I always needed coffee, but I never particularly liked it. I added spoonfuls of sugar and heavy pours of flavored creamers to get it just right when I was growing up. The grocery store blends mixed with the Mr. Coffee machines of my youth just didn't cut it on their own. And like many other coffee people, I'm not a morning person. It's a terrible conundrum—I can't operate an espresso machine until my eyes are open, but I can't open my eyes without an espresso machine.
For about 20 years, I've feened for that perfect cup, getting hints of it here and there at my favorite coffee shops (albeit for $5 a cup). For a while, that was fine! Ignorance was my very own caffeinated bliss! Then I tasted greener grass … or at least, a better brew. The Breville Precision Brewer Thermal, to be precise.
The Breville makes coffee so good that measuring out your life in coffee spoons won’t sound so sad anymore. Its presets, brew times, and SCA-certification let me make high-quality coffee with very low effort. I zombie-walk over to it, add exactly the same amount of water and number of scoops, and press a button. Then I get great-tasting coffee in under 10 minutes. A miracle!
My husband and I recently received this as a wedding gift, and I don’t know if I can ever look back. It has a high price tag, but this is a machine that’s likely to last. Finally, I can stumble to my kitchen counter and not all the way to the corner coffee shop.
The Breville Precision Brewer looks really nice and has settings that are simple to navigate. The design element is super important to me because it sits on my countertop all day every day. I live in a smaller apartment where real estate is precious, so too much clutter, or a clunky design, is upsetting. This gadget is stainless steel and goes with everything else on my kitchen counter (often, there's a lot more than just my cute Dutch oven).
You can pick specific temperature settings or select a preset with a single knob. Out of the presets—there are fast, gold, strong, MyBrew (customizable), pour over, and cold brew—I use the gold setting the most. It's based on standards set by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), the leading coffee research community.
The SCA researches the best ways to brew coffee. To get a gold certification, the SCA tested the Breville Precision Brewer based on the Golden Cup brewing, temperature, and timing standards. There’s enough acidity in the gold preset without making it too bitter or taking away from the richness of the brew. “Gold” coffee comes out smooth, balanced, and full-bodied. I love this because more often than not, I find trendier coffees far too acidic, leaving an unpleasant tangy aftertaste.
Most of all, I don’t have to think too much before my brain turns on. It makes it much easier for me to have a nice, slow start to my day, instead of trying to operate an Aeropress or an espresso machine. However, if you’re a coffee buff, the ability to select specific temperatures, bloom times, and flow rates for your MyBrew setting allows you to perfect your pour-over or regular pot.
While I love this machine, it’s not perfect. At 15.7 inches tall, it won’t work with countertops that have lower cabinets. The water tank isn't detachable, so you have to unplug and move the whole coffee maker to dump it out. (I’ve resorted to using a turkey baster. Desperate times call for desperate measures.) The Breville also doesn’t have many buttons, which may be less intuitive or useful for those who are visually impaired. It had issues with error messages on the display screen, but the company has since updated the software to fix the problem. It's worth noting that I've yet to come across any error messages, so it seems the update was successful.
If I could wake up with an IV drip of coffee, I probably would. But since I can’t, it’s really important that my coffee maker is fast. The Breville not only brews a pot of coffee quickly—you can brew 12 cups in seven minutes—but its keep-warm feature keeps it hot for hours. As I’m writing this, I poured a cup from a pot that has sat for over two hours. Spoiler alert: It was just as delicious as my first cup.
This is useful if you’re a house divided between early risers and alarm snoozers. If you brew a pot at 7:30 am, your 11:00 am counterpart will get a cup that tastes just as hot and fresh. Plus, the Breville notes how long it has been since it last brewed on its digital face. I especially love this keep-warm feature for moments of afternoon slump when my bed sings its siren song, but my deadlines loom. I can just get up, grab a cup, and get on with my day.
At $300, it’s definitely more expensive than your average drip coffee maker, but I think it’s worth it. My time and energy are valuable, and the Breville saves both. It gives me back the time I would usually spend in line at my coffee shop or learning how to operate a huge, complicated, whistling machine. Plus, think of all the latte money financial advisors say you’ll save.
Don’t get me wrong, there will always be a part of me that loves a crappy cup of coffee from a hotel lobby. It’s like gravitating toward McDonald’s for a french fry fix. A Mr. Coffee machine can absolutely get the job done. The Breville just does it better.
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