk results than the Prima Donna. You can use all types of milk and try out different techniques of steaming it. The adjustable milk texture and temperature settings allow more room for improvement and experimentation. Whether you like your cappuccinos with more or less foam, you can decide easily.
The Prima Donna features a removable milk carafe with a quick cleaning function. The milk settings include cold milk foam, cappuccino, latte, hot milk, macchiato, cappuccino and latte mix, cafe latte, and a few others.
Each feature, or pre-set, froths milk in a unique matter to create delicious milk-based drinks. The carafe has a spout that pours milk directly into the espresso cup. What you get is a nice layering of espresso and hot milk and milk foam in your cup, ready to sip.
I’m not saying the milk foaming functionality of the Prima Donna is bad. But it does produce the kind of authentic, smooth, and latte art-style milk that the Oracle Touch produces.
But you’ll fall in love with the ease with which you can make a cappuccino or a macchiato, for example, in minutes and automatically.
3. Customized User Profiles
The Winner: Breville Oracle Touch
The Breville Oracle Touch has 5 café-style drinks that you can select and brew with Breville’s default settings automatically. Or you can customize your own drinks by tweaking the strength, volume, and temperature of espresso. It features 8 such customized profiles for you to tweak and save as your own.
The DeLonghi Prima Donna has 5 user profiles with the included benefit of creating your own recipe via the app. Alter the temperature of the water for extraction, the milk settings, and choose from 13 grinder settings. The machine is quick and responsive.
Between both machines, the Breville Oracle Touch offers more customized profiles with the added benefit of using a simple touchscreen screen. The Prima Donna’s button and LCD display might get confusing to use as it is not as advanced and streamlined as the Oracle Touch.
4. Espresso Quality
The Winner: The Breville Oracle Touch
The Breville Oracle Touch brings home an authentic portafilter espresso machine for beginners. The touchscreen display and stainless steel dual boiler make the espresso machine fast, consistent, and intuitive.
With the 58mm portafilter, the espresso quality is drastically improved, plus the different customizations that you can make based on coffee strength, temperature, etc.
The DeLonghi Prima Donna has no portafilter, dosing, or tamping mechanism. All you see on the exterior is the milk carafe and coffee spout. It grinds and doses the coffee from inside and you only get to see the end result which is crema-infused and dark espresso shots.
The Oracle Touch pulls espresso shots effectively, making crema-infused espresso that is rich in flavor and intense no matter how many cups you drink.
It works for all new kinds of drinks and espresso beans! The experience of using a portafilter, automatic dosing and tamping, and shot extraction is unparalleled when you have to compare it with the clunky and un-barista-like performance of the DeLonghi Prima Donna.
Breville Oracle Touch vs DeLonghi Prima Donna: Similarities
Both espresso machines are one-touch and fully automatic to use. But they’re also a type of hybrid, between semi- and super-automatic espresso machines for home use. You can select from their pre-programmed coffee drinks, the classics like latte, cappuccino, and you’ll get exactly that.
Granted the Oracle Touch is more hands-on in that you have to move the portafilter after it doses and tamps automatically to start the espresso extraction. Then add milk to the stainless steel jug and steam the milk by yourself.
Where the Oracle Touch features a jug, the Prima Donna features the milk carafe. It stores and froths the milk according to the different milk adjustments you make via the intuitive touchscreen display. Or you can let either machine use their default customizations to brew you the perfect cuppa.
The burr grinder, temperature settings, shot volume control, and stainless steel construction brings the Breville Oracle Touch and DeLonghi Prima Donna closer together. There’s even a hot water feature in both machines to make steamy and strong Americanos.
Quick Rundown Of Breville Oracle Touch BES990
- Note: 1)Too coarse a grind, too little coffee, or insufficiently tamping the grounds before brewing can all lead to inadequate pressure for a proper brew. 2)It is important to note that the amount of espresso extracted will vary depending on the grind size and amount and reprogramming may be needed when the size and amount are adjusted
- The Breville Oracle Touch Espresso Machine with automation at every stage with touch screen operation to simply swipe and select for espresso, long black, latte, flat white or cappuccino and enjoy third wave specialty coffee at home.
- Dose Control: The integrated conical burr grinder automatically grinds, doses and tamps 18-22 grams of coffee, similar to the commercial espresso machine in your favorite cafe.
- Espresso Machine with precise water temperature: Achieve balanced tasting espresso with the Breville Oracle Touch Espresso Machine complete with a digital temperature control (PID) technology, which ensures the temperature is kept at its optimum range
- Optimal Water Pressure: The Over Pressure Valve (OPV) is a commercial feature included in the Oracle Touch. This limits the maximum pressure throughout the extraction, helping prevent bitter flavors in the coffee shot. It also has true low pressure pre-infusion, which gradually increases the pressure to gently expand the grinds for an even extraction.
Last update on 2023-03-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Quick Rundown Of DeLonghi Prima Donna ECAM28465M
- Automatic Latte and Cappuccino: the proprietary LatteCrema system allows you to create Italian classic cappuccino, latte, cafelatte or other milk-based recipes just in one touch
- Stainless steel housing with digital display
- Memory function
- Maintenance: de’longhi machines require half the cleaning time of other brands, unlike competitor machines, which require chemical cleaning tablets monthly.
- Hot water spout to be used for tea or hot chocolate
Last update on 2023-02-22 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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References
- Breville Oracle Touch BES990 from Breville https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/espresso/bes990.html
I am a passionate coffee drinker. Since I left my job as a barista a few years back in 2012, I’ve been sharing my expertise on coffee and buying the best coffee equipment online. That’s how Wild Boar Coffee came to life.
I write about everything coffee-related under the sun. Where to buy the freshest coffee beans from? How to test coffee beans based on texture, aroma, and acidity?
I know all this from scratch – all thanks to my years and years of experience as a barista. So I’ve gotten real up-close-and-personal with coffee beans and different brewing techniques.