Getting straight to the point, in the confrontation between the Breville Oracle Touch vs Gaggia Babila, the Babila has my vote!
There are many reasons to love the Gaggia Babila. It has a handsome appearance, a ceramic grinder with multiple levels, and two boilers for multi-tasking. Best of all, it has both a steam wand and an automatic milk system, catering to both hardcore purists and coffee novices.
The Breville Oracle Touch is one of the highest-end Breville machines for good reason. This one automatically grinds, doses, tamps, and even steams milk. I bet you’ll be impressed with the amount of hands-free time you’ll get with it.
Breville Oracle Touch Vs Gaggia Babila: Specs & Features Comparison Chart
Last update on 2024-11-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Breville Oracle Touch Vs Gaggia Babila: Differences
The Gaggia Babila beat the Oracle Touch with a 4-3 lead. Now, let’s dive deeper into what makes one stand out from the other.
Coffee Flavor & Brewing System
Winner: Gaggia Babila
Built-in Grinder
Both are equipped with a built-in grinder, so they can crush the beans themselves without any additional gadgets. Of course, having a separate high-end grinder doesn’t harm either.
The Gaggia Babila features a ceramic burr grinder with 15 grind settings. The beauty of a ceramic grinder lies in its durability and consistency. It stays sharper for longer compared to its stainless steel counterparts and is excellent at maintaining a cool temperature during grinding. This is crucial because it helps preserve the delicate, volatile oils in your coffee beans, which are essential for flavor.
Still, it’s important to remember that ceramic is more brittle. So, be cautious about what goes into this type of grinder – anything harder than a coffee bean, like a tiny stone, could cause damage.
The Oracle Touch, on the other hand, uses a hardened stainless steel conical burr grinder with 45 different grind levels to grind the beans, which can be adjusted using a dial on the left side of the machine. This vast range allows for an incredibly precise adjustment of grind size, making it possible to fine-tune your coffee to your exact liking.
Heating System
They are dual-boiler espresso machines, so they have the ability to brew and steam milk simultaneously. This not only speeds up the coffee-making process but also ensures optimal temperature control for both espresso brewing and milk frothing.
In a single-boiler system, the machine has to switch between brewing and steaming, often compromising the consistency and quality of the final product. This is especially noticeable when making multiple milk-based coffees in a row, as the single boiler struggles to maintain the right temperature, leading to longer wait times and inconsistent results. This is not the case with the Oracle Touch or Babila.
However, one notable difference between the Oracle Touch and Gaggia Babila is their heat-up times. The Oracle Touch takes about 20-30 minutes to fully heat up at first, whereas the machine is ready in about a minute, thanks to its thermoblock technology. The quick heat-up time means less waiting and more enjoying, so the Babila take the lead here!
Brewing System
Pre-infusion is indeed a critical step in the coffee brewing process, and it’s great that both the Oracle Touch and the Gaggia Babila incorporate this pre-infusion function. This works by gently wetting the coffee grounds with a small amount of water before the full brewing process begins. This initial step serves two primary purposes.
Firstly, it allows carbon dioxide to escape from the coffee, which is especially important for freshly roasted beans. If this gas isn’t released, it can interfere with the extraction process, leading to an uneven brew. Secondly, pre-infusion helps the coffee’s aroma and flavor develop more fully, ensuring a more balanced and nuanced espresso.
The Gaggia Babila enables you to adjust the pre-infusion time in three “Taste” settings. That cool feature isn’t possible with the Oracle Touch, which is a bit of a shame, seeing as adjusting the pre-infusion duration can influence the flavor profile of the espresso.
Design & Convenience
Winner: Gaggia Babila
Dimensions & User Interface
| Breville Oracle Touch | Gaggia Babila | |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 14.7 x 15.4 x 17.9 inches | 10.7 x 12.7 x 17.5 inches |
| Weight | 37 lbs | 20.7 lbs |
They are beautiful coffee machines and will surely look great in any kitchen. Both feature a stainless steel housing, giving them a premium feel. There is still the presence of plastic in their parts, albeit a high-quality one.
