Sage Barista Express transforms your coffee routine with precision engineering and integrated features. With a built-in conical burr grinder, 16 grind settings, and a powerful steam wand for microfoam, this brushed stainless steel machine delivers rich, barista-style espresso at home.
- Bean to Cup Convenience: Enjoy café-quality espresso made from freshly ground beans.
- Precision Grinding: 16 settings for optimal flavor extraction and control.
- Thermocoil Heating: Delivers consistent 93°C water temperature for perfect espresso.
- Steam Wand: Create silky microfoam for lattes and cappuccinos.
- Elegant Design: Brushed stainless steel finish fits modern kitchens.
Everything is easy to use on this coffee machine. It heats up quickly & when it needs cleaning you add a tablet & it takes care of the rest.
It has a built in water filter which is a nice feature & the you can really taste the notes of your coffee beans. Which made me realise how bland my previous coffee was!
It comes with four different baskets. As others have said, if you can get fresh beans < 2 weeks the flavour is incredible!
If you’re hesitant to purchase like I was, dive right in & enjoy the best coffee at home of your life!
Excellent decision. Easy to use, fine tweaking og grind size and quantity to make ideal espresso etc.
Looks stylish in new kitchen. 100% satisfied caffeine addict
It has a superb air pump which combines with a thermostat on the milk jug to further perfect the art of cappuccino making. Who knew there was so much involved in frothing some milk! Anyhow I bought this as it “might” just result in spending less in well known high street coffee shops. 🤞
Firstly, the ease of use is remarkable. With its intuitive controls, I was able to make my first espresso within minutes of unboxing. The machine heats up incredibly fast, ensuring I don't have to wait long for my morning coffee fix.
The quality of espresso this machine produces is where it truly shines. The flavor is rich and robust, with a perfect crema that you'd expect from a high-end cafe. The built-in grinder is a game-changer – it grinds the beans just before brewing, which makes a significant difference in the freshness and taste of the coffee.
Moreover, the milk frothing wand is fantastic. It creates silky smooth milk for cappuccinos and lattes that are simply a delight. The temperature control is precise, ensuring the milk is always at the perfect temperature.
Cleaning the Sage Barista Express is surprisingly easy. The removable water tank and drip tray make the maintenance a breeze. I appreciate how the machine comes with all the necessary tools for cleaning and maintenance.
Lastly, the customer service from Sage is commendable. They provide clear instructions and are quick to respond to any queries.
In conclusion, the Sage Barista Express is an exceptional coffee machine that offers convenience, quality, and style. It's perfect for anyone looking to elevate their home coffee experience. Highly recommended!
Some advice: what the machine requires is some patience at the beginning or when you get a new coffee blend. You will need to adjust a bit the grind level, the amount of coffee, tamping and the time it needs for extraction. It might take a couple of not so good shots until you dial it in, but once you do you are good to go.
I’ve been using it for 6 months now, and I have settled in a coffee blend I like, so I don’t need to dial the settings very often. The pro-tip here, is to get freshly roasted coffee (about a month, month and half should be fine). I also tried generic coffee beans from known brands, the ones without roasting date, but the results are not as good.
When using the machine, the analog pressure gauge (I love this, feels so professional) gives you a good overview, so you can see and adjust for the next shot:
Low pressure and coffee running too fast? Maybe dial the grind level to be more refined, or add a bit coffee if the portafilter can take it.
Too much pressure and very slow extraction? Move the grind level dial to be more coarse.
Once you play around a bit, you will be able to see what the espresso needs and you will adjust. There are many helpful online tutorials if you want to dive into the whole process, but in general one should be ok with minor adjustments and able to enjoy tasty, velvety coffee – given you use good quality coffee.
If you don’t want to buy freshly roasted coffee, you can use the dualwall filters provided in the machine; they allow for some extra pressure control of the extracted coffee, but in my opinion, if you buy this machine, you probably want good espresso, so buy the good coffee as well :)
In general the machine is very easy to clean, I pop the tray in the washing machine every now and then and has been looking like new, even though I’m working from home and I’ve been using it quite a few times per day.
The provided milk jug, with temperature indicator is great for great cappuccino / latte foam.
