While the speedy performance gives the Breville Oracle its edge, the Barista Touch features a more intuitive interface to make espresso drinks with. And it also offers the unique feature of saving your drinks or directly selecting a pre-programmed drink to reduce time and effort.
For a quicker way to make espresso drinks at home, the Breville Barista Touch offers speedy and intricate features. It’s easier pulling a shot or two of espresso with its touchscreen display and intuitive interface.
The Breville Oracle has a buttons interface with a bright LCD display. It delivers rich and tasty espresso that is also beginner-friendly. So you won’t feel confused to learn about the important variables such as brewing time and strength. The clean, polished, and auto+ manual interface makes it a genuine espresso-lovers paradise!
Breville Oracle vs Barista Touch: Comparison Chart
Last update on 2023-09-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Breville Oracle vs Barista Touch: Differences
This brings me to conclude that the Breville Barista Touch is the better pick for daily use! It wins with a point more 3 – 4 for its easy programmability, intuitive interface, and great stainless steel design!
1. Portafilter Size
The Winner: Breville Oracle
The Breville Oracle comes with a 58mm stainless steel portafilter. And the Barista Touch features a slightly smaller portafilter at 54mm. Between the two, the 58mm is the professional barista standard. 54mm portafilters were designed to prevent spraying since the portafilter is deeper than wider as compared to a 58mm.
Combined with stainless steel, a 54mm basket adds more coffee volume to the puck. And when brewed correctly, it can extract maximum flavor with more body and aroma strength.
Having said that, the benefits of using a 58mm or a 54mm portafilter also depend on the temperature design of the respective machines. If the heat-up time is quicker with less heat loss, it results in a smoother extraction.
In that way, it’s difficult to tell the difference between a 54mm and a 58mm with regards to flavor. You can produce some great espresso results in both. But research and tests show that buying the 58mm is a better choice. It offers more consistency and is fit for intense use.
2. Water Filtration
The Winner: Breville Barista Touch
If you use an espresso machine on a regular basis, thinking of mineral scale build-up and such unwanted deposits inside the machine is necessary. You can make really good espresso at home for as long as your machine is clean and de-scaled.
To prevent any permanent damage, use filtered water instead of hard, tap water.
Fortunately, both the Oracle and Barista Touch feature water filters and holders. This prevents scale build-up and keeps the machine in perfect working order. In fact, it also prevents premature wear and tear which is very common in expensive and complex automatic brewers.
The difference, however, is in the quality of the water filter. While the Oracle features a high-quality and consistent water filter, the Barista Touch’s is a class apart.
The ClaroSwiss water filter cleans out the finest impurities and scale from the water. This improves the flavor of coffee tremendously. Even if you do use tap water in the reservoir, the filter works super-hard to make it cleaner and more refined for espresso.
The standard water filter and holder of the Oracle are reliable but fall a few steps behind in efficacy and precision. Both machines feature a water hardness test strip to make sure the filters work and you can immediately notice a difference in espresso taste!
3. Size
The Winner: Breville Oracle
The Breville Oracle is larger in size than the Barista Touch. This is on account of its larger water reservoir capacity which is around 84 ounces. It’s taller, wider, and bulkier than the Barista Touch.
This gives the Barista Touch an edge because it features a 67-ounce water tank plus the water tank is made up of BPA-free plastic. So it’s safer and more dependable to use for a long time.
It measures 12.7 x 15.5 x 16 inches which means it’s lightweight and portable to move around. Even with the coffee grinder on top, it is light and convenient to use. A huge plus for people with narrower kitchen spaces, if you ask me.
And speaking of saving space, the Oracle comes with a water tank that sits inside the machine. So it’s not popping out causing an inconvenience. In the Barista Touch, the water tank does sit outside the machine. The only similarity between the two is that both water tanks are at the back.
Unless you’re okay with moving a few things around to make room for the Oracle which is worth it because it comes with a large water tank capacity which means fewer water refills.
4. Pro-Programmed Coffees
The Winner: Breville Barista Touch
With the Breville Oracle, you can tweak each parameter easily and quickly using the buttons and LCD display. This will improve how you pull a shot manually without relying on guesswork to get the dose right.
The integrated coffee grinder and automatic tamper/dosing and texture settings improve precision and brewing time. Plus the buttons are sturdy to use, and the LCD display is bright.
You can change the dose, set the tamping pressure, adjust the strength, tweak the size of the shot, and the milk temperature and texture. Programming is easier with its special Pre-Infusion and dual stainless-steel boilers.
So as far as programmability goes, the Breville Oracle gets it right.
However, it falls one step behind the Barista Touch when you want pre-programmed settings. The Barista Touch offers each and every feature mentioned above for the Oracle. And it features 5 pre-programmed options for the ideal café-style coffee drink. This includes espresso, Long Black, Latte, Cappuccino, and Flat White.
I should mention though that the Oracle does feature a ‘Long Black’ button with adjustable settings for a rich black coffee drink. So the Oracle has 1 pre-programmed function while the Barista Touch offers 5.
Also, the Barista Touch comes with a unique feature that lets you customize and save your own coffee present – up to 8 customized drinks. This saves you time in repeating your favorite drink, according to your preference of strength and volume. The Oracle does not offer any such feature.
5. Interface
The Winner: Breville Oracle & Barista Touch
The interface of both the Breville Oracle and Barista Touch is superior. You have all the controls at your disposal and it’s easy to navigate without getting confused. The buttons on the Oracle are very responsive and feel strong. And the ‘Swipe & Select’ touchscreen of the Barista Touch feels the same.
The user interface of both machines, though different in design, improves upon the build quality, precision, and user-friendliness of the machine.
6. Cleaning
The Winner: Breville Oracle
To start off, the automatic tamping and dosing feature of the Oracle saves lots of time in cleaning up. It features a few cleaning tools that let you clean quickly and effectively. The Cleaning Kit of the Oracle contains everything you need to keep the machine productive and efficient.
This means it creates fewer splatters while cleaning and it’s quick and simple to maintain. Nothing that you weren’t expecting anyway from a machine like the Oracle.
And even though the Oracle is a more user-friendly and mess-free espresso machine. Though both machines feature auto purging that releases hot steam after you finish brewing, the Barista Touch’s automatic purging setting creates more mess in the long run.
To begin with, the steam wand after automatically purging creates milk splatters around it. So I have to go in there with a cloth to get the tough stains out.
The purging takes 30 seconds after brewing after which you will need to wipe down the surface to get rid of water splatters, sometimes even milk.
Breville Oracle vs Barista Touch: Similarities
Both the Breville Oracle and Barista Touch are high-end espresso machines. They deliver espresso at the touch of a button – single and double shot espresso with steamed milk. Both machines are equipped with sensors and precise adjustable settings that keep the performance speedy and consistent.
The features that both the Breville Oracle and Barista Touch share are PID temperature controls, automatic steam wand, quick self-cleaning functionality, and a removable drip tray with an indicator.
Since both machines are a hybrid between semi and super-automatic machines, offering you the best features of each, the only difference between them is their price. And for more tech-savvy users, the touchscreen interface of the Barista Touch.
And the rest, with regards to the speed of brewing, quality of foam during frothing, and the intricate adjustable settings are very similar!
Quick Rundown Of Breville Oracle BES980XL
- 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
Last update on 2023-09-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Quick Rundown Of Breville Barista Touch BES880
- Please refer to user guide or user manual or user guide (provided below in PDF) before first use
Last update on 2023-09-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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References
- Breville Oracle BES980XL from Breville https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/espresso/bes980.html
- Breville Barista Touch BES880BSS https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/espresso/bes880.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.