Hi there YouTube, Josh Teder here from 6 Months Later and today we're going
to be taking a look at the Barista Express from Breville, my first
impressions of it, and go over a few mistakes I made when setting up the
machine. After years of enjoying delicious expresso beverages for my
favorite local coffee shops and of course Starbucks as well, I decided it
was finally time to splurge on my own expresso machine to help cut down on the
$5 plus expresso drinks I was typically drinking within a week. Now being a real
novice with expresso, I decided to take the time I had over my summer vacation
to really research as much as I could about expresso and the machines that
make it. And that's what led me to the barista expressed by Breville. Now I
decided on the Breville Barista Express because it had the grinder, the
expresso maker, and the steam wand, all in the same machine. And it was well
reviewed on Amazon as well as by other YouTubers. One of the things I love most
about the Breville Barista Express is its design. When you put this machine on
your counter, it's really quite stunning with its stainless steel finish and
accessories. It's a conversation starter for sure, and I especially love how on the
updated version of the machine that I have, Breville changed the color of the
LED lights to this sexy gray color versus the blue color in the older model. Now
Breville design here is really good the machine itself is quite stunning and
very aesthetically pleasing, but was also designed with functionality in mind.
There are many well-designed features: the floating Clean Me alert in the
drip tray, the bean hopper mechanism that allows you to empty the beans back into
your tin, and the warming area for your coffee mugs and glasses at the top. Now
when I got this machine I set it up right off the bat, and I made a few
mistakes. The first mistake I made was I just kept the grind setting on five.
Somewhere the instructions it was like defaulted to five so I was like I'll be
fine, I'll keep it there well that was a mistake. I was using the decaf expresso
rose from Starbucks and for that bean, a five grind setting is way too fine and
it ended up choking out the grinder, I had to take the whole thing apart, dust off
all the grounds, clean everything out, put it back together,
and then I've moved the grind dial to a more coarse setting and then it was fine.
I definitely recommend when you get this machine, especially starting out, keep the
grind setting more coarse and then dial it into a finer grind setting when you
know the grinder can handle that level of fineness with a particular bean that
you're using. Now another mistake I made with this machine was not taking other
YouTubers' advice and using the pressurized cups and my portafilter
starting off. I was a little overconfident thinking to myself, I've
watched 20 videos on this machine I know what I'm doing. Well trust me if you've
never pulled an expresso shot in your life before, you're going to want to use
the pressurized cups. You're going to get a much better shot and a much more
consistent shot starting off. One other tip I have is if you're planning on
buying this machine and you want to make flavored lattes with it like a caramel
or mocha latte, definitely go ahead and buy your syrup of course beforehand.
I really like the Taurani syrups, I bought the caramel pump syrup and it's
been really good. I also really recommend using a pump syrup versus a squeeze
bottle, that way the drink you're going to make will be more consistent and
again, this is why Starbucks and every other coffee shop pretty much uses pumps
for their syrups and flavors. Overall I fallen in love with my Barista Express.
The first time I made an iced caramel latte, I was hooked. It tasted just like
it does at my local coffee shop and I get to control all of the nuances, making
my coffee just the way I like it. Now I can't wait to keep experimenting with
this machine, trying out different techniques as well as different beans,
over the next six months. And at that point, I'll have a more in-depth review
on the Breville Barista Express. For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder.