# Sage Oracle Touch



## deZoo (Sep 21, 2021)

I have just joined this forum, looks like it contains a wealth of information and I'm looking forward to learning a lot from here.

Wanted to share my experience of the Sage Oracle Touch, we bought this machine early in lockdown because whilst going to Costa was getting me out of the house, I couldn't bear to drink the stuff. It took a while for me to get the best out of the Touch but when it made a good coffee it was very enjoyable and we really appreciated having it in the house.

After a while the readings on the grinder went a bit daft, you would turn the grinder wheel and the settings would randomly keep rising/falling. A visit by en engineer who replaced the electronic reader solved that.

As is noted by many users, when switching the machine off and on again the grind setting reading can change. I started to engage support who said this was normal and related to how the machine rounded up or down. This struck me a incredibly bad design because why round up one minute and down the next? Anyway it was dismissed as 'as designed'. So I started experimenting on the actual effect of different grind sizes on the screen to see if they affected the grind. Below is what I found and shared with Sage. The hopper was full throughout, everything was washed and reweighed between each brew:

Machine switched on.

Manually set to 17:

Coffee ground weight 21g

Liquid coffee weight 32g

Manually set to 18:

Coffee ground weight 21g

Liquid coffee weight 35g

Manually set to 19:

Coffee ground weight 20g

Liquid coffee weight 62g

Machine switched off and on again, now reads grind setting 20

Coffee ground weight 20g

Liquid coffee weight 58g

Manually set again to 19:

Coffee ground weight 22g

Liquid coffee weight 34g

There are 45 grind setting on this machine so a jump from 35g to 62g on one setting change is extraordinary, also note that on the same grind setting I got a 62g shot and a 34g shot.

The response from Sage was "as we discussed previously, please note that these are not really indicative of a fault in the machine".

My subsequent response received more senior attention and I was called by a lady who apologised for my experience with support and offered to replace the machine with the Dynamic Duo Espresso Machine and Coffee Grinder - this is a two-machine setup, it isn't bean to cup and doesn't come in black so failed on multiple scores. The lady explained that my experience with the Oracle Touch was not unusual and she felt I may well find that a replacement machine does the same. I found this to be concerning given this is sold as a high end bean to cup machine with superior accuracy on things like grind settings. The fact their first response was to encourage me to another machine with a separate grinder does suggest to me that they have limited confidence in the bean to cup machine.

We have now agreed that I will get a direct replacement but I have been clear that if it performs the same, I will expect a full refund.

I hope this was useful for anyone considering such a purchase, Sage support was quite poor throughout and infuriating towards the end before the case was picked up by someone more senior when I highlighted what I would do if not taken seriously. The machine, when you can find and keep the right setting, produces what I regard as very good coffee. Not compared to Costa, I might add, but compared to my local independent roaster and brewer who is of a very high standard.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

@deZoo welcome to the forum...hoipe the problems get resolved, if not grab that refund and don't look back.


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## deZoo (Sep 21, 2021)

I received my brand new machine and ran a couple of quick checks to see if the grind is any more accurate.

Judge for yourself:

The grinder produced 22/23g of ground coffee on each occasion from a fresh batch of locally roasted coffee. I started at grind setting 17 as that was the best setting for this bean on my existing machine, the pour is 30 seconds in each case. The lower the grind setting the finer the grind.

The first figure is the grind setting, the second the weight of the shot:
17 - 62g
Too coarse, drop 3 settings
14 - 40g
13 - 47g (?)
12 - 36g
I dialled back up to 13 to see if the first shot at 13 was a mistake.
13 - 51g 
moved the dial up and down a few times and back to 13:
13 - 65g
two more shots at 13 without changing anything:
13 - 71g
13 - 60g
down two settings:
11 - 49g

Given that the dial has 45 grind settings I would expect the settings to be very close together - maybe a change in resulting shot weight of a couple of grams. But more importantly I would expect some sort of linear results, ie a finer grind setting should produce less shot weight than a coarser grind setting. This is not the case.

If anyone can provide any insight into why they think I am getting such results I would be very grateful. Do you agree these results look problematic? I have shared them with Sage and invited them to help me get accurate and repeatable results from this machine.

(I used electronic scales, kept the hopper well filled with the same beans. The machine was literally just out of the box and I checked the weight of the empty portafilter and shot glass in between each time.)


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