Breville is an Australian brand founded in 1932, whose name is synonymous with innovative household appliances all over the world. Breville’s bevy of beautiful kitchen appliances are known to provide cooking and coffee enthusiasts with a wide range of simple, strong and user friendly product choices. Breville first forayed into the Espresso machine category back in 2001, with the launch of the Breville ESP10 in Australia. Earning wide praise for brewing top notch coffee soon resulted in the American excursion of Breville, with the launch of ESP8XL Espresso machine.

Breville has cemented its position as one of the top brands in the world, famous for building beautiful as well as highly functional Espresso machines. Their latest product, the Breville 800ESXL 15-Bar Triple-Priming Die-Cast Espresso Machine is another beautiful looking model developed for those looking to brew restaurant quality coffee at home. The 800ESXL looks very much like a brother of the popular Breville BES860XL, but what separates them apart is the heavy duty metal that encases the 800ESXL. The price tag of the new Breville 800ESXL certainly looks a bit on the expensive side, but the machine’s extra-ordinary promised durability and Breville’s known ability to deliver quality products, definitely demanded at least one try and we obliged. Read more about the Breville 800ESXL in our detailed review below.

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Key Features

 
1) Die-Cast Metal Casing – The incredibly sturdy and durable look of the Breville 800ESXL is all due to the tough, yet beautifully designed exterior. Premium grade Aluminium and Zinc have been used to construct the body of the 800ESXL, the controls and the tamping head. A heavy duty die-cast, all-metal construction makes this product perfectly suited to undergo all the tortures you can subject it to at your home. The incredibly sleek design of the Breville 800ESXL will impart that ultra-modern look to your kitchen, and at 15x16x13 inches, it is compact enough to fit any kitchen counter-top easily.

2) Thermo Block Heating System – The Thermo-block mechanism of the Breville 800ESXL maintains the water at an ideal 204 degrees Fahrenheit during extraction, which reaches a temperature of over 250 degrees Fahrenheit during the steaming. This ensures that your coffee remains piping hot for hours after brewing. When the steaming process is finished, the embedded Auto-Purge™ function lets-off a pre-set amount of steam to cool down the temperature back to an optimal level.

3) 15-Bar Triple Priming Pump – This Italian made pump is the key to 800ESXL’s ability to serve the perfect cup of Espresso. Prior to the coffee being extracted, the 15-bar pump automatically infuses three short, successive hot water bursts into the filter head that moistens and expands the ground coffee or the Espresso pods. This whole process enables the machine to generate full crema and flavour out of the ground coffee beans, producing a smooth and rich in taste Espresso for you. Triple Priming pumps with 15 bar pressure levels are rare in Espresso machines, as most of them simply run steamed water over the ground coffee, which results in a duller flavour.

4) Filters – The stainless steel filter that comes equipped with this Espresso machine, is yet another innovative first by Breville in its coffee makers. There are three different filters provided – A single filter (7 grams), a double filter (14 gram) and a pod filter. Each stainless filter incorporates Breville’s exclusive Dual-Wall crema technology, where a first wall of 333 pores is followed by another wall with only one exit hole or pore. This dual wall results in a “back” pressure, that along with the Triple Priming pump, proves instrumental in extracting the maximum flavour and crema out of the ground coffee.

5) Stainless Steel Steam Wand – One of the most deeply satisfying feature of the Breville 800ESXL, the steam wand gives you the actual feeling of operating a barista style coffee-maker while using the wand to froth milk or dispensing hot water. Made of Stainless steel, the steam wand is mounted on a ball, which gives it a swivelling action and added ease of manoeuvrability. It is capable of producing continuous dry steam, which makes the 800ESXL ideal for producing milk-based coffee drinks like Cappuccinos, Mocha and Lattes too. This enables you to experiment with your coffee and vary your beverage, without needing to buy a separate milk frother. Just keep in mind to wash the wand soon after use though, as dried froth is that much harder to rub and cleanse.

6) Large Detachable Water Tank – It features a 75 oz water tank, which is sufficient for making at least 50 single shots of Espresso per full refill. The water tank is situated in a concealed compartment just behind the drip tray and is illuminated to clearly indicate the present water level. Also, it can be easily detached from the body, which proves quite convenient while cleaning the machine.

7) Additional Features – There is a very handy selector dial located on the front of the Breville 800ESXL, which allows you to choose between Espresso, Steam and Hot Water settings. This means you can also use this machine to get boiling water, for making any other beverage you might want. The 800ESXL features a very satisfying full 4.5 inches of frontal cup clearance, which means that you can easily accommodate larger coffee mugs while brewing coffee. This again is a unique feature, and possibly the first in coffee machines, which allows you to brew other Espresso variations like the Cafe Americano, Cappuccino and Latte. Also provided with the machine are accessories such as a power adapter cord, a stainless steel frothing pitcher, a tamping tool/measuring spoon and a cleaning tool.

Pros

• Delivers excellent Barista quality Espresso;
• Highly durable and stylish;
• Triple Priming Bar Pump;
• Frontal 4.5 clearance for accommodating large travel mugs and coffee cups.

Cons

• Some users on Amazon complained about the coffee not being hot enough, our recommendation is letting the machine warm up for about 10 minutes before beginning with the brewing process;
• Diligent cleaning of the stainless filters is required, in order to avoid substantial clogging (but this goes for every machine out there).

Conclusion

 
Breville 800ESXL 15-Bar Triple-Priming Die-Cast Espresso Machine is an exceptional Espresso machine, with quality features and is capable of brewing excellent coffee much like what the premium restaurants serve. It is an almost perfect combination of functionality and style, and is one of the most accomplished coffee maker machine in the under $500 category. In fact, it is like a cutting edge gadget, wherein you as a user will have to spend some time with the machine, before you can use it with aplomb! At a mid-range price ($299 on Amazon), the Breville offers professional grade quality service without a hefty price tag of other advanced quality products such as a DeLonghi Magnifica, and is perfectly designed to be the centrepiece of your kitchen.