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

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. Read more

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. Read more