The Oracle Touch uses an intuitive touch screen, eliminating the clutter of buttons and dials from the Breville Oracle. It’s so user-friendly that even a coffee novice can navigate through it to find the perfect shot. If you’re used to traditional espresso machines, you might feel a tad overwhelmed by the lack of manual controls. But trust me, you’ll quickly get over it once you’ve got real espresso!
As for the Gaggia Babila, it reminds me of a retro arcade with its charmingly simplistic text display and buttons – think Pacman. This one might not have the flashy color display of the Oracle Touch, but it still makes navigating through the options as easy as pie, and after all, that’s exactly what most people need from a user interface.
Spout Type & Cup Clearance
| Breville Oracle Touch | Gaggia Babila | |
|---|---|---|
| Spout Type | Dual | Dual |
| Cup Clearance | 4 inches | 2.8-6 inches |
The Gaggia Babila’s dual coffee dispensing spout is fully height-adjustable. You can lower it to just the right height, ensuring the espresso crema is as perfect as a barista’s kiss, or lift it up when making a larger drink. For a taller cup or an insulated travel cup, just remove the spout entirely.
Incidentally, there is a little knob on the Babila’s spout that lets you adjust the flow rate of your espresso extraction, one of the available fine-tuning tools for espresso aficionados.
Then there’s the Oracle Touch. No height-adjustable spout can be found here, but at least you can remove its drip tray to get more cup clearance for a larger cup.
Water Reservoir & Bean Hopper
| Breville Oracle Touch | Gaggia Babila | |
|---|---|---|
| Water Reservoir | 2.5 liter | 1.5 liter |
| Bean Hopper | 0.28 kilogram | 0.3 kilogram |
The Gaggia Babila’s tank is on the large side for a home-use machine – that is great, but what’s even better is that it can slide out from the front like a drawer, making refills a breeze. Meanwhile, the Oracle Touch’s massive tank is located at the rear of the machine, but you can pour water from the top and keep an eye on the water level through the front window.
As always, both ship with a water filter, keeping the descaling job down to a once-a-year type. Just start a separate savings account for the monthly replacement of the filter. Think of it as a small investment for your daily cup of Joe. After all, can you really put a price on a perfect cup of coffee every morning? I think not!
Milk Frothing System
Winner: Tie
In the diverse world of bean-to-cup coffee machines, some come with an automatic milk frother, taking the guesswork out of milk frothing, while others feature a steam wand, inviting your inner barista. Still, there is one exception. Some machines, like the Oracle Touch and Babila, offer the best of both worlds.
The Oracle Touch has an advanced hybrid wand, which is among the smartest ones still alive. Believe it or not, the wand can only measure the temperature of the milk, but it can also intelligently vary the amount of air introduced into the milk to give you everything from barely there microfoam to microfoam for a heavenly flat white.
After the automatic steaming process and once you’ve removed the milk pitcher, the wand also takes care of cleaning itself, ensuring everything is ready for its next use without any extra effort on your part. And if you enjoy latte art and prefer to infuse your personal touch into each cup, the Oracle Touch offers a manual mode that can be activated simply by lifting the steam wand.
The Gaggia Babila, on the other hand, has both an automatic frother and a steam wand. Its left-side automatic frother includes a self-cleaning milk carafe. I love the simple design of this system. The carafe can be stored in the refrigerator, keeping your milk fresh and ready for use. When it’s time for a milky coffee, you simply slot the carafe into the machine.
Better yet, the milk frother is self-cleaning after each use. That means you don’t have to rinse a variety of parts and pieces after making a latte macchiato or cappuccino.
And as hinted before, the Gaggia Babila also includes a manual steam wand. This feature is great for experimenting with milk texture and temperature, allowing you to create that competition-level microfoam. Elevate your milk texturing game with a rosetta or elegant swan, why not? They will raise many eyebrows, believe me!
Drink Options & Programmability
Winner: Tie
Drink Options
| Breville Oracle Touch | Gaggia Babila |
|---|---|
| Espresso Americano Long Black Latte Flat White Cappuccino Hot Milk Hot Water | Ristretto Espresso Espresso Lungo Caffè Cappuccino Latte Macchiato Flat White Hot Milk Milk Froth Hot Water |
These machines don’t have a potentially endless list of specialty drinks like some other super automatics. but I guarantee all your favorites are here. An espresso? A cappuccino? Or a flat white? All can be prepared at the touch of a button.
