Breville's new espresso machine can brew coffee and steam milk at the same time – and it's eye-wateringly expensive

• The Breville Oracle Dual Boiler brews coffee and steams milk simultaneously
• It's launching first in Australia for AU$4,499 (about $3,000 / £2,200)
• Global release dates and prices are expected to follow soon

Breville (known as Sage in the UK) has launched a new espresso machine with a double boiler so it can brew coffee and steam milk at the same time – and it has one of the highest price tags I've seen for a home coffee maker.

As Appliance Retailer reports, the Breville Oracle Dual Boiler is launching first in Australia before a wider global release. It's not yet available to buy, but will cost AU$4,499 (about $3,000 / £2,200) when it goes on sale at Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys.

The Oracle Dual Boiler is a new big sibling for the Breville Oracle Touch, which for a long time held a place in our roundup of the best coffee makers you can buy for your kitchen.

The new machine has a familiar full-color touchscreen, and offers two different interfaces: a menu-driven option for quick brews with automation at every stage, and a manual mode (complete with pressure dials) if you want to take control yourself.

Two boilers, four cores

As the machine's name suggests, its biggest selling point is its dual boiler, which means you can brew coffee and texturize milk simultaneously, and don't need to wait for the boiler to come back to pressure before you start using the steam wand.

You can steam milk manually, or using Breville's AutoMilq system. This is the same technology used in the Barista Touch Impress with Cold Extraction, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, and works particularly well with plant-based milks such as soy and oat.

This isn't Breville's first machine with two boilers (the original Breville Oracle also had a twin-boiler system), but it's the first to also offer full automation and touch controls that make it easy for beginners to use – all powered by a quad-core processor.

I'm hoping to test the Oracle Dual Boiler when it arrives here in the UK to see how it compares with its rivals (including premium and mid-range coffee makers), and whether it deserves a place in TechRadar's roundup of the best espresso machines.

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