Overall, this has been an amazing purchase, if you enjoy a good coffee and you are willing to learn how to extract it, this machine will not let you down.
I got this today late evening but you know I had to dial in the coffee beans and take a sip of the espresso before I got to bed. And I must tell you the level of espresso and the Milk frothing in this machine is nearly up to those expensive equipments they use in cafe.
Looking forward to making more espressi drinks hots & cold . This was one of my best purchases of this year.
This can.
Sure, it's a bit more effort than simply pressing a button, and there are some new skills to be learned, particularly in getting your tamping game together.
For a geek like me (and my son...), getting the grind right, the dose just so, and the tamp perfect then being able to watch the pressure sit *right* in the middle of the gauge, is immensely satisfying. Oh, and the coffee is *perfect *👌 😎
I was previously a barista for 9 years long ago.... 🤣
This machine filled my coffee fix.
Buy fresh roasted coffee beans !! This is a must I promise you won't regret it
I spend roughly 1 month researching which machine suited my needs.
The things I really like about this machine is it comes with everything I'll need to get started.
Tamper,jug, cleaning tools, extra baskets depending on which kind of coffee yous be using.
The grind settings are great! Just remember read the instructions about removing the top part of the grinder and set it to a lower number for finer coffee.
The steam wand works well and I love the fact it has a heat water spout !
This is the best manual coffee machine on the market in my opinion.
Water temp is perfect.
I can't recommend this enough!
The machine is quite intuitive to use and pretty easy to get a decent espresso shot from and with a little tinkering and trial and error on grind size and amount, you will get a good coffee.
If you want to spend the extra time you can tinker with the length of extraction the get an excellent coffee.
Pros:
Good grinder
Portafilter is well designed
Steam wand is easy to clean
Temp gauge on jug is really effective
Cons:
Steam wand a little short
Jug is small for large latte’s but perfect for standard sized drinks.
Water filters are needed for water tank (don’t recall seeing this advertised - but it does come with one)
The tamper is slightly too small if using the single wall basket.
Overall a great addition to the kitchen for anyone with a passion for coffee and a decent budget!
I really enjoyed the learning process, experimenting with different beans to learn how to get the most out of each bean by adjusting the grind coarseness. Once you’re used to the process, it gets easier and before I knew it, I felt like an expert!
Ok the pressure wasn’t perfect in the picture I took, but hey, next time it'll be better, that’s the fun of using this machine!
Favourite bean at the moment is Lavazza Super Crema that’s buy in 1kg bags off Amazon.
10 on grind. Quantity at ‘2oclock’ (would help if there was a numbered scale on this!).
Pressure guage as verticle as possible, and out dribbles your perfect coffee shots!
Americano - at water from on board water heater.
Capacinno - the on board steamer heats up the milk to a perfect froth.
Really love this machine, best thing I ever bought! Highly recommend.
This Sage machine was more than i was thinking of spending but had very good reviews on Amazon and also on the Manufactures website.
I was also lucky to speak to a local coffee supplier and they had one and swear by it.
So is it value for money, i would say yes.
Included you get various types of filters, a hot milk jug with temp indicators and various other tools.
I am in a hard water area, kettle furs up rapidly, so decided to also get an Amazon Basics water filter as well. Several of the reviews suggested this was a cheaper option than cleaning and descaling the machine (kettle looks like new with the filtered water)
It took me about a week of use and trial and error to get the machine making coffee to my satisfaction.
It takes around 3-5 minutes from turning the machine on to making an excellent cappuccino. The machine is noisy, but you get used to it and is no worse than a commercial one.
It is quite large, around 30cm x30cm and fits perfectly under the wall units and doesnt look out of place. The Stainless steel finish gives it a solid, robust look and feel.
The coffee bean hopper holds around 200gm of beans.
I won't comment on what beans to use as that is down to individual tastes, but I have settled on some supplies by a small company producing their own blends and roasts.
Would i recommend? Yes,.
Only have another 120 coffees to go at high street shop prices to pay for it 😁
I decided on this mostly due to appearances (those bean to cup machines look like little train station vending machines to me) and didn’t realise how much effort is involved.
