Brera Super-Automatic Espresso Machine, Small, Black, 40 fl oz

As an owner of a Gaggia Titanium for over a decade, I've been sold on superauto coffee machines for a long time. So when my Titanium finally died, I knew I'd be getting another superauto. But the Titanium had some quirks that annoyed me. And it was quite noisy. So I was totally open to other brands and my hunt for my next superauto would involve a TON of research as there are WAY more superautos out there than there were when I got my Titanium! Being that I live in Hawaii and no brand of superauto is serviced here, I opted for a 4-year warranty at checkout that includes shipping both ways. Also, as it seems no superauto lives much longer than a decade, I didn't want to spend over $1,000 like I did on my Titanium. So what really brought me to the Brera was price. This is what I think: PROS: 1) PRICE, obviously! Very affordable so long as it lasts a long time. 2) It's quiet! The burr grinder is WAY quieter and so is the rest of the process compared to the Titanium. And overall, it's not that noisy. 3) Delivers a decent crema. Not as thick as a pro espresso machine, but still quite nice and on par with pretty much all but the top superautos. 4) Very quick and easy access to the water reservoir and dregdrawer right in the front of the unit. 5) Still has customizable cup size. In other words, you can program how much coffee comes out when you press the small cup (espresso) button and also for the big cup (cafe crema) button. 6) Relatively compact size. A fair amount smaller than the Titanium. CONS: 1) Water reservoir is too small. It's way too small. You'll need to keep a 2L bottle of water next to the machine or you'll be constantly going back and forth to your water source. 2) Lots of rinsing cycles (I'm not talking about descaling). When you turn it on, it spits out water. When you turn it off, it spits out water. With a tiny water reservoir, this sucks. It's probably a good thing for the machine and the quality of coffee, but it drains the tiny reservoir quickly. 3) Can't adjust coffee temperature. I'm not a fan of really hot coffee. While the Brera doesn't make it scalding, it's a tad hotter than I prefer. 4) No clock. I like having clocks on my appliances. 5) Dispensing spout is not quite tall enough to accommodate my favorite coffee mug. Granted, it's a relatively tall mug but not giant. The Brera will accommodate big squatty Starbucks mugs like the kind that has the name of the city of the shop you're in though. All in all, if you love your coffee but you're not a genuine for real coffee connoisseur, you'll love this simple effective, and convenient, machine. High quality coffee that utterly outclasses drip coffee+espresso machine combos ($100ish). If you simply must have the best coffee possible, well, this is certainly not the machine for you. But if really good, 1-button ease coffee appeals to you, this one's pretty much a no-brainer. Cheers! :) EDIT: Added a photo for Jeff of my programmed Big Cup amount of coffee brewed. A little over 5oz.

TL;DR: avoid this piece of junk unless you have lots of time and money to spare, and a second machine or French press to actually make coffee with once you lose patience. 8 months in and we're lucky if 25% of our attempts are successful; the rest is just wasted beans. Whole Lotta Latte are poor at support and we're considering just junking it now instead of trying to get their help. We've owned this for eight months and it seems like a good time to update my review. The TLD;DR is we would not purchase it again in hindsight. We bought it to replace a $90 manual machine (DeLonghi) and a burr grinder we got from Costco. Those served us well for years but we we thought we'd splurge a bit at Xmas and get one of these. This is more work than the old setup, and we waste huge amounts of beans by this machine failing and just tossing the grind without actually producing any espresso. Furthermore, the beans I really like really clog this up so I'm now drinking a brew I like less than before. Here are the issues we have had so far: - we have the water filter, which is expensive, and takes up a lot of space in the water tank which is small to begin. So we do about 3 refills a day. The bean compartment is pretty small too, and needs frequent refills. - the descaling light came on after only about 3 weeks. I have descaled it (quite a process) and followed the instructions to clear the light but it seems like it is on permanently (update - finally fixed this but required time with tech support) - the magnet that keeps the side door closed came detached and the door stands ajar. Minor annoyance but it looks crappy. - I have to clean the brew unit every night, or we will just have a mess in the mornings. This has been the case from the start. This despite changing to a less oily bean (that helped a bit but not enough). If we don't do this then the morning becomes a lot of work. - oftentimes cleaning the brew unit is not enough. It needs to be left out to dry, relubricated, sometimes multiple times, before it can be coaxed to actually work. All this time you are grinding and wasting beans with all the failed attempts. - the grounds container needs to be emptied frequently. If we're lucky we can get three double shots before emptying; often it is only two. The pods pile up high on top of each other rather than filling the container. - even though I keep a cup under the dispenser, the bottom tray collects a lot of water and needs frequent emptying. There's obviously quite a bit of water leaking out under the brew unit. We've gotten into the habit now of cleaning the machine every night, including rinsing the brew unit, filling up the water, and the bean container. If we do that we can usually get through the morning with just one water refill and two empties of the grounds container. That's about five double espressos between us in my family in the mornings. But those are the good days, which are increasingly infrequent. More often it just fails, we waste a bunch of coffee beans, and we fall back to our French press. Caveat: we don't use the milk steamer at all so I can't comment on that. Update: I ended up buying a second one to see if the first was a lemon. I am 3 days in and about half the time it is failing with “no beans”. I am using very non-oily beans. Garbage.

