Breville Barista Pro vs Barista Touch Impress: which one fits your routine?

Barista Pro vs Barista Touch Impress at a glance

Head to head

The better result in each row is marked, based on my testing and the manufacturer specs. Rows where the machines are identical have no winner.

Keep in mind that the tally is not my verdict. Some rows matter far more than others, and which ones matter depends on what you drink.

Design, size and build

From across the room, these two look like siblings. Both are brushed stainless steel boxes with a bean hopper on top, a portafilter✕PortafilterThe handle with a metal basket that holds the ground coffee. You lock it into the machine’s group head to brew. in the middle, a steam wand on the right and a hot water outlet.

Up close, the Breville Barista Touch Impress is the bigger, more modern machine. Its 4-inch color touchscreen replaces the Barista Pro’s dials and buttons, and the Impress lever sits on the left of the group head.

The Barista Pro is the more compact of the two, with a crisp LCD and chunky dials.

The Barista Pro measures about 14 inches wide, 13 inches deep and 16 inches tall, and weighs about 20 pounds. The Touch Impress is about 14.2 × 13.4 × 16.3 inches and weighs about 24 pounds.

Those few extra pounds are mostly the tamping mechanism. You feel it when you slide the machine forward to refill beans or clean behind it.

Weight on the counter

The Impress tamping system adds most of the extra weight.

Both feel well made. The steel panels did not flex, the portafilters are solid stainless steel, and the drip trays click in firmly.

If you have tight wall cabinets, check the height with the hopper lid off. On both machines, I needed a few inches above the hopper to refill beans without pulling the machine forward.

Our tip: Leave about 4 inches above the hopper so you can refill beans without dragging a 20-pound machine across the counter.

Setup and the first week

Setup took about 15 minutes on both. You rinse the parts, fill the tank, flush water through the group head and steam wand, and set the grind.

The first week is where they split. On the Barista Pro, I spent the first few days learning to dose and tamp consistently, weighing every shot and adjusting the grind by taste.

On the Breville Barista Touch Impress, the screen walked me through it. It asked for the beans, ground them, told me whether the dose was too high or low after tamping, and adjusted the next grind automatically.

By day three, my Touch Impress shots were balanced and chocolatey. On the Barista Pro, I got there by about day five, and I understood exactly why each change worked.

Days until I pulled consistently good shots

My experience with a medium roast. Complete beginners may take a little longer on either.

Our tip: Weigh your coffee and your shot for the first two weeks on either machine, because a cheap scale teaches you faster than any screen.

Screen, controls and smart features

This is the most visible difference, and for many buyers it decides everything.

The Breville Barista Pro uses an LCD with three dials and a handful of buttons. It shows grind size, grind time, shot size and a live shot timer, which is the single most useful tool for learning espresso.

The Breville Barista Touch Impress replaces all that with a 4-inch color touchscreen. You swipe through drinks with pictures, tap to start, and the screen shows each step of the recipe as it happens.

It saves up to eight drinks, so my partner’s oat flat white and my double espresso each had their own button. On the Barista Pro, we each had to remember our own routine.

The Touch Impress touchscreen walks you through every drink, from grind to milk.

I expected to prefer the buttons, because touchscreens and wet fingers rarely mix. In practice, the Touch Impress screen was responsive even with damp hands, and I never had a missed tap.

The Barista Pro’s dials still feel quicker when you know exactly what you want. If you like to change one thing at a time and watch the result, the LCD is perfect.

Our tip: Turn on the shot timer view on either machine and note the seconds for every shot, because time is the fastest clue to whether your grind is right.

Grinder and dose

Both machines use hardened steel conical burrs✕Conical burrsTwo cone-shaped grinding parts, one inside the other. Beans are crushed between them, and the gap between the burrs sets how fine the coffee is. with 30 grind settings. That is plenty of range for medium and dark roasts, and enough for most light roasts too.

The Barista Pro doses by time, set in tenths of a second. Even on a fixed time, my doses wandered between about 15.8 and 16.2 grams, because beans don’t all flow at the same speed.

That 0.4-gram swing sounds tiny, but in espresso it can change shot time by a few seconds. I weighed every dose for the first two weeks, then trusted the timer once the beans settled.

The Touch Impress solves this in a smarter way. After you tamp, it measures the height of the coffee in the basket and tells you if the dose was too high or too low, then adjusts the next grind automatically.

Dose spread on a fixed setting

Smaller is better. Measured over a week with the same beans.

The trade-off is speed. The Touch Impress grinder runs at about one gram per second, so a full 18-gram double takes 18 to 20 seconds. The Barista Pro felt noticeably quicker for my 16-gram dose.

The Touch Impress also has the bigger hopper, about 12 ounces against roughly 8.8, which means fewer refills for a two-coffee household.

