Sage Barista Express Impress Black Truffle

The Sage Barista Express Impress is a piston espresso machine that supports the entire process of making espresso. It comes with a built-in coffee grinder. This one is very precise, I have not been able to measure greater variation than 0.2 gram on an 18 gram dose and the grind is even. Grinding is done directly in the portafilter, which can be placed under the grinder, whereby the space between the grinding outlet and portafilter is closed. This means you don't have any mess during or after grinding. The tamping of the coffee is done by pulling a lever with which you operate the mechanical tamper. This gives exactly 10kg of pressure and ends with a 6 degree barista twist. The pressed coffee comes out consistently and hardly shows any imperfections. However, due to this process, there is no possibility to use a WDT tool. If you pull the portafilter out of the holder after grinding but before tamping, for example to use a WDT tool, this will result in mess on your countertop and underdosing.

The amount of coffee ground is automatically adjusted if under or overdosing occurs. So if there is too little coffee in the portafilter during tamping, the machine will indicate this and you can grind and try again. You repeat this process until there is exactly the right amount of coffee in the portafilter and the machine remembers this amount for the next time. Very useful when changing beans or after adjusting the grind size and increases the consistency of the brewing process.

After grinding and tamping, the portafilter can be moved to the brew group. It can be secured well in the brew group and this takes little force. After this you can choose a 1 or 2 cup extraction. The extraction time can be set individually for both extractions. Unfortunately, this is timed and not volume, which makes it practically impossible to extract a consistent volume. A target volume of 32 grams gave me a deviation of more than 25%.

The machine supports pre-infusion. A technique that you normally don't see in this price range where water first runs into the portafilter under low pressure to slowly wet the puck and then increase the pressure to the famous 9 bar. This ensures less channeling and better extraction. The pre-infussion time can be set but also manually operated.

The machine uses a heating system with thermocoil. This is very accurate and has the advantage that the machine heats up very quickly. I measure about 20-25 seconds to get to operating temperature. My dual boiler piston machine from Bazzera takes more than 10 minutes to do this. But the theme coil also has drawbacks. If you want to use the steam pipe to froth milk, the thematic coil has to heat up further. This takes about 15 seconds and produces less powerful steam than a boiler machine. It is also possible to tap tea water, but filling a standard tea glass takes about 1 minute because the water flows quite slowly. The temperature of the tea water is also a bit on the low side at 86 degrees.

Beautiful materials have been used and the design is very smart. This way you can store your tools in a container that is neatly hidden. You can also easily access all parts, making the machine easy to maintain and clean. There is room for a scale filter and this is also included as standard. This lasts about 3 months. The machine comes with 4 baskets, cleaning tools, cleaning agents and a milk jug to froth milk.

The machine is a must for anyone who wants to make good coffee in a repeatable way without too much hassle.

Great device, nicely designed and well put together. The automatic grinder function is great and you also get positive feedback when you press the coffee. The machine automatically dispenses more or less coffee when needed. My oat milk cappucinno is great, the steam function gives nice pressure. The device is firmly put together. I have already received some very positive reactions from friends. What is also nice to see is that pressing the coffee is done very nicely by the automatic arm. The consistency of the coffee is also good to see. It has a nice cream layer on it. The perfect device for the enthusiast who likes high quality coffee products but doesn't have the time to calibrate a machine. Everything is in one device, you don't need a separate grinder. The explanation is also clear. All in all we are very happy that we went for Sage.

It is a beautiful device, which is easy to use. The automatic tamper learns very quickly and after following the instructions you can easily make delicious coffee yourself. Despite the fact that you no longer have to work with a tamper yourself, it does not remain clean on and around the device.