UPDATE: I’ve had this machine for nearly a year and I love it. I use it every day and it makes great tasting espresso and has been working well without any issues so far. The milk frother works great- I took the auto frother off to make it into a manual frother so I could get microfoam and a smoother, sweeter milk. Once you get your settings dialed in so your espresso tastes the way you want and you find good, fresh (non-oily!) beans, this thing works like a dream. I’ve almost completely stopped going to the coffee shop. Original review: I really want to like this machine. I have been using an inexpensive Nespresso U for years and it did a great job, but I was tired of being a slave to pods and was looking forward to getting a little higher quality of espresso at home, so I made the investment. Upon opening the box, I discovered my drip tray was cracked and the dull drip tray indicator was broken into pieces. A couple of calls to Gaggia and Amazon and they took care of that issue and paid to send out new pieces. Good customer service on both ends so far. The machine looks nice, and is fairly easy to use and set up. My issue is the espresso... I was disappointed the first day for sure. I had read the first few shots you pull could be watery, due to the unit’s “adapting” process, so I pulled shot after shot of under extracted espresso- like 12 shots. After speaking with Gaggia customer support again, they suggested I customize the single shot setting to pull less water through, lowering the fluid oz amount of the shot. This DID help slightly. The shots started tasting more concentrated, and I got a slightly better crema. However, it’s still missing that syrupy, concentrated bittersweet espresso flavor. I spoke with customer service again today, after noticing it was only taking 9 seconds to extract the shot. No wonder they are lacking flavor. The support personnel I spoke to said that the timing is irrelevant with a superauto machine, since it’s doing all the work for me. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, maybe it is. Maybe my expectations were too high for what kind of espresso I could get from a super automatic machine but all the other reviews I read had basically rave reviews about the espresso the machine produces. I’m hoping that it’s either user error or that my machine is still “adapting”. I’ll keep at it for another week or so... and update the review as needed. UPDATE: I’ve had this machine for about 5 months now. I really do love it. It makes a coffee shop quality milk based drink (usually a latte) with great frothed milk for way less than I was paying for my daily Starbucks run. I would even say that it tastes better than Starbucks does. I’m changing my original 3 star rating to a 4 star rating. It works very well- and has held up well. (I do a weekly maintenance cleaning: rinsing of the brew group, cleaning the interior as much as I can, washing the dispensed pod container, water container and the drip tray. I feel that helps contribute to a good tasting espresso). The convenience of a one touch machine makes this a worthwhile purchase for sure. I wouldn’t say it creates as good of an espresso as a semi automatic, and I don’t get a lot of crema with my espresso (even after switching my beans to a more local, freshly roasted bean) but it makes a killer milk based drink. Worth the money.

