Breville Barista Touch BES880BSS vs Breville Oracle Jet BES985

A household where more than one person makes milk drinks and nobody wants to learn to steam

Scores higher on steam power & milk texturing, workflow & ergonomics, value for money.

Cafe-standard espresso and hands-free milk without learning to grind, dose and tamp by hand

Scores higher on shot quality & extraction, build quality & durability, ease of use & learning curve.

• +Hands-free milk texturing with 8 texture levels and a temperature you choose between 104F and 167F.
• +A 30-setting hardened steel conical grinder built in, dosing to Breville's stated 18g.
• +ThermoJet heating that Breville publishes as reaching extraction temperature in 3 seconds.
• +Two-year warranty, double the one year Breville gives the Barista Express and the Infuser.
• +Five preset drinks plus eight you can create, name and save.

• −$999.95, which buys a super-automatic that also pulls the shot for you.
• −A 54mm portafilter, not the 58mm commercial size, so accessories are less interchangeable.
• −The tamp is still manual, so the one step most likely to ruin a shot is left to you.
• −Breville publishes no pre-infusion pressure and no shot volumes, only the 9 bar extraction.

• +Auto grind, dose and tamp into a 58 mm portafilter holding 22 g, the size cafe machines use.
• +Auto MilQ steams microfoam hands-free with 8 texture levels, settings for alternative milks and a temperature range of 104 to 167 F.
• +Barista Guidance detects an over or under extracted shot and helps you correct the grind.
• +Cold Brew in under 3 minutes and Cold Espresso in just over a minute, which almost no home machine offers.
• +Six finishes, from Brushed Stainless Steel to Black Truffle and Damson Blue.

• −Breville's product page does not publish pump pressure, power rating or water tank size; the tank and warranty figures here come from an authorised dealer.
• −At $1,999.95 list it costs more than twice the Barista Touch, which also grinds and steams automatically.
• −Heating is a ThermoJet group head rather than a boiler, and no steam capacity figure is published, so back-to-back milk drinks cannot be compared on paper.
• −It is built to make decisions for you, so someone who wants to learn espresso by feel will get less out of it than out of a semi-automatic machine.