When I was at university, I had a very short-lived part time job as a barista. I spent an hour shadowing the outgoing barista and then the title was passed to me. I was a terrible barista, and I’ve often thought I should issue a general apology to anyone who bought a coffee from me. It couldn’t have tasted very nice. I have no idea, because at the time, I didn’t drink coffee. 

Fast forward to 2024 and I now utter the phrase “coffee is life” after that first sip in the morning. Before having kids, I used to love going out for coffee. In fact, I remember saying to Mark that I didn’t think we’d ever want to have an espresso machine at home because going out was the part of the ritual that appealed the most. 

When we lived in London we used to wander up to the high street once or twice a day to indulge in a leisurely cup, free to read or talk as we liked. Since having our kids though, that scene is not quite so relaxing. Cafe experiences inevitably involve constant movement, futile distraction attempts, and abandoned half consumed food and drinks.  

Mark’s mate, Jason, recommended an espresso machine that he had bought during the pandemic – when going out for coffee wasn’t an option. I was dubious, recalling that even with a decent coffee machine I hadn’t been able to produce a passable cappuccino. 

But Jason was right about the Breville Oracle, even I can turn out a decent cup of coffee on a machine that takes care of the parts of the process that used to trip me up. 

Click the group head in under the grinder and it automatically grinds, fills and tamps for you. 

Another button triggers the perfectly timed extraction, and there’s even an auto option for the steaming wand to create the perfect milk texture based on what kind of coffee you prefer. 

Breville have a filter subscription too where they’ll automatically post us a new filter when it’s time to change ours.  

We also signed up for an Allpress subscription for coffee beans. They make it easy to add a bag to our automatic order. This was handy when we had friends stay over the summer. It’s also easy to pause your subscription, which we did when we were going through the bags more slowly.  

Skilled baristas might prefer a more manual approach, but for us the ease with which we can produce a cafe quality cup of coffee has added this machine to our list of the best presents we’ve bought ourselves.  

We took Jason’s advice on one other thing – which was to wait for this pricey espresso machine to go on sale. We got 40% off in a Boxing Day sale.