The grinder is one of the other most important pieces of the puzzle where espresso quality is concerned. Whether you're already an espresso connoisseur or like me when I jumped down the home barista rabbit hole, you want to be able to produce great espresso and you're hopeful that your palate will develop as you go along so you can enjoy the fruits of your labours (this will happen, by the way, almost every home barista I know, including myself, has a much better palate than they did when they got started). Whether you want great espresso at the touch of a button or you prefer to tweak each parameter of your shot manually, this coffee machine can do it all. So if you like your coffee relatively weak, the Oracle will get through your beans more quickly than you’d probably like. And you'll see the result of lots of practice, but you need decent milk texture to be able to practice, and the Oracle definitely helps there, as there is a real knack to learning to create great milk texture manually.

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There’s a lot to get right, not to mention steaming the milk correctly, and if you miss the mark you won’t be getting the optimum flavour out of your premium coffee beans. The drip tray spans the width of the machine and slots home with a firm thunk and can handle a surprisingly large amount of water before the warning sign floats upwards and requests you empty it. There are five factory pre-set coffees, which you can fully adjust, and 8 spaces for your own completely custom coffees. There's only one manual which is full of practical instructions, but thanks to the machine's brushed stainless steel finish and enticing touchscreen control panel, we gave into temptation and turned it straight on. Getting the ratio of ground coffee to brewed coffee is easiest with a small set of digital scales – as a ballpark figure, you should generally aim for a ratio of grams of espresso in the cup to ground coffee of around 2:1), but we managed to get very drinkable results just by eyeballing the process and using familiar espresso cups.Bean to cup machines aren't for espresso perfectionists, they're for the “normal” coffee drinker, most of whom will be more than happy with the coffee that these machines produce, as a more sensitive palate and a greater interest in a wider range of tastes are things that tend to develop along with home barista experience.

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It will appeal to the coffee lover who has a fair amount of knowledge but also likes to automate some of the tasks once they have set the machine up to deliver exactly what they want. Alternatively, you can press the same brew button to stop it or press it again for a longer extraction. You’re left to fine tune aspects, and slot in the wand, stopping it from being a control-free bean-to-cup system. How would the machine know which you have in place – or maybe there isn’t a diff in the volume of coffee ground?

So let's say you create your own perfect personalised flattie, with a custom milk temp and texture, the next time you select that drink it'll remember the milk temp and texture level. The first reason is that for most people, a coffee machine is simply a means to an end, the end being coffee, and most people who have a “mainstream” relationship with coffee want their cup of coffee as quickly and conveniently as possible, and you can't get much more convenience where freshly ground coffee is concerned than bean to cup coffee machines. The quality of the espresso, the Americano and the cappuccino, flat whites, and lattes I was making with it were something that really blew me away. Yes, it has a touch screen so the legit Milano barista vibe you might get from having a Gaggia espresso maker on display is tainted a little. When I first used the Sage Oracle, several years ago – as someone who was back then brand new to espresso machines, I was amazed by it.