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Price: £229.68 at Amazon, £259.95 at Sage or £259 at John Lewis
Our rating: 9/10
We like:
- good-tasting coffee on various brew modes
- water filter and water hardness strip test included
- professional look
We don’t like:
- slightly too tall
- the jug is a bit heavy to hold when full
- the high price
What is the Sage Precision Brewer Thermal?
Australia’s Sage is known for being an innovator in the kitchen, with waffle makers, pizza ovens and food processors among the brand’s strong suits. The company certainly has espresso covered, with numerous machines on the market. It also sells pod machines. But it only has one filter coffee maker: the Sage Precision Brewer. Does it live up to high customer expectations of the brand?
We tried the model with a thermal carafe and found it to be one of the most advanced drip coffee machines out there, providing six brew modes such as ‘fast’ and ‘gold’. It can also cold-brew coffee, which gives a mellower, less bitter taste. Among the other features is auto-start, so you can have your vital cup ready as soon as you wake up, and a function that assesses the purity of your water.
The Sage Precision Brewer is one of only three models to cost over £200 on our guide to the best filter coffee machines. (The others are Wilfa from Norway and Moccamaster from the Netherlands.) We wanted to put it to a more detailed test to see if it justifies the high price, given that some of the machines we tested were perfectly good and cost less than £20.
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How we test coffee machines
I have tested a dozen filter coffee machines and the formula is always the same: I make minimum of eight cups for continuity and fairness and I always use the same freshly-ground beans (from Volcano Coffee Works).
While other types of coffee machines, such as bean-to-cup, can be rated on the variety of drinks made, when it comes to the Sage, good old-fashioned black filter coffee is the only offering. What we are looking for is quality. Also assessed is design – whether a model looks good and how much space it takes up, how simple it is to use, and whether cleaning and maintenance is easy enough. I also make notes on quietness and speed.
