Unlike some machines, the Barista Pro isn’t smart, and doesn’t come with any form of app support. As the name suggests, it’s also fully manual. Newbie users won’t find on-screen instructions for lattes or auto settings for specific drinks. 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 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.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. 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.

You won’t find fancy features such as app support or strength settings here, but the machine’s easy setup process and rapid heating system make it a great choice for coffee fans looking to take their morning caffeine injection to the next level. 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. 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.A word to the wise, though. Unlike some of Sage’s other machines, such as the Bambino Plus or the pricier Barista Touch and Oracle Touch models, there is no automatic milk texturing facility here. If you want to produce hot milk with a soft, silky microfoam, then you’re only option is to take some time to learn – read Sage’s guidelines, watch some YouTube videos, and keep trying. Once you get the hang of it, however, the Barista Pro is a great companion; the three-second heat-up time is very welcome when you’re trying to make a cappuccino or flat white before dashing out the front door. The Sage coffee machines you can find are from the following ranges: Bambino, Oracle, Barista, Duo and Precision Brewers. Most devices will come with a built-in coffee grinder but if it doesn’t, you’ll need to buy one to grind your beans or you can buy pre-ground beans to use in it. 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. It’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.

Once we’d made those first eight cups and perfected the settings, it was easy to produce consistently great espresso every time. The machine takes around 40 seconds to warm up when first switched on, then for us it took 17 seconds to grind and dispense the coffee, but this’ll vary depending on your settings. As you’d expect, grinding is the loudest part of the process and hit 80dB on our noise meter. Getting the most out of this coffee machine means tweaking its settings so that you get the coffee you want, which is great for experienced coffee drinkers. You shouldn’t buy it if… 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. Confusing grinder settings and the Barista Pro’s completely manual steamer will be intimidating to first-time manual machine owners, however. The two-cup capacity and single bean tray also make it inappropriate for larger shared houses. Design Is it better to buy a reconditioned Sage Coffee machines instead of a used or second hand Sage Coffee machines?By comparison, cheaper machines just push out water by time. The benefit is that it means you should always get the same amount of espresso in your cup with each pour, something you can’t guarantee with budget machines. 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.

With a grinder built in, you get everything perfectly set up for this machine, delivering the best-quality coffee from bean to cup.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. According to Sage, the Thermojet tech lets the Pro heat up and be ready to pour a shot of espresso only three seconds after it’s been turned on. Volumetric is a more precise approach to pouring, where the machine measures exactly how much water it’s pushing through the ground coffee.