Sage the Bambino Plus Espresso Machine, Coffee Machine with Milk Frother, SES500BTR - Black Truffle

Product Information

The steam wand design and power in the Breville Bambino Plus are superior to the Breville Bambino (and many other home espresso machines.) Thanks to these features, the Breville Bambino Plus steam wand works very fast, creating a uniform foam without overheating the milk. Both espresso machines have straightforward panels, with a few buttons and few adjustments available. Here, the Breville Bambino Plus has more customizations for milk frothing, but that doesn’t complicate or smoothen the user experience.

Breville Bambino Plus has three adjustable milk heating and texture settings, while the Bambino has one by default.The Breville Bambino Plus is designed for those who take their coffee-making seriously. Included with the coffee machine are four filter baskets for different types of coffee grounds, a tool called the Razor, which helps you expertly level off your coffee grounds so that you can make the smoothest espresso possible, a milk jug, cleaning tools, a removable portafilter, into which you clip the coffee basket before inserting it into the machine, and even a water filter to help improve the taste of your coffee. Another advantage of the Breville Bambino Plus is has a hands-free milk-frothing setting. I like this feature because it’s perfect for when you don’t want to focus that much on operating the machine but still want a silky cappuccino or latte. Overall, the main issue for most advanced users is that they prefer to adjust the settings for a single and double espresso. Still, following the steps in their tutorials and manuals is pretty easy, and it doesn’t take too long to get a good shot of espresso.

The symmetry of both machines’ control panels is notable– with single and double shot options on the left side and steam or water buttons on the right side of their respective control panels. Overall, the Breville Bambino is suitable for anyone looking for an affordable espresso machine for home use. Moreover, if you don’t care too much about latte art, the plain Bambino will deliver milk-frothing capabilities up to your expectations. Breville Bambino vs. Bambino Plus: SimilaritiesAre you a fan of cappuccinos, cortados, and caffè lattes? Then, you’ll love the Breville Bambino Plus. The Breville Bambino Plus steam wand is better than the Breville Bambino’s because it replicates the control and accuracy of prosumer and commercial machines. The Breville Bambino offers a basic performance with some milk-frothing capabilities that are good enough for convenience-oriented home baristas. This is great news for people who hate waiting around, but it does have some downsides. Here, you press the button and the steam wand immediately starts to spit hot water out as steam builds up inside. If you don’t want the water in your milk – and you don’t – then you need to aim the wand at the hole in the drip tray, wait for the steam to start spraying through, press the button again to stop the flow and then press it again once the steam wand is safely in your milk jug.

The portafilter capacity and design, combined with Breville’s espresso extraction technology, deliver pretty good espresso. Bear in mind that producing a beautiful, delicious shot depends more on the coffee beans, water, and grinder than on the espresso machine. Effectively, with the right beans and grind size, The Bambino Plus can hold its own against the best. Milk drink quality

In This Article

Steam is delivered at a constant velocity with a slight delay between starting and stopping. Even so, I could get the jug at a good angle to swirl the milk, creating neat milk with fine micro-bubbles and a silky-smooth appearance. For many of us, a morning without coffee is one to forget. However, if you refuse to wake up for anything less than fresh espresso and hand-crafted flat whites, time is your enemy – making top-notch coffee with a manual espresso machine is something that can’t be rushed. Sage has a solution: the Bambino Plus, a manual espresso machine with a semi-automatic twist. Sage Bambino Plus SES500BSS review: What you need to know Naturally it helps if you use the best coffee beans you can buy and in this respect I highly recommend anything in the Spiller & Tait range, Union Revelation and good old Lavazza for those emergency ration runs down the local supermarket.

The first thing to note about the Bambino is that – like Sage’s other ThermoJet-equipped machines – it’s astonishingly fast to get to brewing temperature. Sage claims that it gets to temperature in 3 seconds and that’s entirely true – by the time you’ve powered the machine on, it’s ready to pour espresso. There’s no waiting around for steam, either: press the button, and after a few immediate spits of water, steam comes gushing through. This machine also comes with two sets of unpressurised and pressurised (or dual wall) baskets – two for single shot and two for doubles. Use the dual wall pressurised baskets for pre-ground coffee that isn’t necessarily as finely ground as it should be and the single-wall unpressurised baskets when using a grinder and fresh-roasted beans to produce coffee of powder-like consistency. The Breville Bambino Plus includes a dosing tool that the Breville Bambino espresso machine doesn’t. Other than that, both include a decent milk jug, a solid plastic tamper, and a 58 mm portafilter with a plastic handle. Breville was founded in the 1930s by Bill O’Brien and Harry Norville in Melbourne, Australia. The company started out as a small business that produced radios. The company set a new direction in 1953 after another company bought Breville’s radioelectric business. Then, Breville began to expand and started making kitchen appliances. Recently, the company acquired Baratza (2020), one of the biggest home grinders companies, and Lelit (2022), a prosumer espresso machine brand. Although these moves irritate some coffee fans, they may represent faster quality improvements and product innovation for home baristas. Breville Bambino vs. Bambino Plus: Side-By-Side Comparison Features

A compact, easy to use espresso machine with plenty of room for customization

The Breville Bambino and the Breville Bambino Plus espresso machines have a stainless steel case. This gives them a minimalist and sleek design, with their control panels limited to just a few buttons. The Breville Bambino Plus has three additional buttons to adjust milk heating temperature and frothing settings. Still, the user interface is pretty intuitive. Those extra buttons add an exciting layer of customization to the Breville Bambino Plus. That said, the results are great for both machines. And, in terms of speed and convenience, they are ready to make espresso in seconds. Considering that most commercial and prosumer espresso machines take minutes to prepare, this is quite a feat.