Our tip: Start the blank flush while the grinder runs on the Touch Impress, because doing both at once saves about 15 seconds every morning.

Tamping: the Impress lever

Tamping✕TampingPressing the ground coffee into a firm, flat puck in the basket. An even tamp helps water flow through all the coffee at the same rate. is the step most beginners get wrong, and it is the reason the Touch Impress exists.

On the Barista Pro, you tamp by hand with the included steel tamper. Press too lightly or at an angle and the water finds the weak spot, a problem called channeling✕ChannelingWhen water forces a path through a weak spot in the coffee puck. Part of the coffee over-extracts and part under-extracts, so the shot tastes sour and bitter at once..

The Impress lever does it for you. Pull it down and it presses the coffee with about 22 pounds of force, then finishes with a 7-degree twist that polishes the surface.

It produced a level, even puck every single time. My kids could make a decent shot with it, which I can’t say about the hand tamper.

The Impress lever tamps with consistent force and checks your dose at the same time.

Is it worth paying for? If you already tamp well, no. If you have never made espresso before, it removes the biggest source of bad shots and wasted coffee in the first month.

Espresso quality

Here is the surprise: once dialed in, the two machines pulled espresso I could not reliably tell apart. Both scored 8.7 for espresso in my single reviews.

They share Breville’s ThermoJet heater, PID✕PID temperature controlA digital controller that keeps the brew water at a steady, set temperature instead of letting it swing up and down. temperature control and the 54 mm portafilter, so the fundamentals are the same.

On the Breville Barista Pro, my baseline was 16 grams in and 32 grams out. Medium-roast shots ran in about 28 to 30 seconds and poured like syrup, with thick crema.

On the Touch Impress, I used 18 grams in and 36 grams out, a classic 1:2 brew ratio✕Brew ratioThe weight of espresso in the cup compared with the weight of dry coffee. A 1:2 ratio means 18 grams of coffee makes 36 grams of espresso.. Shots took 27 to 30 seconds and tasted balanced and chocolatey from week one.

My espresso ratings

My scores out of 10 for body, crema, flavor and consistency.

Once dialed in, the Barista Pro pulled syrupy shots with thick crema.

The difference is in how you get there. The Barista Pro gives you more direct control, including programmable pre-infusion✕Pre-infusionA short, low-pressure soak of the ground coffee before full pressure starts, so the water flows through the puck evenly. up to 10 seconds. The Touch Impress gives you finer temperature control, from 192 to 207°F in one-degree steps.

That temperature range mattered with lighter beans. For a light roast I went up to 203°F, which removed the sourness, and for a very dark roast I went down to 196°F, which softened the bitterness.

Americanos, long coffee and hot water

Neither machine brews a true long coffee through the grounds, and that is a good thing. Pushing a whole mug of water through an espresso puck over-extracts it and turns it bitter.

Instead, both have a dedicated hot water outlet, so you build an americano the way a café does: espresso first, then hot water, or the other way around.

On the Breville Barista Touch Impress, the americano is a saved recipe. I always chose water first, about 4 to 6 ounces, then pulled the double shot over it, which keeps the crema on top.

On the Barista Pro, I did the same thing by hand. It took a few extra seconds, but the result was identical, and the hot water outlet was hot enough for tea as well.

If you love a big mug of black coffee every morning, keep in mind that both are espresso machines first. An americano is as close as they get to drip coffee, and to my taste it is better.

Our tip: Pour the hot water into the cup before the espresso, because pulling the shot on top keeps the crema and makes the drink taste rounder.

Milk drinks

This is the second big difference. The Barista Pro is manual only, and the Touch Impress gives you a choice.

The Breville Barista Pro has a four-hole steam tip with serious power. A 6-ounce latte jug took about 30 seconds, noticeably quicker than gentler machines, and I stopped the steam at around 140 to 150°F.

That speed is great once you have the technique, and it makes glossy microfoam✕MicrofoamMilk foam with bubbles so small you can barely see them. It feels silky and glossy, which is what a good flat white or latte needs. for latte art. It is less forgiving while you learn, because a few seconds too long and the milk turns bubbly.

The Breville Barista Touch Impress has an automatic wand with a temperature sensor. You set the milk type, choose one of eight foam levels, put the jug under the wand and walk away.

The default milk temperature is 149°F, and you can lower it to 140°F for sweeter milk. The automatic foam was reliable for everyday lattes, though slightly coarser than what I made by hand.

Hands-free milk on the Touch Impress freed me to clean up while it frothed.

Milk-drink ratings

My scores out of 10 from my single reviews, for texture, temperature and ease.

Milk sugars taste sweetest at around 140°F, and most baristas stop steaming somewhere between 140 and 155°F. Both machines live comfortably in that window.

