Gaggia Brera Super-Automatic Espresso Machine, Small, 40 fluid ounces, Silver

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.

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.

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 know lots of people knock this machine. They compare it to a manual espresso machine or a superautomatic costing twice to three times the price. That's not fair. This machine makes a fantastic shot of espresso, period. It has the same internals and same controls as the Saeco Evo at my office. It makes essentially the same cup of espresso. You feed it water. You drain the pan. You load the beans. You empty the dregs. Most of all, you walk up and get a shot or two of espresso with no muss, no fuss, and best of all, no mess. I will say this - it took a while to get it dialed in. The morning it arrived I was seriously thinking it might have to go back. There were no pucks, only oozing coffee slurry. It was Sunday, so I could not call the toll-free number to get help. I decided to dig deep into the manual and it assured me the adaptive brewing system would sort things out. That seemed a little fantastic to me but I had no choice but to trust the manual. I just kept making more shots. I was totally stoked. It was hilarious. But after a dozen shots it started to settle down. Enough so that I decided not to call on Monday. Or Tuesday. By Wednesday it was completely dialed in and the pucks looked the same as the $2,000 saeco at the office. More importantly, the crema looked the same and the espresso tasted the same. Can you do better with a $1,000+ manual machine? Of course you can. Better enough? Not for my taste. Just tap the button once or twice and you get a truly delightful cup. If it's late and you're worried about sleeping, grind up some decaf and pour it into the bypass. It too works perfectly. Word of warning - don't buy over-roasted beans like those from Starbucks. The caramelization will jam up your grinder. I'm not speaking from experience, just repeating what I've heard. With the likes of Colectivo, Porto Rico, and Fresh Ground roasting making perfectly-roasted beans, why bother with the nuked stuff? Bottom line = Under $400 for a superautomatic? Heck yeah! If you're worried about longevity, buy the $35 three-year extended warranty. Anything past three years is bonus time in my book. (Updated 12/26/2025) I just checked to see if this model is still on the market. It's $100 more, but still a great value. I own two, and both entered their tenth year of service. I have needed to repair both machines over the years, but parts are available, and the design makes repairs approachable for tinkerers and handymen. I know a prettier one will come along and replace this one someday, but this machine is a solid performer.

I'm pretty happy with the coffee produced by this machine. I have had it for a few months now and it works pretty well. I have purchased more expensive machines in the past, but they seem to have problems that require repair after a few years and the repair is ridiculously expensive. None the the Italian manufacturers seem to have a good support network in the USA. Anyway, I decided to stick with a relatively cheaper machine and if it goes bad in a few years, I'm just going to replace it. I want to point out a few downsides to this machine to save people some heartache: 1. The manual descaling process in the manual is incorrect. There is an automated descaling process that is not documented in the manual. There is a YouTube channel called "Whole Latte Love" that can show you how to perform the automated process. Apparently, this process has existed on all models of this machine manufactured after 2013. I couldn't get the manual process to reset the descaling light and had to seek out the solution on the internet. Why the company has not updated the manual is beyond me. 2. I ran out of beans one day and decided to use ground coffee. I used the spoon they provide. I filled the spoon and leveled it. The machine dumped these grounds without producing any coffee. Apparently, the machine does this if you pour in too many coffee grounds. After experimenting, I found that you cannot fill the provided spoon. It works when you fill it about 3/4 full. I wasted a fair bit of coffee this way and I found the resulting coffee to be weak by comparison with using the beans. In addition, the inside of the machine where the brew unit is was filled with dry grounds, so the machine wasn't managing to get the dumped grounds into the grounds container. I don't recommend using ground coffee with this machine. It didn't work out well for me at all. 3. I had a big problem trying to put the brew unit back in while trying to get the ground coffee option to work. Turned out the machine needed to be reset. Again, nothing in the manual about this, I had to go to the YouTube site mentioned above to figure out how to resolve this problem. So, the machine makes good coffee with whole beans. The ground coffee option doesn't seem to work nearly as well. The manual leaves a lot to be desired. As with my experience with Saeco and Delonghi, the repair options are limited and, I imagine, expensive. In my case, I would have to send off the machine to another city to get it repaired. Update: Machine stopped pouring coffee from the front. Had to contact support. After several weeks of back and forth, where they had me clean various bits of the machine that could be disassembled easily, they finally set up a support number and I sent it in. It's due back today. The total time it has taken to get this fixed has been a month and it cost me $100 in shipping. This is, again, one of the great drawbacks with these European machines as none of them have great support here in the USA. Most of the companies that provide services are small companies that sell the machines. Anyway, before purchasing any of these automated espresso machines, you might want to consider the costs invovled in repair if something goes wrong.

I bought two of these coffee makers. Mine leaks all over the counter so I cannot use it. It leaks water from the reserve tank. The other one, works fine. If you like a gamble, you have a 50/50 chance of getting a good coffee maker. It’s easy to use and makes excellent coffee. It’s stylish - I just wish it didn’t leak.

I used it in a cabinet built-in setup in my kitchen counter island. It worked out great. Now we have no coffee machine on Kitchen counter and can enjoy a freshly brewed espresso or coffee latte anytime. I only wish that the milk frother is not there as we always use a capresso frothpro which is easier to use and clean. (Update after almost 3-year of Service): We used it daily for almost 3-year now, and occasionally host big party of 20-30 people. Here are the pros and cons. Pros: the machine stood up well, never breaks down. We only use Dark roast coffee beans ( Peet’s French or Espresso roast ) and always tuned it to be the finest grinding level. The espresso, if operated carefully, always come out full of flavor. I cannot say more about the quality of the machine considering the pretty moderate price. We have so far recommended a few friends to get it from Amazon the same model. They are all quite happy. Cons: (1): once in a while, the system needs to be descaled. The procedure is complicated, has to be done manual, require one person’s full attention for a full 20-min with many manual steps. The bad part is that since it only happens once in a while. So every time it happens, I have to read the instructions again. The instruction, as stated, is complictaed and not interesting to read. So if it happens while I am on the road, the machine has to be left there until I come home. It also could happen any given time without grace period reminder. So if you are hosting some visitors, and preparing coffee for them. If it happens in the middle of a conversation, you end of have some friends have coffee, another set of friends either would not have coffee or have to endure seeing you descaling this machine for 20-min. I take this as a very bad usability design. With today’s technology, the designer of this machine clearly did not know software or have a UX design training. (2): The descaling process is complicated and manual. There is no indication whether any step is missing or not done right. After one of the descaling process, the machine suddenly stopped control the amount of water for espresso drink. Now we just have to manually push the button to control the amount of water for an espresso. I personally think it is not that bad since the default espresso setting made the espresso too watery any way. Manual control helps to brew strong flavorful coffee. Conclusion: It is a great little machine with high quality, definitely serves family use well. I would buy it again. Update after more than 4-year of service, after 4000+ expression and coffee brewing later, machine finally broken down. I took it apart, identified that the thermal pump was broken. It was very hard to took the broken part out, I end of broken the safety value. I was able to find replacement parts online and fixed the issue. The repair costed me a grand total of $80 and pretty much half day watching YouTube and fix it.

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.