Starbucks Barista Review

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Starbucks Barista
3.7 stars
Average rating for this product is: 3.7 out of 5

From 4 ratings and 20 reviews

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Toby.'s Review of Starbucks Barista Compare

26th Mar 2002

Overall Rating

3 stars
  • Value for money
    4 stars
Good Points

Straightforward machine - excellent coffee


Bad Points

Bit of a pain to keep clean, post-sales support leaves a lot to be desired.


General Comments

Having acquired a huge taste for coffee, and espresso especially, it was inevitable that I would purchase an espresso machine eventually. Despite the bewildering array of machines on offer I decided to go with the Starbucks Barista machine.

Buying it was easy (I even managed to get a 10% discount for walking away with an ex-display model) and subsequent visits to my local branch for advice on using it were met by helpful, patient staff.

The machine itself proved a joy to use. The process of priming the pump and steam wand may seem a little labourious, but is so straightforward that it becomes second nature after a while.

A word of warning for potential purchasers though - God help you if anything goes wrong with it!!! I recently suffered a bit of a mishap with the brewing handle and have been trying to get hold of a replacement. The staff at my local Starbucks didn't have a clue how to go about doing this so for the past week I've been trying to contact Starbucks directly about the query. To date I have yet to receive a response, or even an acknowledgement, to any of my e-mails and so my straightforward, excellent-coffee-making machine is currently no more than a £250 piece of junk taking up space in my kitchen

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Members' Comments onToby.'s Review

  • Toby. on 14th Oct 2002

    Every starbucks can order almost any replacement part for your barista machine... at a low retail cost price (if it is less than a year you should be coverd by your warranty).

  • David. on 1st Dec 2002

    I agree, Starbucks post-sales support is very much lacking. Your on your own after warranty period. Mine is now apparently junk after only 100 cups.

  • Natalie. on 6th Feb 2003

    We've had ours for 8 years. Minor problems in the beginning due to operator error. I used the 800 number for service and was assisted on two different occassions, by very competent staff who talked me through the repair process. Nothing but kudos for Starbucks and their equipment.

  • Kitt. on 18th May 2003

    I found post-sale support excellent. (1800 334 5553 ext 0) Calls about a steam wand leak resulted in step by step coaching over the phone to open the unit and re-adjust a couple of parts. Frankly, I would rather spend 30 minutes on the phone and have a fixed unit than ship it to a repair center and lose it for 4 weeks.

    A couple of other problems calls turned out to be legitimate "operator error" (not Blame the victim!) For example,I had thrown together a latte as I dashed out the door for a two week dive vacation. When I came back, I couldn't get any steam. A call and carefull review a of symptoms turned up that I needed to stick a paper clip up the wand to unblock the dried milk since I obviously forgot to blow it out in my hasty deprture. The rep was patient, knowledgeable and offered a number of "tips" while he was working through the problem. So I would rank their customer support as: "As good as I have encountered from ANY manufacturer."

    I will admit that the store personnel are fairly clueless, but that is because they don't have any opportunity to experiment with the different machines.