About Baratza
Baratza was founded in Seattle in 1999 by Kyra Kennedy and Kyle Anderson, who set out to build affordable, high-performance burr grinders for home use at a time when the category was split between cheap blade grinders and expensive commercial equipment. The company built its name specifically on the home grinder niche, growing over two decades into one of the most recognized grinder brands in specialty coffee before Australian appliance maker Breville Group acquired it in October 2020 for 60 million dollars, a deal aimed at folding Baratza's grinder expertise into Breville's home coffee lineup.
What has kept Baratza's reputation intact through that growth is a genuine commitment to repairable design: burrs, motors, gearboxes, and switches are sold as standalone replacement parts through Baratza's own parts program, and the company will service a grinder well past its one-year warranty period rather than pushing owners toward a new purchase. On our own bench, that shows up directly -- the Encore ESP and Virtuoso+ are grinders built to be opened up and maintained, not thrown out, which is the quality that keeps them recommended years after a purchase rather than just at checkout.
Brand website: baratza.com
What Baratza makes
Baratza's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Encore / Encore ESP
entry-level conical burr grinders; the ESP version is re-geared to reach true espresso fineness -- our featured picks are from this line — featured on Brew Gazette
Virtuoso+
stepped conical burr grinder with M2-hardened burrs, Baratza's finest non-espresso model -- featured on Brew Gazette — featured on Brew Gazette
Sette Series (Sette 30 / Sette 270)
straight-through, low-retention espresso grinders with macro and micro adjustment -- our featured espresso pick is from this line — featured on Brew Gazette
Forte Series (Forte AP / Forte BP)
flat and conical burr grinders aimed at high-volume home and light commercial use
Vario / Vario+
flat ceramic burr grinders built for filter coffee clarity
Why we recognized Baratza
The Brew Gazette Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. Baratza earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, brewed with daily, and judged on what lands in the cup.
Baratza products we rated highly
Baratza Encore ESP Coffee Grinder
It covers the entire useful grind range from espresso-fine to coarse French press in one machine, and the 40mm conical steel burr genuinely reaches espresso where the original Encore could not. The DC motor turns the burrs slowly and runs cool, which protects the aromatic oils in the beans, especially on light roasts. Baratza's US repair program and spare-parts ecosystem stand behind it, so burrs, motors, and gearboxes are all user-replaceable rather than throwaway parts.
Read the 8 Best Coffee Grinders of 2026 guide →
Baratza Virtuoso+ Coffee Grinder
The M2-hardened conical burrs produce the tightest, most uniform grind in Baratza's stepped lineup, which is the whole game for filter coffee: fewer fines means less bitter over-extraction, fewer boulders means less sour under-extraction. A 4.6-star average across 2,200 reviews is the strongest rating of any electric grinder in our roundup, and the digital 60-second timer makes dosing repeatable session to session.
Read the 8 Best Coffee Grinders of 2026 guide →
Baratza Sette 30 Conical Burr Espresso Grinder
The straight-through grind path, where the outer burr spins while the inner one stays put, drops grounds nearly straight into the portafilter with almost no retention, which matters because stale leftover grams taint the next shot. Macro plus micro adjustment gives real espresso dial-in resolution, and it doses by a digital timer down to a tenth of a second for repeatable shots. Baratza's US service network backs it with user-replaceable burrs, gears, and motors.
Read the 9 Best Espresso Grinders of 2026 guide → Baratza Encore ESP Espresso Grinder
Baratza re-geared the classic Encore specifically so its fine end reaches true espresso, which the original never could, making this the most accessible way into a real, name-brand portafilter grinder. The 40mm conical burr and espresso-tuned adjustment give enough fine-end resolution to dial in a home machine, and it is refreshingly simple to live with -- no touchscreen, just a hopper and a grind dial. It carries the same serviceable build and US support as every Baratza.
Read the 9 Best Espresso Grinders of 2026 guide →What earned Baratza the recognition
- Four products among our top picks across two separate categories on Brew Gazette -- coffee grinders and espresso grinders -- including the top overall pick on both pages, the Encore ESP and the Sette 30.
- A 4.6-star average across 2,200 reviews on the Virtuoso+ is the strongest rating of any electric grinder in our coffee grinder testing.
- Repairable-by-design engineering that is unusual in the category: burrs, motors, gearboxes, and switches are all sold as genuine replacement parts through Baratza's own parts program, and the company services grinders well past the one-year warranty rather than pushing a replacement purchase.
- The Encore ESP is the rare grinder in its price tier that genuinely covers espresso-fine through French-press coarse in one machine, giving buyers a single grinder for a portafilter in the morning and a pour-over in the afternoon.
- Two decades of focused engineering in the home burr-grinder niche, from a 1999 Seattle founding through a 2020 acquisition by Breville Group that expanded Baratza's reach without diluting the grinder-first design focus we found on the bench.