Breville Iced review: lets you make refreshing iced coffee in mere minutes

Breville Iced review in a well-cooled sentence: if you want an affordable but effective iced coffee maker, look no further!

The best coffee makers come in all shapes and sizes, with this one looking more like a coffee grinder, if anything. Iced coffee is a treat, but it’s almost an essential in hot summer weather. If you’re partial to a quality brew, the best pour over coffee machines are a great option for making iced coffee, but the new Breville Iced manages the entire process for you – both the coffee part and the 'iced' element. If you love iced coffee, it could be your next must-have kitchen appliance. It’s small-but-perfectly-formed and revolves around a main coffeemaker unit supplemented by a nicely made insulated tumbler.

The Breville Iced is versatile too, because it can quickly create everything from iced caramel macchiattos to iced oat milk lattes and all points in-between. Well, in truth you have to pour on the cold milk, so it's a bit of a joint effort. Nevertheless, producing your preferred cup of iced coffee can be done in just three easy steps, by cooling concentrated, hot-brewed coffee as you pour it over fresh ice with a start-to-finish time of just four minutes.

• Best espresso machine
• Best Nespresso machine

Breville Iced review: price and availability

The Breville Iced single serve iced coffeemaker costs £39.99 from Amazon in the UK, but is also available at AO.com, B&M Retail, Currys, John Lewis, Morrison’s, Next, Robert Dyas, Very and Waitrose. 

It's sold as Mr. Coffee Iced Coffee Maker in the USA and also Australia – there is a different brand called 'Breville' in those countries; yes, it's very confusing. It costs $25 and AU$45 respectively.

Breville Iced review: design

I'm not sure if Breville has deliberately gone for an understated look or if the design has just turned out that way, but our model turned up in two shades of grey plastic. In terms of design it all comes across as a little understated, and harsher critics might say the Breville Iced looks a bit too cheap. While it is keenly priced, there’s a fine line between looking like good value and giving off an air of 'bargain-basement'. No matter, I'll press on.

Taking it out of the box for the first time also revealed just how light this iced coffee maker is. You expect it to have some weight, but it feels almost weightless although is actually 1.55kg on the scales. That’s good in terms of moving it around or storing it away, but the Breville Iced does leave you wondering if it’ll be easy to topple over, depositing coffee, ice and water all over your worktop. 

However, get it into position, and the unit sits nicely on four rubberized feet, plus there’s a power cable that’s not long, but long enough. There’s a plastic coffee scoop for helping you get the drink-making underway.

The accompanying plastic tumbler, lid and straw are handwash only and obviously the main body of the appliance itself is powered by mains electricity, so keep that away from water too. However, the top section, which contains the upper bowl and filter assembly complete with a little foldable handle is detachable and can be washed while the rest of it can be wiped over with a damp cloth. 

Component parts look to be largely recyclable, which is good news when you’ve had your fill of making iced coffee, or when the unit reaches end-of-life service status.

Breville Iced review: features

The Breville Iced is a single serve machine, which means that it can quickly create decent cupfuls of cold caffeine, but only one a a time. However, the plastic tumbler has a 625ml capacity, which is a reasonable enough amount. What’s even more appealing is the simple to use functionality of the unit. Power up, add your water, add in the coffee using the supplied plastic scoop and then press the Start button. 

The drink tumbler is double-walled too, which means you can hold it without getting frostbite and the coffee stays colder for longer. As mentioned earlier, Breville states that it’s possible to make an iced coffee in under 4 minutes, which given the ease of the process is reasonable enough. 

Thanks to the filter bowl for your coffee, which is built into the top part of the appliance and which can be removed for cleaning, there’s very little work involved in producing the coffee. Meanwhile, the chilling bit is basically instantaneous as the machine pours the resulting filtered brew over your tumbler full of ice.

Breville Iced review: performance

Simplicity and ease of use are important to all of us and the Breville Iced ticks both of those boxes perfectly. There’s very little to do in order to get up and running, with the iced coffee procedure basically being a three-step workflow. I got the knack of it right away.

You simply fill the lower part of the unit with water to the desired amount, while a maximum fill level indicates when you need to stop. Secondly, scoop your coffee into the filter bowl in the top section of the appliance. Thirdly, fill up the included beaker with a decent amount of ice. The process is essentially using a filtered coffee machine to make iced coffee, simply by pouring hot coffee over the frozen H2O. 

Granted, it’s pretty low tech, but the appliance does work to good effect. However, you’ll need to have a decent amount of ice going spare in order to complete the exercise. I've found the Breville Iced fine for basic iced coffee drinks, although you can obviously throw in pretty much whatever you like to customise the end result, including different types of milk and funky flavourings if that's your bag.

Breville Iced review: verdict

Some kitchen appliances are too smart for their own good. Not so the Breville Iced as this is about as basic as it gets. What you get, for a pretty small outlay, is a rudimentary filter coffee machine and all of the basic tools for producing iced coffee. I like the way it lets you choose what to throw into your brew, and the included tumbler and straw offers enough capacity and mixing freedom to produce all sorts of off-the-cuff chilled coffees. 

You’ll need to have a decent amount of ice on the go if you’re hosting a get-together as this is a one-cup wonder, but after a bit of practice it’s pretty easy to get a minor production line going. Sure, it’s cheap and cheerful, but the Breville Iced is ideal for hot summer days while being compact and lightweight enough to pack away when the weather changes and thoughts head in the direction of steaming hot chocolate instead.