I’m a coffee drinker through and through. I can’t typically start my day without it. And over the years, I have tried many coffee makers. I even have this $20 Mr Coffee maker. In my quest to find a great coffee maker, I realized that it was harder to come by than I thought.
I wanted a non-Keurig coffee maker that could do a single serving. Tough to find. I bought several machines and hated them all. They either were too complicated and messy or didn’t make a really hot cup of coffee. The latter I found to be an issue with many machines. I like my coffee HOT.
I ended up settling on the Breville Bambino Plus for a few reasons. Breville makes really excellent high-quality kitchen appliances, and second, I decided I’d switch my cup of coffee to an Americano and call it a day. It allowed me to make a very hot cup of coffee, or a latte, with just one machine that didn’t require stupid pods.
Breville Bambino Plus Review
There are lots of espresso machines on the market and Breville is known for making high-quality machines. I didn’t want anything massive, so I tried the Plus and am truly loving it. In addition to my Breville Bambino Plus, I also bought an electric kettle. This allows me to make Americanos and also hot tea which I love.
How To Use The Breville Bambino Plus
For making a latte, this is super easy to do. Here’s my step-by-step tutorial on how to use the Breville Bambino Plus for the perfect latte.
Step One
Make sure your water reservoir is full. I like that this machine has a very large reservoir because you do go through a lot of water with the way I use it. I always start by running a single shot through it with nothing in there.
This is supposed to heat it up to the ideal temperature and get it ready for when you actually pull your espresso shots. While this runs, I fill my portafilter with ground espresso and then press it down with the tamper.
Step Two
Place the portafilter into the machine and extract your espresso. I like to do a double shot. While this is pulling, I heat up my water if I’m making an Americano. Since we’re making a latte today, I grab my milk of choice (I like almond or oat for lattes) and fill up the stainless steel milk jug.
Step Three
Once your espresso is pulled, set it aside in your mug and steam your milk. I love this automatic steaming that doesn’t require me to do anything but place my milk in there and hit the steam button. You’ll figure out the level of steam you want, I noticed I prefer the second bar level in terms of steam level. The third is a little too much for me.
You can also play with the temperature control to determine how hot you want your milk temperature to be. Once this is done steaming, and it does it all on its own you then can pour it into your mug with espresso.
Step Four
If you’re into trying latte art, this is the step you’d do it. Pour your milk into your espresso and voila, you have a perfect latte. You can play around with flavors too and add in a little fresh vanilla extract, syrups, cinnamon, or whatever you like. I usually put a dash of cinnamon into the espresso so it mixes with the milk well.
Step Five
Now that your espresso is pulled and the milk is steamed, I run another shot through the espresso maker to clean it. This makes it so much easier to just wipe it afterward and then dump what’s in the drip tray into the sink and you’re good to go.
The large water reservoir is a great perk here since I end up running 4 cycles of water each time I use the machine. I don’t think this is quite necessary, but I just find the last cycle makes cleaning up a breeze.
How To Clean Breville Bambino Plus
Cleaning Tablets
I finally had to clean my espresso machine recently and quickly went to YouTube. There are tons of expensive Breville brand cleaning tablets but I ended up finding these on Amazon that are significantly cheaper and do the job just fine.
You’ll place this tablet into your portafilter with another piece (instructions in your manual) and run the cleaning cycle. It’s very simple, and Breville has lots of videos on how to do this.
Breville Machine
Every other aspect of the machine can be cleaned with soapy water or a damp cloth. After each espresso shot I pull, I always rinse out the portafilter with warm soapy water. And when I refill the water reservoir, I try to also rinse it out with warm soapy water as well.
My Honest Breville Bambino Plus Espresso Machine Review
I have to be honest in that I was initially looking for something that was easy and effortless. But I quickly realized that I just hated the pod life. So instead, I have embraced the coffee shop barista life at home and I’m kind of loving it.
It’s now a really relaxing morning ritual and my home feels like one of those coffee shops that you would pay $5 for espresso drinks. This high-quality machine is really easy to use, doesn’t take up at on of space and allows me to make several favorite drinks.
I am either making a latte or americano every morning. And I also really enjoy a matcha latte in the afternoon.
For that, I just use the milk steaming feature to heat up my milk to mix it with matcha powder. It’s really easy and such a better experience than heating up milk in the microwave. You get a nice foam on top and it’s just so easy to do.
I’ve also served up espresso shots to the family when we have family dinner at my home. It’s easy and convenient.
The only downside of this machine for me is that there’s not a built-in grinder. Having fresh coffee grounds does make a big difference in the taste of your espresso.
However, you can definitely get around this. I personally have just been trying different brands of espresso. The grind size is different, so you want to make sure you’re purchasing grinds that are designed for espresso makers. But you can always do an at home grinder like this one or even this manual one.
