The oracle will give you great consistency jug after jug, which won't make learning to pour latte art any easier, but it'll make it less difficult in terms of removing texture consistency which is one of the biggest hurdles to learning to pour latte art. Espresso making is half art, half science, and the science part can throw quite a spanner in the works at times. In speciality coffee shops, baristas will dial in their grinders in the morning, and they'll often re-dial in at various points throughout the day because subtle changes like room temperature, humidity, and temperature of the beans in the hopper can make quite a big difference to results. To be fair to Sage, they probably made the decision based on the fact that they know most people don't use the razor tool, anyway!

This is Sage's best stand alone espresso machine, without a doubt. In fact, it's one of the best espresso machines in the world, and this isn't only my opinion, if you spend some time researching the Dual Boiler (google Breville Dual Boiler too, to find info about the machine in Australia and America, as Sage machines are sold under the Breville brand outside of Europe) you'll find many people who really know their stuff, agreeing with my opinion. Secondly: I’ve had a Sage dual boiler for 5 years and replaced it a year ago with the Oracle Touch. Previously before that I’d had a Rancilio Sylvia for years, so I’m fairly experienced with manual home coffee making. Not only have Sage done this, but they've done it really well! This was the next thing that suprised me, as I was expecting it to give really vague guidance, but it's actually really quite specific. I class the shot quality potential of the Oracle & Oracle Touch to be about on parr with that of the Sage Dual Boiler paired with the Sage Smart Grinder Pro, which is good – but not as good as if you paired it with a more premium espresso specialist grinder costing 2-3 times the cost of the Sage Smart Grinder Pro.Cheers for the comment, and I agree to a certain degree, but this isn’t a Sage-specific issue, it’s a model-specific issue. They also can't have known anything about me, including whether they could trust me with their very expensive coffee machine. They were really nice, they took me seriously, sent me their Sage Oracle, and let me tell them when I'd done the review so they could have it collected (as they were sending it to someone else for review). You want to geek out and really try to hone your skills on your day off or when you have some downtime, but you want an easier user experience in the mornings when you're in a mad rush. Where it differs from the other Sage coffee machines that have auto milk frothing, though, is that it allows you to queue up the milk to steam after the shot has finished brewing, or the other way around if you prefer.

Going up a level where the grinder is concerned doesn't give you the same kind of shot quality potential boost as with the likes of the Sage Dual Boiler.Breville Worldwide is the manufacturer, and they sell their coffee machines all over the world, but the Breville brand name was sold in Europe in the 80s, so they can't use that name here, which is why they sell under the “Sage Appliances” brand in the UK and most of Europe. Who are they for? As with integrated grinder espresso machines, this kind of machine is best suited to people who want to develop home barista skills. You can reduce the skill requirement by using the dual walled baskets they all come with as well as the traditional baskets, but if you don't want a learning curve, you'd be much better looking at the assisted machines. Re the heat up time, we're talking a difference of around 27 seconds, but there's not much in it when you weigh up the fact that the brew path, group & portafilter will be stone cold, so they'll need heating up anyway, which takes about the same amount of time on the Sage Thermocoil machines as it does with the machines that have the faster thermojet. These are about convenience above all else. They produce espresso, but they don't do it in the traditional way, with a portafilter, filter basket, manual tamping & so on.

It doesn't have a 3 way solenoid valve, it has a brew valve instead, so what this means is that it doesn't fire all the pressure and excess moisture out of the basket into the drip tray.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).