From Kev @ coffeeblog. The Sage Bambino Plus

Hello fellow coffee botherer :-) Kev here from coffeeblog.co.uk,  A quick email from me today, just to share my review of the Sage Bambino Plus.  This is an amazing little espresso machine from Sage, and it's among my top recommendations for anyone getting into the home barista hobby at the entry level.  It's one of the most popular entry level espresso machines at the moment, and the main reason for this is user friendliness, and beginner friendliness.  This little machine has auto and manual pre-infusion, it comes at 9 bars of pressure (read this if you thought 15 bars was better) it comes with standard baskets, not just pressured baskets. This is true of the newer stock, if you're buying from a re-seller you may be getting an older box with only the pressured "dual walled" baskets, so you may want to contact the re-seller to check. Even if you get one with dual walled baskets only, the standard baskets are only a fiver, the trouble is standard baskets are nearly always out of stock at the moment on the Sage website. It comes with a proper steam wand, not a panarello, and not only is it capable of brilliant milk texture manually (watch my tutorial), it'll also automatically steam the milk for you if you prefer. I'd recommend manual, with a bit of practise you'll be able to get better texure that way, but still, this machine does a great job of steaming automatically. It's ready to roll in a ridiculous 3 seconds, although with all espresso machines I'd recommend pulling a few shots worth of water through the group and portafilter, into the cup, to warm up the internals & the group, the portafilter and the cup all at the same time.  It's also ready to steam after pulling a shot almost instantly, and it's almost instantly ready to pull another shot!  The only negatives really are the tiny drip tray (which is OK really once you get used to it) and the fact that I think it's a bit pricey at the moment. It was available for under £200 for a bit, then £229, then £299 which I think is probably the perfect price point for encouraging the maximum number of home espresso machine users to take a step up from the usual £50-£150 home espresso machines to a much more capable entry level machine. But for a while now it's been selling at the full RRP, at £399, which feels a bit steep - at the same price as the new Gaggia Classic pro.  Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing little machine, but it's a different kettle of fish to the Gaggia classics and other machines at a similar price point such as the Lelit Anna & the Rancilio Silvia.  The Bambino is more of an appliance level machine when it comes to expected life span. Something like the Gaggia Classic is made to be easily serviced an repaired over the years, leading to a machine which could easily keep on going for well in excess of 10 years plus, even decades. My older classic is 17 years old at the time of writing, and there's not a problem with it - and in all the time I've had it I've only had one service (by Gaggia Direct). Machines like the Bambino are really made to last for the length of the warranty, and then after that it's just luck of the draw as to how long it's likely to keep on going before it has an issue. At that point, it usually isn't a financially viable option to repair them, as they need to be sent back to Sage - there's a fixed cost for this outside of warranty, with no guarantee of success, which leads most people to just skip them when they stop working, which is a shame. It's worth pointing out that the same is true of the Sage Smart Grinder Pro, and my smart grinder pro is well over 4 years old, so it isn't that these kind of machines are set up to fail just after they're out of warranty ;-), they're really well put together machines. I just think that when you're working out the price of a machine per year of use, you need to assume less years of use generally speaking with a more appliance level machine like this than you would if you were buying a machine like the Gaggia classic. So just looking at the purchase cost as a one off doesn't quite work when you look at it from that perspective. My old classic for example has probably cost under £30 per year for it's life so far, including servicing costs - and if a Bambino plus at £399 lasts 3 years, that's over £130 per year. If you want to read the full review of the Bambino Plus that's here, and part 1 of my review video is here (followed by a series of follow up videos). If you're wondering what the mask is all about, that was my nod to the current situation as we were just entering lockdown, and YouTube were reacting badly to any videos where the topic was mentioned verbally, so I simply acknowledged the mad situation we were in, by starting off with that daft mask on ;-). The Gaggia classic review by the way is here, or click here for the video review. By the way, my older videos are a bit jumpy with the editing, and they're a bit repetitive as I wasn't planning what I was going to say. Sorry about that ;-), newer videos are more professional. That's it for now, I'll let you get back to your coffee :-) Thanks  again, Kev coffeeblog.co.uk cworks.co.uk Follow me on Twitter Follow me on Instagram Follow me on Facebook Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

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