I ordered the Brera on a Thursday afternoon and had it on my front door step Monday morning. It shipped for free from Whole Latter Love, and it arrived secure and in perfect condition. They shipped it the same day I ordered it! Not only that they included many helpful starter pamphlets and additional instructional materials to make initial set up and use of the machine a breeze. I have subsequently created an account with them and receive points I can use for additional items ordered. Their site is a great resource for everything Coffee and Espresso related with many great instructional videos and tips to make using any of the models they sell easy to use and maintain. Cannot say enough good things about their service or their website. As for the Brera, I purchased it to upgrade from a Gaggia Evolution (which is still in perfect working condition) as I have wanted a super automatic Espresso machine for quite a while now. I have had the Evolution for 6 years now, and it was a great machine to learn on - albeit it can be a quirky machine that requires some real finesse to obtain the perfect shot. But with all of that came a great appreciation for everything that goes into making the perfect shot and what to do and not to do to obtain them. While I wanted a Super Automatic machine, I did not want to spend thousands on one, as it is usually just me using the machine, I did not need huge capacity and I also did not want to use a lot of counter real estate to accommodate one either. After much research and reading through hundreds of reviews I landed on the Brera and I could not be happier. One thing that all that reading and research provided was short cutting some of the growing pains a new machine can present (what are the best beans to use, grind settings, shot settings etc.) to get great and consistent pulls each and every time. While I have had to fiddle a little with the grind and duration of the pull etc., it was a pretty simple process and the shots are deep, rich, full bodied and crema for days! I will agree that if you are more than a two person house hold using this machine, you will need to check the water and bean reservoirs frequently if you are pulling many, many shots throughout a day. The bean reservoir on the top of the machine has a opaque/clear lid, so it is easy enough to glance and see that there are enough beans in the hopper, and the water reservoir can easily be slide out and checked and topped off if necessary. As I usually empty the drip tray and dregs drawer after each use and top off the water reservoir, maintenance is quick and easy and the machine is always at the ready for its next use. The display is easy to understand at a glance and programming and use are easy and efficient. You can program the length of each pull to customize it to the grind and bean and size of the shot you want very easily and then operation is as quick as pressing a button to get a consistent shot each and every time. I am using Lavazza Super Crema beans and the shots are deep, rich and bold, with tons of great silky crema. Heavily roasted and oily beans are not recommended as they may result in clogging of the machine, and the Lavazza Super Crema beans are a great medium espresso roast that produce great shots every time. As many other of the Super Automatic machines do, this one also makes Lungos and hot water for tea and other uses. It warms up incredibly fast, within a couple of minutes, and is ready to go. The steaming wand is ready to go in an instant and produces a strong steady stream of steam to froth as much milk as you need to make your lattes and capps. My Evolution had a Pannarello steam wand, and while some purists may prefer just a regular steam nozzle, I find the Pannarello to make heating and frothing an easy and simple task producing plenty of great micro foam that rivals any I have had from any barista anywhere. If you are looking for a solid Super Automatic machine that won't break the bank, is easy to use and maintain, and produces wonderful and consistent shots every time, this machine is for you. For households with one or two coffee fanatics, this machine is a work horse that does not require a lot of kitchen counter real estate - and its ease of use and maintenance make it a great choice as well.

