I'm looking at the BES700 Barista espresso machine. I can get it for $623 @ TGG and there is a promotion for $110 voucher @ Tony's Estate online coffee store by redemption.
Anyone have any experience with this machine? Is this a good deal or does anyone have any other options for me to consider?
Cheers in advance
Never heard of the BES700. Do you mean BES870? And do you mean Toby's Estate?
If you're passionate about making coffee, personally I wouldn't touch anything in the Breville range below the 920 double boiler.
Many of my friends have the lesser Brevilles and they're a damn pain. You can't steam at the same time as extracting and having no solenoid in them, making successive coffee is painfully slow when you're used to spitting out a milk-based coffee a minute. Forget serving a small party.
Breville give a lot of technology for the money and come up with some pretty good ideas, but like the modern car, if something goes wrong, you're up for the big bucks. Often they're not worth fixing if the problem needs diagnosing. Built-in grinding and tamping - as an Engineer, that's just asking for trouble.
If you're not against second hand equipment and into the process, I'd look for a second hand HX machine in the coffeesnobs forums, where typically they've been looked after reasonably well.