This Breville Duo Temp is a good looking machine and I'm happy to have it on my countertop. When guests arrive, it's presence makes it obvious that I'm "in the know" about coffee consumption. I think the very very BEST feature of this machine is the magnetic tamper. It's really the coolest thing ever...stamp those grinds down flat then in a lightning-quick flick of your hand and that tamper is right back in it's spot. Niiiice. I like the 4 filter options: 2 for pre-ground coffee and 2 for fresh ground coffee. There are "extras" included like a metal scrape thing that you use to scrape off the extra grinds in the porta filter and a cool thingy to clean the steam/hot water spout. Oh, and a metal milk pitcher for heating milk for lattes. There's a place to keep the small stuff in a little easy access drawer behind the drainage grate which slides out easily. The drainage grate has a floating sign that sticks up when it's full of water and coffee drippings and tells you it's full. Good idea and it kind of makes me laugh. I use the steam arm for hot water for tea on occasion when I'm feeling even more pretentious than usual. It's awesome. So what's not to like? Just one, small thing that I'm not very fond of because I'm lazy and like to talk to people when I'm making my morning beverage-- It's that there's no timed espresso shot button on this model. So a perfect espresso shot, according to the directions takes 25-ish seconds. So I have to count. Or at least watch to see how I'm doing in terms of how it looks in the cup, which is a challenge for me because I'm a little distractable. It stops automatically after 60 seconds, but by then I may have burnt my espresso shot. The next model "up" has a single and double shot button. This would be a major decision making point for me if I had paid attention to my options when buying this Breville model. Don't get me wrong- I like it. I would like it better if I didn't have to babysit the pouring of the shot. But overall, it's a good machine and makes great espresso so I'm not complaining too much.

I had an old Cuisinart expresso machine for 8 years, I decided to upgrade, I researched for over a year and decided on the Breville BES810BSS. I loved this machine so much I bought my daughter one, it's easy to use, makes a great expresso. What more could you ask for, right? when I bought mine the first thing I did was check the water temperature, It was close to 200 degrees F, just like their website says. About 3 months ago It wouldn't make good expresso, it was watery. I've made my expresso the same way for 11 years, I use the double expresso coffee holder, and do 2 pulls and I end up with a wonderful iced expresso, I use good coffee beans, grind them myself. I tried changing the grind, nothing worked. So when I checked the water temperature it was 160 degrees F. I called Breville, described the problem, I hadn't been real good at cleaning so I figured it was my fault. They said send it in with 160.00 dollars, and that will cover shipping, repairing, and replacing it with a refurbished one if needed, a win-win situation, I thought. They replaced the thermostat, I was happy. It comes back, the first expresso I made was no better than the last one before I sent it in, I checked the temperature, it was about 175 degrees, I called breville, and was told that was good. the last girl I talked to, ridiculed me for the way I made my expresso, an iced expresso should be watery she said, I tried to explain to her that I make the same way all the time, so it shouldn't taste any different, she couldn't figure that out, just had this tone of disbelief that I was complaining, I finally asked about the temperature, she said it should be about 150 to 160 degrees. The front page of Breville's expresso website states that 200 degrees is what is necessary for a good cup of expresso, the girl I talked to had never seen that, so when she went to that page and saw what it said, she dismissed that and stuck to her script then about 150 to 160 degrees, and then went back to not believing how, with the way I made my coffee, how I should expect any difference. BY this time I couldn't get a word in, she just dismissed me completely like I was stupid, I got tired of that, I couldn't get a word in, and I finally said F off and hung up. So now nothing I do works, and I just glare at my 600 dollar paperweight that couldn't make a good cup of expresso if it had to. So now I'm researching again "it will not be a Breville"

Initially, I loved this machine. I thought the espresso was of similar quality to that you'd get at a coffee shop by a professional barista, which was of course the desired outcome when buying such an expensive machine. I used the machine daily. After a few months, and at regular intervals, I cleaned the machine according to the protocols outlined in the user's manual. I use high quality espresso blend coffee ground very finely.

Eventually, after maybe 8-12 months, the machine stopped producing the same level of quality espresso that I was initially impressed with. I'd say perhaps it's simply user error but the issue is frequent enough to indicate a pattern beyond this explanation. Sometimes the espresso is watery, sometimes it's 3/4 foam and only a small amount of bad tasting espresso, sometimes nothing even comes through the filter AT ALL, and I have to dump the grounds and try again, usually resulting in a poor, foamy espresso.

Again, to reiterate, I clean the machine regularly and the filters after every single use. The quality just isn't the same and now I'm looking for a new machine. Will I ever be able to reliably reproduce the incredible espresso that I get from local cafés? Probably not.

EDIT: I finally buckled and bought the Breville coffee grinder to go with this machine and the difference is profound. My espresso is a solid 8 or 9/10 now. I can't express how much freshly ground coffee and the single wall filter make in pulling an exceptional shot of espresso. Moral of the story, the machine is great, just be sure to get a quality bean grinder to go along with it!

This machine extracts a delicious, rich, non bitter, double shot from almost any coffee beans. It consistently allows the characteristic flavor of the bean roast and origin through to the cup. It also has a powerful pump and doesn't get clogged by an inconsistent grind easily.

It has enough weight to make it easy to use, helps with getting the portafilter on and off.

It also froths milk amazingly well.

OK, just a few days in with it, haven't pulled my first perfect shot yet, but already I can tell this is going to be a great little machine. I started with La Pavoni's for home brew, and it took almost six months to get the first good shot. After two days I've learned that this machine prefers an 18g puck. I drink Americanos, and where I was pulling 51g shots through a 17g puck into 120g of hot water, here I'm pulling 54g shots through the 18g puck into 108g of water, and will probably have grind dialed in tomorrow (started too fine, went too far coarse in first change). I don't tamp any longer, but use one of those coffee levelers, which provides a consistent tamp and does the Razor job at the same time.

Yes, the machine is semi-automatic, but grind, tamp, and ratios are not. They're skills, and skills are acquired through practice. If somebody thinks this machine is noisy, they never heard its big brother, the Breville dual boiler this machine is replacing after about 8 years of service.

I like the small footprint. Yes, the tank and drip tray are small, but once you have figured that out, they will not change in size. My guess here is that it will be a consistent performer, i.e., once you get it and your technique dialed in, you won't need things like pressure gauges to get your good shot. I had to spend almost $300 to add a PID to my old Rancilio Sylvia - this little guy has its PID built in. With the thermocoil, it's ready to make its first shot in under a minute (took its big brother almost 15 minutes to warm up). And the thermocoil means a lot less risk of calcifying build-up - there's no boiler tank.

Count me IN on this one -

Edit after one week:
I have now learned the absolute importance of running hot water through the portafilter to warm it up. In standard semi-automatic machines,the entire grouphead is heated, but with this little guy, heat from the thermocoil doesn't reach the portafilter. Easy to remedy, just turn the dial to the left and run hot water through the portafilter.

Critical quality step. Shots after a week are as good as any I got from Duo Temp's big brother.

Also, Beville manual recommends 19-22g puck. Spot on. Flow through smaller puck is too fast and coffee is thin. 19g with a slight tamp is a further improvement.

It's all about dialing it in. If a lot of home espresso machines are "semi-automatic" this one is "quarter automatic" - there is no button for single shot or double shot. The user decides how long to pull the shot. Breville recommends targeting 30 seconds, and you have to dial your puck size and tamp to hit that target.