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It isn’t just the grind time that’s adjustable, however. The Barista Pro also allows you to choose how long to infuse the coffee before extraction (this forces water into the ground coffee for a set amount of time to help eke out the most flavour), and you can customise exactly how much hot water you want to push through the coffee for the single-shot and double-shot buttons. The Barista Pro feels well built, for the most part. The main body and drip tray’s metal finish feels premium and the included portafilter is noticeably sturdier than the versions you’ll find on Sage’s cheaper machines. Thankfully, this is easily fixed using the machine’s adjustable infuse time controls. These are accessed by pressing the machine’s menu buttons and scrolling across to the pour settings. Here you can select how long the machine keeps hot water in the coffee before pushing it through, and it’s a key way to tweak the flavour of the end result. Milk
As an added bonus, I found the system worked great with non-dairy milk including soy, almond and oat. This is great news for vegan users and something I can’t say about all the frothing systems I’ve tested. A cup of coffee made using the out-of-the-box settings has a robust crema and is delivered at around 63 degrees, which is pretty much spot on for espresso. There are also manual controls for those who wish to tweak their drink’s temperature. My only issue is that the flavour on the test beans I used was a little acidic on occasion.Once I was in the rough ballpark, the coffee was good; once I’d spent some time tweaking the settings, it was exceptional. At around 20 seconds, the coffee’s sour notes were taking precedence; once the timer neared 30, those flavours were balanced with the bitter notes from the final few seconds of extraction. And these sour and bitter flavours were beautifully balanced with the rich body of the coffee. While this process can be rather hit and miss with cheaper machines – and that means you might only get one really good shot for every so many attempts – the Barista Pro delivers the results consistently. Even if you’ve never used a manual espresso machine before, then it’s worth pointing out that the Barista Pro’s manual will have you up and running in no time. It explains the whole process in a clear and uncomplicated manner and lets you know what to look out for – both in visual and taste terms. It’s great to see a manufacturer providing a manual that’s genuinely instructional. At first glance, the Barista Pro looks like most other manual bean-to-cup machines. It has a 354 x 410 x 406mm body, with a single burr grinder on its top that can hold around 250g worth of beans (a standard bag’s worth). This model also comes with all the accessories you’d expect of a machine at this price including a well-sized steel jug for steaming milk, one of Sage’s razer tools for getting the right amount of coffee in the filter basket, a basic tamper and a 54mm portafilter.
With a single touch the dose control delivers the correct amount of coffee from the integrated conical burr grinder. Both grind size and dose are adjustable if required. With a single touch, the integrated conical burr grinder with dose control delivers the right amount of coffee on demand, for maximum flavour. Adjustable grind size and dose. Spend a little time getting everything just so, and the Pro rewards with a fantastic cup of coffee. As ever, I was looking to produce a double shot of espresso with a 2:1 ratio – that is, 18g of ground coffee to produce around 36g of espresso in the cup. While the default settings produced an extraction time of less than 20 seconds – too fast, in other words – I was able to maintain the same amount of espresso but lengthen the extraction process to around 30 seconds by notching the grind size a couple of settings finer and customising the extraction time in the menu. The customisation process is easy: select the correct menu option, tap the single– or double-shot button to start the extraction, and tap it again once your preferred amount is in the cup.None of this is a departure from the norm but, under the surface, Sage has rung the changes. The Barista Pro swaps the classic boiler design of its other mid-range and top-flight stablemates for Sage’s “ThermoJet” technology. This has one key appeal: speed. It means the machine gets to the correct temperature in less than three seconds, and doesn’t need to be vented to cool down after heating up to deliver steam. The result? It’s ready in the slow blink of an eye. We liked having the pressure gauge during the initial setup process, the correct pressure range is very clearly marked and it’s a helpful indicator that you can watch as your espresso pours, to see whether it’s being extracted at the correct pressure. The manual then advises what adjustments you’ll need to make to correct an under or over extracted espresso, which is usually either the grind size or the amount of pressure you use when tamping. Sage also includes both single-wall (unpressurised) and dual-wall (pressurised) baskets for the portafilter, and in both single and double-shot sizes. The pressurised baskets will come in very handy for beginners as they make it a little easier to get good results if you can’t be bothered to seek the perfect grind and tamp. And, if you have to resort to supermarket-bought ground coffee rather than good quality fresh beans, then they also help to eke as much crema as possible from coffee that’s past its fresh best.
Buying reconditioned Sage Coffee machines is also a much friendlier environmental option. Refurbished Sage Coffee machines are often second hand or used Sage Coffee machinesthat have been restored and updated to meet the manufacturer's standards, which means you'll be helping to keep old Sage Coffee machines out of our landfills, reduce electronic waste, and minimise your carbon footprint. Longer-term you’ll need to sporadically run descaling and general cleaning cycles, both of which can be activated in the machine’s settings menu and simply require you to follow a series of on-screen commands. You should buy it if…
The only minor issue is that the drip tray doesn’t feature adjustable heights. The machine is prone to splashing when pouring into espresso cups as a result. This, plus the slightly difficult to gauge manual grinding, means early on you’ll find yourself needing to wipe the Barista Pro down fairly regularly. Digital Temperature Control (PID) delivers water at precisely the right temperature, ensuring optimal espresso extraction The Sage Barista Pro doesn’t make things particularly easy, so you need to already know what you’re doing to get the most out of it. If you do, then the results are excellent. Another key feature is that this is a volumetric machine. This means that it accurately measures how much water it’s pushing through each time and does so consistently. Cheaper machines simply run the pump for a set amount of time, so how much water actually makes it through the coffee grounds and into your cup depends entirely on how finely you grind the coffee and how hard you tamp it down. Suffice to say, if you want a consistent espresso, both in terms of flavour and amount, a volumetric machine is a giant leap forward from lesser machines. The Barista Pro provides a set of tools to help take the guesswork out of the coffee-making equation. The grind and extraction timers are an essential aid for consistency and getting the most flavour from your coffee and, while you do still need a small set of (accurate) scales if you want to make sure your ground coffee is translating to the right amount of espresso in the cup, that’s not a huge extra expense.
Sage is an award-winning kitchen appliance company that’s best known for its bean to cup, espresso and drip coffee machines, alongside other devices like juicers, air fryers and pizza ovens. Sage coffee machines are some of the best coffee makers on the market, offering deep and tasty espresso, lattes and cappuccinos suited to every taste and budget. Once you do, the system works great, however. The wand is just as snappy as the rest of the machine, generally taking between seven and eight seconds to build pressure and then delivering wonderfully uniform results. Within a few minutes you’ll be able to create frothy cappuccinos, velvety lattes and pretty much any coffee you like with the wand. The Barista Express is a mid-range model, it builds on the entry-level espresso machine - the Bambino - by adding a built-in burr grinder to dispense freshly ground coffee right into the portafilter. But unlike the more automated bean-to-cup style machines from other brands, this one allows you to flex your barista skills. You’ll need to tamp the coffee yourself, use the razor tool to get it to the perfect level, and steam your own milk, all of which might take a bit of practice to perfect, particularly if you’re a novice. The machine is fully manual and offers a huge range of customisation, though it’s a very steep learning curve for beginnersIt’s nice to find that almost everything you need to get started is in the box. There’s a decent-sized stainless steel milk jug, a coffee tamper (albeit a basic plastic one), and Sage’s Razor tool, which is designed to help get the perfect amount of coffee in the portafilter every time – or at least as close as possible without reaching for a (decent) set of digital kitchen scales.
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