Sage Barista Pro SES878: 30 grind settings, ThermoJet, LCD

What the Pro changes, and what it keeps

Put the Barista Pro next to the Barista Express and most of the hardware is shared: a 54 mm portafilter, a 250 g hopper over steel conical burrs, dual-wall and single-wall baskets, PID temperature control, a 15 bar pump and a manual steam wand. Four things differ on Sage’s sheets:

	Barista Pro	Barista Express
Grind settings	30	16
Heating	ThermoJet, ready in 3 s per Sage	Thermocoil, no heat-up time in our data
Controls	LCD display and buttons	buttons and a pressure gauge
Water tank	1.9 l	2 l

In the UK the Pro sits one price bracket higher, in Premium, where the Express is upper mid-range. The question is whether those four lines are worth a bracket to you. The Sage range comparison puts both beside the Bambinos.

Thirty steps on the dial

For espresso the usable part of a grinder’s range is at the fine end, so the number of steps there decides how small a correction you can make when a shot runs fast or slow. Thirty is nearly twice the Express and above the other all-in-ones we list:

• Sage the Barista Pro (SES878)30
• Ninja Luxe Café Pro Series (ES701UK)25
• Sage the Barista Express (SES875)16
• De'Longhi La Specialista Arte Manual espresso maker EC9155.MB15

As on every such chart: steps describe how finely you can adjust, not how evenly the burrs cut. That can only be measured, and we have not measured it. What the dial changes in the cup is explained in our grind size guide.

A 3-second start instead of a gauge

Sage rates the ThermoJet at 3 s to readiness, the same figure it gives for the Bambino and Bambino Plus. That is a manufacturer’s figure, not one we have timed. If you make one coffee at a time and switch off in between, it is the most practical difference from the Express, for which no heat-up time is published.

The trade is on the front panel. The Express has a pressure gauge that shows what each shot is doing; the Barista Pro lists an LCD display and buttons, and neither its product pages nor the SES878 guide mention a gauge. If reading pressure during extraction is part of how you want to learn, the older machine has the instrument and the newer one does not.

Milk is still your job

The wand is manual. Sage describes manual milk texturing on the Pro, exactly as on the Express. Among the espresso machines with a built-in grinder in our UK database, the two Ninja Luxe Café models froth automatically: the Luxe Café Premier and the Luxe Café Pro, which also weigh the dose. If most of your cups are cappuccinos and you have no wish to learn steaming, the data points to those.

Where it stands, and the depth nobody agrees on

Width and height are 35.4 cm and 40.6 cm, the figures given on Sage’s German and French pages. Sage’s UK page gives a different set (40.8 × 35 × 33.2 cm, labelled width × depth × height), and the three pages give three different depths, so our table leaves depth blank rather than pick one. At 40.6 cm it is a little taller than the Express: with wall cupboards at 45 cm or so, keep room to fill the hopper or slide the machine forward.

Two more discrepancies. Power: the SES878 guide states 1,380 to 1,650 W and the German and French pages 1,650 W, which is what we print as 1,650 W; the UK page says 1,680 W. Weight is not stated anywhere we looked.

Model numbers in the UK

Sage files the machine under BES878 on its website; in the shops it is the SES878, sold as “the Barista Pro” in brushed stainless steel and in other colours at higher prices. The figures on this page were read for the SES878 reference. Sage’s UK page states a 2 years-year limited product warranty.

Other routes to the same cup

• Barista Express. Same portafilter, hopper and wand, one bracket lower, with a gauge and 16 grind settings.
• Ninja Luxe Café Pro and Premier. Built-in grinder with 25 settings, dosing by weight, automatic frother, filter coffee and cold brew, with pump pressure and basket type unstated.
• De’Longhi La Specialista Arte. Narrower at 28.5 cm, with 15 grind settings and a pressure gauge, in the mid-range bracket.

The all-in-ones are set side by side in espresso machines with a grinder, and every espresso machine we list is in the espresso machine comparison. If you are not yet sure a portafilter is for you, the machine finder starts from how you drink coffee, and the cost-per-cup calculator shows what beans cost you per shot.

Noise is unpublished for this machine, as for almost every machine we list; we plan to measure it.