If you want another hobby buy this machine. It has loads of variables that you need to master such as grind size, grind amount and tamp pressure. That’s not to mention freshness of beans (I buy only from Rave and 200 degrees). I’m still working on latte art, but can generally get out 2 cortados or cappuccinos within 4-5 minutes each morning. The coffees are superb, but it took a couple of weeks of YouTube tips and tinkering to really work out how to dial in the perfect coffee.
It’s a fantastic bit of kit and is fun to use, but if you don’t want to feel like a professional and would rather just push a button and get a coffee this machine might not be for you.
This machine is everything I thought it was going to be and more. My milk texturing is already 10 fold better. Whilst it does take a bit of time to dial in grind settings, tamping and shot length etc the results are well worth it.
Now disclosure, I have only had this for 3 days so this is in no means a full review of life with the Barista Express. Cleaning is easy but it does need careful care and attention. I found the instructions decent but I'm not sure how much I trust the guage for dialing in my shot. I found my best shot came in whilst the guage showed over extraction. This could be down to the bean or just how I am used to that bean tasting from my previous machine and experience.
I have a new artisan roast arriving that I have never tried so will see how easy that is to get dialed in.
Now for a couple of not negatives but things I felt could be better. First off is the portafilter being non standard in size this not allowing for customisation. It's not a biggy as given the price point I still feel you get value for money.
Second is the dip tray. I feel the empty me sign should appear a bit earlier than it does as it does fill quickly and seems quite shallow. It will need emptied after every use which you should do anyway to keep clean.
Third is related to the portafilter and that is the tamper. It's nice and handy with the magnetic handle but feels a bit light and cheap for the rest of the machine. With the non standard size I can see getting a separate one being a little more frustrating.
Overall I am delighted with my purchase. The build quality is impressive and for me the steam wand is a dream.
It can be tricky to get that perfect brew dialed in but this is not a machine for the hands off type. This is for the closet barista or like me the coffee hobbiest.
It's not just the result that is great but the feeling of accomplishment when you get it all right.
If anything changes in my opinion in the next few months I will update accordingly.
Barney
I dont want to jinx this machine but its still going strong. I update reviews when things are going good or bad. Just thought I would let you know as a buyer.
Update "26/2/2023
I have now had this machine for 3 years and Im glad to say its still going stronge to my amazment. Reading through the bad reviews, I must have been lucky but I will say to you all, the key is cleaning it on a regular bases. I know its not always easy but the true key to having great coffee is fresh beans, not the store bought beans as you just dont know how long there were stitting on the shelf.
Initial Review.
I say to record the batch code before you set the machine up as its on the bottom of the machine and its very very hard to read. This is for Registration Purposes.
I have to admit, this machine is great. The stainless steel version looks so classic in my opinion and ties in well with our kitchen. Now if your new to making espresso`s, lattes, cappuccino`s etc on this machine, you will think that its lukewarm and that might be because your obsessed with keeping it clean or trying too hard to get it right first time and so on “i.e. latte art” as you might have seen a few videos online prior to getting the machine. This happened to me when I got my first Bean to cup machine years ago.
The Sage model also heats the milk faster as well. I think the drip tray maybe could have been deeper though as it seems to fill up faster.
The Sage also fits on the counter perfectly as I was worried it might be slightly high to reach under the cupboards but it was lower and wider than my old machine. Another small niggle thought, if you have it at the corner of your countertop, it’s hard to get at the water tank to pull it out but I open it from the back and just keep topping up the water.
I love my coffee and the only way is fresh beans for me. Prior to getting machine I ordered 4 different type beans in a sample packs and ran a test from pack 1 to 4. I wrote down each bar pressure “when I got them correct”, grind, pour time, mild roast, dark roast etc.
Each time when I ran them again and checked my finding from the first run and it went back to what the bean said “or very close” from 1 – 4 if you know what I mean. So it really does depend on the bean folks.
There are higher models and more expensive than the Barista Express and yes they look good but I simply like doing it all myself and that’s part of the fun in my opinion. This machine is now in the price range for anyone who really loves the smell, freshness and fun of making your own coffee`s. I mean let’s face it; it will pay for itself eventually.
Also my advice is don’t buy your pre-packed beans your local big supermarket as you don’t know how long they have been there. Order them from a good online store where you know there fresh and try different blends.