I purchased this to replace a now broken 6 year old Saeco talea giro plus. Unfortunately they no longer make that unit (or else I would have purchased another!), and this one seemed to be the closest equivalent. The good parts of this machine: 1) Gaggia/ Saeco taste of the espresso/ coffee -- I had tried a DeLongi, but the coffee was burnt tasting. I believe this may be differences due to the type of grinder. Even though this is a lower level automatic, Gaggie includes their ceramic burr grinder to preserve the taste of the beans. 2) Small footprint - This is actually substantially smaller than my previous Saeco (which surprised me!). 3) Programmable shot size - Although I liked the dial format of my old Saeco (REALLY convenient and easy to precisely change for different users), the programmable nature of the shot works well. Since it is primarily me using the machine, it will be fine for my purposes. If I many users with different tastes, this would make the machine more difficult to use on a daily basis. 4) Adjustable grinding - the adjustment for the grinding is actually a little easier than my previous Saeco. Previously, you would need to use a tool to change the grind. On this machine is a large, easy knob. The only catch is you need to change it WHILE it is grinding, which can a) be a pain, and b) leads to wasting a shot or two in the process (if you are pickier about your coffee). 5) Front loading/ removal of water and pucks - This is a primary reason why I chose this machine rather than going with the Anima (aside from cost). The machine sits under a cabinet, and the front loading makes it TONS easier to add water and remove the pucks. Negatives: 1) The machine has a SMALL capacity for water and pucks. I didn't actually realize HOW small!! It seems that the water container is about half the size of my former Saeco (and that was a pretty small machine to begin with!). Luckily it's pretty easy to access these (see #5 above), making it a smoother process than my side-loading Saeco. Still, I wonder if I will get annoyed at the frequency over the course of time. 2) I thought the build quality would look nicer. In reality, the build quality is about the same as my old Saeco, so I shouldn't be surprised. It looked nicer online than it did in person. Hopefully it will still last for many, many years, even with the large amount of plastic. 3) SMALL space for a cup underneath - I was aware based on reviews that it was small, but this is also considerably smaller than my old Saeco. My standard coffee cup (which I use for a double lungo) I have to force to fit underneath the spout. This was not an issue previously with other machines. If I wanted to use a to-go coffee cup/ thermos, I would have to put it at an angle and hold it up against the spout in a precarious fashion. Although I understand the desire to conserve space, they went a little to far with the design of this machine!! 3) No wheels - One of the things that made removal of water, addition of beans, etc, easier with my old Saeco was wheels on the bottom of the unit. With them, I could keep the machine towards the back of my counter and easily pull it out when needed. The Gaggia doesn't have wheels so pulling it out is not great. Luckily, because of the front loading water and pucks, I will not need to pull it out too often (only for bean loading). If you choose this machine, be aware of the small nature and limitations! Otherwise, I really enjoy the coffee it produces!

I have owned a Gaggia Titanium for 14 years. Kinda hard on the eyes, but made 1000’s of cups of great coffee. However, the poor old gal started to leak, so I thought it was about time to put her out to pasture. I knew I wanted another Gaggia, so after a bunch of research I settled on the Brera. It looks great and is easy to operate, but the water tank and dreg drawer are WAY too small. Example: I filled up the 40oz. water tank this morning before I started. I ran about 4oz. of hot water in a cup to heat the cup up. Then I made two cups of double shot coffee. Frothed some milk to top them both off and BAM! out of water! Had to refill the tank just to turn off the machine. Plus, the dreg drawer only holds 8 pucks of spent coffee. The Titanium held about 80oz. of water and at least 20 pucks on the dreg drawer. Sadly, it’s going back. It is a great machine, but just too much maintenance involved to make two cups of coffee in the morning. Yesterday I had to refill the water tank AND empty the dreg drawer mid brew. And another little quirk: who at Gaggia thought it would be a good idea to make the power button blink red on and off constantly?! It looks like there is an emergency vehicle parked on my counter!

I've had the machine for almost 3 months. I previously owned an ancient cappuccino maker 15 years ago and a Starbucks Barista espresso machine for the last 12 years. If I hadn't had experience with other machines, I might have sent this one back since it always seemed to be spewing out of the frothing/water wand or the brew head when I didn't expect it. It took a while of having to get the instruction booklet out to figure out what was automatically happening so be patient. PROS: It's a good looking machine, the espresso is excellent with a luscious crema. The froth for my lattes is thick and lasts a long time. The frothing process is faster than what I had before. I really like that I can press the espresso button twice and have successive shots of espresso brewed without having to wait for a light before pressing the brew button again. Automatic grinding of beans is a wonderful feature. Fast frothing, not having to fill a brew head with separately ground beans, and double espressos make it a little faster getting out the door in the morning. Automatic dumping of the grounds into a separate compartment is convenient but it only holds a few, perhaps 5-7 before the machine instructs you to empty the bin before it will continue. The machine was well packed for shipping and a great price compared to other online merchants and stores. The hot water for tea is useful. I haven't made regular coffee with it. CONS: Learning curve, but there is obviously some learning time expected with such a machine. The wand is not the easiest to clean after frothing milk since you have to physically take the bottom part off as well as the rubber part to clean it well. I suspect the rubber part will get stretched out or cracked after a while with the constant removal. The instruction booklet is not designed well and I really didn't need them in 8 different languages. A frothing pitcher would have been nice to have included with the machine. I wish the machine would give me a warning that it needs to be cleaned soon. It's frustrating that I have to pull out my instructions for the descaling process when I'm trying to get out in the morning. Really, if I got a warning, I would descale when I got home! The espresso is so good with this machine that I stopped adding the tiny amount of flavored syrup that I used to add with my old machine. oh, I've also used it to make the espresso for a Chocolate Espresso Martini!

