Breville Previews New Espresso Machine, Brewer at SCA Expo

One of the more crowded stops at the SCA Expo this year was Breville’s booth where they had a number of their greatest hits from their current line up of coffee and espresso machines on display. In the center of their pavilion were two small tables holding pre-production models of their forthcoming update to their vaunted Precision Brewer and the unreleased next entry in the Oracle series of espresso machines— The Oracle Dual Boiler.

Over the course of a roughly half hour tour, Matthew Davis, the Americas Product Expert for Breville’s Coffee Portfolio, walked me through the more compelling upgrades to these two lines, starting with the biggest star— The Oracle Dual Boiler.

The New Oracle Dual Boiler

The Oracle line, dating back to 2013, traditionally has been based on the Breville Dual Boiler, but improved on it by introducing technologies like auto-dosing and tamping, as well as Breville’s first auto milk frother. Another big improvement came when they added their first touch screen display, with the introduction of the Oracle Touch. Last year, they unveiled the Oracle Jet, which traded out the dual boiler and its ability to brew and steam at the same time for a faster start-up time, and other substantial improvements to the machine operating system, the steaming system, and the new steps and methods to brew cold beverages.

Now, Breville continues its legacy of updating and evolving the platform with the Oracle Dual Boiler. As Davis describes it, this new model stands apart from the recently released Oracle Jet in a few distinct areas. First and most obvious is the reintroduction of a dual boiler to the platform, allowing you to both pull shots of espresso at the same time as you steam your milk.

However, Breville did not just bring back the exact same old dual boiler system. The new Oracle has added valves to the boiler to automate the descaling function that otherwise can be a very tedious process involving opening up the machine and fully draining the unit before adding the descaler and running several purge cycles. With this new setup, when it’s time to do the needful, all that is required is adding some descaling solution, hitting a button in the maintenance tab of the touch display, and walking away. An hour later, you return to a machine that is ready to brew once you empty out the drip trays and refill the reservoir.

The second big differentiator for the Oracle Dual Boiler is just a swipe away on the friendly touch interface: Full manual mode. While the Oracle Dual Boiler will happily dose, grind, tamp, dial in your shots, and steam your milk automatically, Breville realizes that not everyone wants their hand held throughout the drink making process. Davis explained that Breville has found more and more coffee drinking households look like mine: my family wants as much of the coffee making process done for them as possible, whereas I want to fully geek out and try to hone my craft. Now with one machine, we can have the option of doing both.

Upon turning on the Oracle Dual Boiler, the quad core processor-backed touch display reveals a carousel of drinks that it can help you make, but then when you’re ready to fly solo you can swipe up on the screen and switch to manual mode. There you are presented with a giant dial displaying the pressure gauge and you are given control over things like manual grind settings, pre-infusion and bloom stages, temperature control for both brewing and steaming, and the ability to create custom profiles for different beans and beverages.

Interestingly, Breville has thought ahead and made the whole Manual vs Auto decision modular— Meaning you can choose to take control of just the grinding, brewing, or steaming, for example, and let it automate the rest.

Another innovation to the Oracle line-up is the introduction of automated grinder adjustments. Now, as you pull shots with fresh beans, the Oracle will detect when a shot is taking too long or running too quickly and will automatically adjust the grind appropriately, essentially dialing in the shot for you. While I didn’t get to see this in action, if it works as intended, it should be a game changer for newbies to home espresso, and even for more seasoned home baristas who regularly like to try out new beans and would like to speed up the dial-in process.

Speaking of the grinder, Breville apparently redesigned the grinder around the Etzinger M2 burrs, which can be found in other high-end Breville products. Breville claims the grinder in the Oracle Dual Boiler is a new internal design, most likely part in due to the automatic grind adjustment mechanisms.

Other nice additions include improved automatic steaming capabilities for all manner of milks with their cool touch wand, and introducing an active heater element for cups on the top of the device. Breville is also introducing their first smartphone app for the Oracle line that will let you remotely start and monitor your machine.

This all comes at a cost, though, as the Oracle Dual Boiler will run exactly $1,000 more than the Jet for a total of $2,999, when it releases in August or September of this year. I should note that the model I saw was not a final production version and that it’s clear they are still fine-tuning the software— There was a little glitchiness in switching from manual back to auto mode that Davis assures me is being worked on before it goes to market.

New Precision Brewer

Perhaps not quite as flashy as the debut of the Oracle Dual Boiler, but still refreshing, Breville also showed off their update to their Precision Brewer Thermal coffee machine. The new model, which will release some time later this year, tries to do something similar to the Oracle in allowing for complete neophytes to still be able to make a tasty carafe of coffee with a single button press, while also allowing us nerds to get more finicky with adjustable bloom times, flow rates, and brew temperatures. 

The original Precision Brewer – still available – is kind of a swiss army knife of auto drip brewers, with a wide variety of brewing modes, cold, hot modes, and even has the ability to convert to using your own pour over system with the Barista model. The new Precision Brewer levels up over the current model by making lots of small quality of life improvements: adding a removable water reservoir for easier access and introducing a new design on the top brew unit that recaptures steam to save your cabinets from having their paint peeled off.

Unlike the last version which only came in brushed stainless steel with a thermal carafe, the new Precision Brewer will come in all of Breville’s standard colors. It also has an updated graphical interface, with a black fascia now and white LCD indicators; the current model is brighter (perhaps too bright for early mornings) with a light blue full lit LCD panel with black lettering. And like the current model, the new one will be available in two versions: one with a thermally insulated carafe, and one with a glass carafe and a warming plate that can be set to keep warm for up to 6 hours.

The common thread through the discussion with Davis about both machines was that Breville is listening to its customers and that feedback loop is a vital part of the product development process, as each generation improves over the weaknesses of the last generation. These are not upgrades simply for the sake of having new tech, but rather each one appears to be designed to solve specific problems their customers have faced. We’ll be excited to give these products a test down the road to see how much better they are in practical everyday use.