Sage has just launched a swanky new espresso machine that comes with a super-sensitive touch screen, light and dark modes for early morning brews, and even the ability to brew cold brew and cold espresso.
At £1,700, the Sage Oracle Jet is actually cheaper than its forebears, the Oracle (£1,800) and the Oracle Touch (£2,100). It's not a budget-friendly option, but coffee buffs will know that you can burn through £2,000 fairly quickly when shopping for the best coffee maker.
I got the chance to try the Sage Oracle Jet hands-on for a month ahead of the brand's latest launch, making smooth, fruity cold brews and (almost) mess-free espresso to see if it's worth that high price tag. I really enjoyed the automatic features which will guide beginner to intermediate coffee brewers towards making the perfect shot of coffee, with grinder advice and smart dosing that will ensure you get the most out of every bean. Here's what you need to know about the Oracle Jet.
3 things I liked about the Sage Oracle Jet
1. It's easy to get a good brew
The Oracle Jet was designed for people like me. I really like coffee, and I'd spend a big lump of my paycheck on a swanky new machine, but I'm not one of those enthusiasts who like to control every tiny detail about my espresso. You won't catch me weighing my beans, checking my ratio, or using a WDT tool before tamping my grounds.
The Oracle Jet really does take all the messy and tedious parts of making espresso out of your hands. From first use, it calibrates your grinder to optimise your perfect ground size, measuring the extraction time to tell if the pressure is right, and it will continue to make grinder suggestions as you switch between beans or make different coffee drinks.
This machine also tamps for you. If you've used a traditional espresso machine like the Sage Barista Express, you'll know that the grounds can get everywhere when you have to tamp by hand, so I've really enjoyed letting the machine do all the hard work. One complaint though — there's always a scattering of loose grounds sat at the top of my tamped puck when I go to put it into the group head.
2. It's designed with user experience in mind
I'm all about mood lighting, even from my coffee machine. Jura machines, for example, use different color lights depending on what you're brewing, and it's such a simple way to elevate your brewing experience.
The Sage Oracle Jet has both a light and dark mode, and it illuminates the area under the group head so you can see your drink being brewed even if you're making your coffee first thing in the morning, perfect for those winter mornings when it takes a while for your eyes to adjust.
Another user-friendly element of the Sage Oracle Jet is its steam wand. It comes with pre-set drink options for making latte, cappuccino and flat white, and will adjust the froth level and temperature depending on your choice of drink and choice of milk type. I'm partial to an oat milk latte, so being able to switch to oat milk mode, which will keep temperature lower to prevent your milk from burning, is a huge win.
The wand steams automatically, so all you need to do is insert the jug and watch the whirlpool start to form. Then, pour and enjoy. If you do prefer to hand-steam, it also has a Manual mode.
3. Delicious cold brew
I was so excited when I heard the Sage Oracle Jet can make cold brew and cold espresso, because I love iced coffee. There are a number of machines that can make cold brew, including the De'Longhi La Specialista Maestro, and while they're not able to replicate the process of slowly steeping coffee grounds over 12+ hours, they do a pretty good job of recreating that flavour.
The Sage Oracle Jet extracted a glass of long cold brew in under three minutes, and it was light and fruity. I also enjoyed making iced lattes with a cold espresso, meaning my ice wasn't immediately melted when I poured my shot over it. Come the summer months, I'd be making this my regular drinks.
1 thing I didn't like about the Sage Oracle Jet
1. Say goodbye to dual boiler
The Sage Oracle Jet is an upgrade on previous Oracle machines in a number of ways, but it's lacking the dual boiler design. Dual boiler coffee machines can extract espresso and steam milk simultaneously, meaning they can be real time-savers, and they replicate that professional design you might expect from a high-end espresso machine.
Instead, Sage has introduced its ThermoJet system. This allows you to go between espresso and steam relatively seamlessly, so much so that you can start to brew your coffee, insert your milk wand into your pitcher, and queue your milk so that it starts to steam almost immediately after your espresso is brewed.
I wasn't using a dual boiler machine before I tested the Oracle Jet, so I actually found that this machine was a level-up in terms of efficiency from my standard semi-automatic machine. However, if I'm finding fault, this would be the biggest loss in the latest iteration of the Oracle line.