We've had a Gaggia Brera for several years now. Over time it began to do this thing where it grinds a complete dose of grounds and then shows the no-beans error and discards the grounds without brewing. We deep cleaned the machine over and over. Tried different beans. Replaced various parts, including the grinder sensor -- because, apparently, this error means the grinder thinks it's not quite grinding enough, or getting too much resistance. We get the error even on on the coursest grind setting. Our beans are not oily. They're good quality, medium-to-light roast espresso beans, not Starbucks junk. In an effort to calibrate the so-called adaptive grinding system, we blew through a whole bag of coffee beans to no avail. So in absolute DESPERATION we bought a BRAND NEW machine. Not only did it arrive with a slight broken part in the drip tray due to shipping, but it has the exact same problem. Apparently, there is a calibration period. We brewed 20-30 shots and 95% of them failed with this error. It chewed through almost another whole bag of good, fresh coffee beans. That is not calibration or adapting. That is incompetence. Now we're fuming. Gaggia, you NEED to fix the utterly stupid behavior of this machine. We checked the manufacture date of the new machine and it was December 2021. This issue is still not fixed on for a machine you've been manufacturing for many years. We're sending this junk back and looking alternative brands. Such a pity because we otherwise loved our old machine until this started happening. Looking at reviews and comments on various forums, this is happening to a lot of your customers. Free advice: what this machine SHOULD do is show a warning light and BREW THE SHOT regardless! I honestly don't care if the grinder thinks it only got 95% of the grounds it needs. Just brew the shot instead of discarding perfectly good coffee beans. We're not that picky. Looking at perfectly formed, unused pucks in the grounds bin is so demoralizing. Honestly, just give us a way to turn the stupid error off. We don't need it. It's completely user-hostile behavior. Gaggia, Saeco and Philips (all the same company and sharing many parts) are now on our blacklist. Time to spend our money elsewhere.

Tardo para llegar por causa de la importacion pero una vez que la tuve ya la instale y probe. Muy bueno hasta el momento. La cafetera hace lo que dice. Solo que es un poco ruidosa cuando muele el grano. Nada dificil de usar, bien facil y practico.

Aside from when we are away on vacation my wife and I have a cup each of Luongo, about 6oz, before and after breakfast. - Key is to use suitable beans. Oily beans gum the grinder, we use medium roast. ( Presidents Choice is my preferred bean both for cost and flavour, set to 3 bean quantity) - We use reverse osmosis water so hardly ever descale. Descale cycle never works for me but easy enough to do it manually by letting water flow through wand. - Use very thin wall coffe cups so they don't reduce temperature of coffee, also can preheat cups on the start up water. - Empty drip tray, used pucks and refill water daily. Full cleaning of brew unit about once every 3 weeks or so, so easy maintenance. Overall pleased with this machine beans are very economical compared with pod type machines and the coffee is very good. Stainless wand without the attachment makes steamed milk with very fine bubbles for lattes. If used correctly once you get your set up to your liking it is very consistent.

Chegou em perfeito estado. Funciona muito bem

Crappiest machine ever. This is the second one we’re using in 6 months. First one returned as the water dosing was not working. With the second one, we have cleaned the grinder as per the manufacturer’s instructions and it’s still not working (we have wasted pounds of coffee trying to make 3 cups of coffee/day). I understand that refunds and returns are possible within a month, but what happens when the machine is not working after that and within a year since the purchase? Also, the machine leaks water and it has ruined my kitchen cart.

el sueño de quien hace cafe todos los días...mas fácil y perfecto imposible entrega a tiempo y empaque perfecto aconsejo ver videos en youtube para manejarla