Programmability
| Adjustable Settings | Breville Oracle Touch | Gaggia Babila |
|---|---|---|
| Coffee Strength | No | Yes |
| Coffee Temperature | Yes | Yes |
| Milk Foam Temperature | Yes | No |
| Milk Foam Texture | Yes | No |
Both allow you to adjust a couple of settings to dial in your shot and if you’re willing to tinker, you can create countless variations of your favorite drink.
Now, let’s chat about my love-hate relationship with the Oracle Touch. I love the fact that it allows for playing with the texture and temperature of milk foam.
But when it comes to changing the coffee dosage, it’s not as straightforward. You can’t just tap a button on the control panel like you’d with the Babila. Oh no, you have to go into its automatic grinding and tamping station, taking out screws, adjusting them, and then the Oracle Touch will dose less coffee.
Other Features
Winner: Breville Oracle Touch
User Profiles
The Oracle Touch has 8 slots for your personalized recipes. This feature is technically a user profile feature, but not really. Either way, it is particularly beneficial for coffee enthusiasts or households with multiple coffee drinkers, each with their own preferences.
Auto On/Off
The Oracle Touch has the option to schedule it to automatically turn on and heat up, ensuring it’s at the perfect temperature for brewing or steaming by the time you arrive – No more impatiently tapping my foot waiting for the machine to warm up. It’s also smart enough to turn itself off, so on those mornings when you’re running out the door, you don’t have to panic about whether you left the coffee machine on.
Bypass Doser
There is a chute bypass on top of the Oracle Touch for pre-ground coffee. This is a boon for late-night caffeine cravings, for example, or for those who’re not worthy of your precious coffee beans.
What about the Oracle Touch? Yes, it also allows you to sidestep the grinding process and use pre-ground coffee. For this purpose, you should use the included dual-wall filter basket.
Wheel System
The Oracle Touch features a three-wheel system, so you can smoothly push it around when rearranging your counter space. That way, moving this hulking machine is as easy as moving a Rimowa suitcase.
Quick Rundown Of Gaggia Babila
- One touch brewing and frothing: bean-to-cup feature. Milk carafe includes automatic milk frothing for cappuccinos, and milk froth. Manual steam wand doubles as a hot water dispenser
- ACCESSORIES INCLUDED: 1 bottle of Gaggia Descaler, 1 AquaClean Water Filter, 1 Water Hardness Test Strip, 1 Tube of Brew Group Lubricant, 1 Brew Group Brush, 1 Coffee Scoop/Grinder Key
- PROGRAMMABLE: 8 Programmable brewing options for espressos, espresso lungos, coffee, ristrettos, lattes, cappuccinos, macchiato, flat whites and milk foam
- Easy access to water reservoir: features a top Loading removable 50.7oz water reservoir; Brew Boiler Wattage: 1400
Last update on 2024-11-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Quick Rundown Of Breville Oracle Touch
- Please refer to user guide or user manual or user guide (provided below in PDF) before first use.Grind Settings : 45 precision grind settings. Portafilter : Commercial grade 58mm portafilter.Portafilter : Commercial grade 58mm portafilter
Last update on 2024-11-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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References
- Breville Oracle Touch: https://www.breville.com/au/en/products/espresso/bes990.html
- Gaggia Babila: https://www.gaggia-na.com/products/gaggia-babila
Felix Hendricks is a skilled barista with over 12 years of experience. He excels in crafting coffee and has a strong foundation in coffee machine mechanics. Felix holds a Coffee Machine Maintenance Certification from the Coffee Equipment Technical Institute, showcasing his ability to diagnose and repair coffee machines. He’s also worked as a quality control specialist, selecting premium coffee beans for optimal flavor. Felix has a diverse work history, including stints at renowned coffee spots like Café Euphoria & Starbucks. His expertise in both brewing and machine maintenance makes him a respected figure in the coffee industry.