A macchiato is a beautiful thing. It’s the marriage of a rich, fruity espresso and just a spot of frothed milk to stretch the flavor across your tongue—the equivalent of dropping an ice cube into scotch. It’s also the exact coffee drink that I haven’t been able to have in months. (Instead, I’ve been supporting my favorite Chicago roaster by ordering countless pounds of beans by mail.)
I elbow my Instant Pot and Zojirushi rice maker to the side to make some space. As I grind my first batch of beans—Intelligentsia’s classic Black Cat espresso—I look at the machine skeptically. “It’s just too tiny to be any good!” I think, prepping myself for mediocrity.
“The challenge for us was, how do we put all the [necessary] systems and components into a machine with a really compact footprint,” he says. “It’s suiting what’s happening everywhere in the world, with a mushrooming of apartment living. There’s a lot more compact living spaces, so we need to provide appliances that suit modern living arrangements these days.”
Over the course of a week, I make more espresso. I’m delighted to see how easy it is to clean (the entire bottom tray slips in and out instantly to dump out spills, and the steam wand auto-purges after use so it won’t clog up.) One of the most difficult tasks is simply figuring out how to wrap my body around the light machine to anchor it down as I tighten in the portafilter. I found that forgivable, since as I dial in the right grind, the espresso goes from good to borderline transcendent, catching the complicated, fruity notes that are so celebrated in third-wave coffee.
I also try my hand at frothing milk. To use the automatic milk frothing, you pour some milk in a cup, hit a button, and let the steam wand go. For my stabilizer-free soy milk, the auto mode worked but not quite perfectly. The bottom of the pitcher had the microbubbles I wanted for a macchiato, but the top was foam. When McKnight hears this, he’s not completely surprised. He lets me in on a secret: The company’s future espresso machines are going to have auto settings for all the plant-based milks too.
So after watching a couple YouTube videos, I tried frothing for myself, tilting the cup to create a whirlpool of milk, knowing it was done when my hand started to get too hot to hold the carafe. I carefully poured the milk over the espresso, attempting to make a heart on top.
How do those 20-year-olds wearing Warby Parkers make it look so easy? But you know what, who cares? The macchiato itself tasted just right.
Is this experience by design? “It’s one of our key objectives,” says McKnight. “To make sure any consumer can be as engaged as they would want to be, but there’s no obligation to have that level of engagement if you don’t want to. If you want to master latte art, you can manually texture milk and be the barista at home without us forcing you down that path.”
As I sip on my 30,000th macchiato of the day (though I still can’t make the stupid heart!), I think about Breville’s approach to cooking appliances compared with that of the Silicon Valley smart oven startup June. June has attempted to leverage AI to replace human knowledge in the cooking process, but Breville offers you the opportunity to hone your craft, learn new skills, and feel worthwhile—even though automation deserves part of the credit.
The Bambino Plus is available now for $499. But if you’re willing to give up the auto milk frothing and settle for a lighter portafilter (made of nickel instead of steel), Breville just released a $299 Bambino that is otherwise identical to the Plus. Given that every button and component on each of these products is tested individually 14,600 times to simulate 10 years of use, I can’t imagine you can go wrong either way. Though for the $200 you can save on the base model, you could buy 10-plus pounds of premium espresso beans. Or in my case, a few classes on making latte art.