For oat milk flat whites on the Touch Impress, I used a high-protein barista oat milk at 140 to 145°F. It held its texture well and never split.

Our tip: Fill the jug only to the bottom of the spout on both machines, because overfilled milk can’t spin and won’t make silky foam.

Workflow and speed

Both machines are fast thanks to ThermoJet heating. Turn them on and they are ready in about three seconds, and switching from espresso to steam is nearly instant.

The time sinks are different. On the Barista Pro, the slowest part is you: grinding, tamping and steaming by hand.

On the Touch Impress, the grinder is the slowest step at about 20 seconds, followed by the blank flush to warm the portafilter. Everything else runs while you do something else.

For a single flat white, my morning routine came out roughly the same on both. For two or three drinks in a row, the Touch Impress pulled ahead because I could prep the next shot while the milk frothed itself.

My time for a flat white, start to finish

My rough timings once both machines were dialed in, including the blank flush.

Our tip: Run a blank shot through the empty portafilter before every coffee, because a cold portafilter steals heat and makes the first shot taste sour.

Cleaning and upkeep

Cleaning is similar, because these are both semi-automatic machines with a portafilter, a steam wand and a drip tray.

After each session, I knocked out the puck, rinsed the basket, wiped and purged the steam wand, and emptied the drip tray when the float popped up.

The Touch Impress has one advantage. After automatic frothing, it purges and cleans the steam wand itself, so there is less dried milk to scrub.

Both machines ask for a cleaning cycle with a tablet every few hundred shots, and a descale when the water hardness calls for it. Using the water filter in the tank stretches that interval a lot.

My daily hands-on cleaning time

With two or three milk drinks a day.

Our tip: Wipe the steam wand with a damp cloth within a minute of frothing, before the milk dries into a crust.

Beans, water and supplies

Both machines hold about 2 liters of water, which is roughly 60 espressos’ worth once you allow for flushing and rinsing. In my house, that meant a refill every three or four days.

The bean hoppers differ more. The Touch Impress holds about 12 ounces against roughly 8.8 on the Barista Pro, which is about 19 against 15 double shots at my doses.

Double shots per full hopper, my estimate

Based on hopper capacity and my usual dose. Leave a little in the hopper so the grinder feeds evenly.

Use fresh whole beans within about four weeks of the roast date. Stale beans make pale crema that disappears fast, and no amount of dialing in fixes that.

Both machines take Breville’s water filter in the tank. If your water is hard, use it and replace it every two to three months, because scale is the most common reason these machines lose temperature over time.

Our tip: Buy beans with a roast date on the bag, because a "best before" date tells you nothing about freshness.

Beginner mistakes I made, and how each machine handled them

I made plenty of mistakes in the first week, and the two machines responded very differently.

The Barista Pro let me make every mistake and learn from it. The Touch Impress caught most of them before they reached the cup.

The lesson is simple. The Touch Impress is the safer bet for beginners, but the Barista Pro will make you a better home barista, faster.

Real-life scenarios

Specs only go so far. These are the situations where one machine clearly pulled ahead during my testing.

For hands-on brewers, the Barista Pro is the more rewarding machine.

My scorecard

These are my own scores out of 10. The first four come from my single reviews of each machine, and I added learning curve because it decides this matchup.

Breville Barista Pro

Breville Barista Touch Impress

Overall, I rate the Barista Pro 8.5 and the Touch Impress 8.7. The Touch Impress does more of the work for you, while the Barista Pro rewards you for learning.

Which one should you buy?

It comes down to one question: do you want to make espresso, or do you want espresso made for you, with a little help? For the wider picture beyond this matchup, see my guide to the best Breville espresso machines.

Still deciding? See how the Pro compares with its touchscreen sibling in my Barista Pro vs Barista Touch comparison, or weigh two different upgrades in Barista Pro vs Barista Express Impress. If you want even more automation, read Barista Touch Impress vs Oracle Jet.

For guided espresso and hands-free milk, the Touch Impress earns its place.

Barista Pro vs Barista Touch Impress specifications

From manufacturer specifications and my own testing.

How I tested and compared them

I used each machine as my everyday espresso maker for four weeks, making straight espresso, americanos, flat whites, cappuccinos and lattes with dairy and oat milk.

I weighed every dose and yield, timed shots and steaming, measured milk temperatures with a probe thermometer, and tested light, medium and dark roasts across the grind and temperature ranges.

I followed every cleaning routine and kept daily notes, then wrote up my notes and measurements together and checked them against Breville’s specifications and owner documentation.

• Espresso: dose, ratio, shot time, crema and taste
• Milk: texture, temperature and speed
• Workflow: controls, guidance and time per drink
• Ownership: cleaning, footprint and learning curve