Breville the Coffee and Spice Grinder: What It Is and When It Makes Sense
The "Coffee and Spice Grinder" from Breville is a blade grinder with a dual-purpose design: one removable grinding bowl for coffee, another for spices, herbs, and dry ingredients. If you've been looking at this grinder and wondering whether it's worth buying, the honest answer depends entirely on what you're using it for.
For spices and dry ingredients, it's a genuinely useful tool. For coffee, the blade mechanism puts a ceiling on quality that a conical burr grinder doesn't have. This article explains the difference, when the Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder makes sense, and when you'd be better off with something else.
What a Blade Grinder Does (and Why It Matters)
The Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder uses a spinning metal blade, similar to a small blender. The blade chops beans into fragments by brute impact rather than crushing them between burrs.
The result is an uneven grind. Some particles end up very fine, others coarse. In a coffee cup, that unevenness shows up as mixed extraction: the fine particles over-extract (bitter), the coarse particles under-extract (sour), and the overall flavor is muddled compared to what an even grind produces.
This is not specific to Breville. All blade grinders have this limitation. It's a physics problem, not a brand problem.
For spices, this unevenness is largely irrelevant. Ground cumin going into a curry doesn't need particle uniformity the way an espresso dose does. The blade mechanism works perfectly well for grinding dried chilies, pepper, coriander, and similar ingredients.
The Dual Bowl System
What makes the Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder useful despite the blade mechanism is the interchangeable bowl design. Most blade grinders have a single fixed bowl, which means if you grind spices in it, the flavor bleeds into your coffee and vice versa.
The Breville unit comes with two separate grinding bowls, each with its own lid: - One designated for coffee - One designated for spices or other dry ingredients
You swap the bowl on the motor base depending on what you're grinding. This separation actually works in practice. Cumin-flavored coffee is a real problem with single-bowl grinders, and the dual system solves it.
The bowls are stainless steel interiors with plastic exterior housings. They're dishwasher safe on the top rack, though the grinding blades should be hand-washed.
Capacity
Each grinding bowl holds a limited amount. The coffee bowl typically holds enough beans for 2-4 cups of coffee per grinding cycle, which is roughly 15-30 grams. You're not going to pre-grind a week's worth of coffee in one pass.
This isn't necessarily a problem if you grind per session, which is the right approach anyway. Coffee starts oxidizing quickly after grinding, so grinding fresh per brew is better than grinding large batches.
When the Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder Makes Sense
I'd recommend this grinder in two specific scenarios.
First, if you primarily need a spice grinder and occasionally grind coffee, and quality is secondary to convenience. The dual bowl design makes it versatile without the flavor cross-contamination problem.
Second, if you're making cold brew or coarse-press coffee where grind consistency matters less. French press is more forgiving of uneven grinds than espresso or pour over. At a coarse setting (shorter grinding time), you can get a rough but usable result for French press brewing.
Where it falls short is everywhere else. Pour over, AeroPress, Moka pot, and especially espresso all benefit significantly from consistent particle size. If these are your primary brewing methods, a conical burr grinder produces noticeably better results.
How It Compares to a Burr Grinder
This comparison is important to make explicitly because many people consider blade grinders and burr grinders as the same category of product. They're not.
A conical burr grinder, like the Baratza Encore or options covered in the Best Coffee Grinder guide, crushes coffee beans between two burr surfaces. The gap between the burrs determines particle size. Every particle coming out of a burr grinder passes through the same gap, which is why the grind is even.
A blade grinder has no gap control. You control coarseness by how long you run the blade. Shorter time equals rougher chop, longer time equals finer chop, but at no point does every particle come out the same size.
The coffee flavor difference is real and noticeable. If you brew pour over or AeroPress on a blade grinder and switch to a decent burr grinder, the clarity of flavor in your cup changes noticeably. The espresso difference is even more pronounced.
Price Context
The Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder typically retails for $40-60. An entry-level burr grinder starts around $80-100 for a Capresso Infinity or Oxo Brew, and the quality grinder tier starts at the Baratza Encore around $170.
If budget is the only constraint, the Breville blade grinder at $40-60 is a better-than-nothing option. But saving for a few weeks to reach the entry-level burr grinder tier makes a genuine difference to your daily coffee quality.
Spice Grinding Performance
For spices, the performance is straightforwardly good. The blade mechanism works well for:
- Whole peppercorns
- Dried chilies
- Coriander, cumin, fennel seeds
- Dried herbs (rosemary, thyme)
- Flaxseed and chia seeds
- Dry grains for flour-like applications in small quantities
One tip: pulse the grinder rather than running it continuously. Short bursts (2-3 seconds each) followed by shaking the bowl distributes the contents and produces more even grinding than running it continuously for 10-15 seconds.
This applies to coffee as well. If you're using the coffee bowl, pulse grinding gives you more control over coarseness than running the blade full-time until you judge it's "done."
Build Quality and What to Expect
The Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder is a light-duty appliance. The motor is smaller than what you'd find in a burr grinder, which is appropriate for the blade-grinding task. It's not designed to run continuously for long periods.
The plastic housing is typical for this price tier. Nothing exceptional, nothing poorly made. The stainless steel grinding bowls feel more substantial than the housing.
The lids seal onto the grinding bowls for safe operation, and both units include a lid in the box. A safety interlock prevents the motor from running without the lid properly locked.
Breville's one-year warranty applies. Given the simple motor-and-blade mechanism, reliability over several years is generally good for blade grinders. There's not much to break.
Cleaning
The grinding bowls are removable and the blades can be hand-rinsed or run through the dishwasher top rack. Don't submerge the motor base.
For coffee residue, a small amount of dry rice run through the bowl helps absorb oils and knock loose ground coffee. Wipe the blade gently with a damp cloth.
Keep the spice and coffee bowls clearly labeled or color-coded if you use both regularly. It's easy to grab the wrong one, especially early in the morning.
FAQ
Is the Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder good for everyday coffee? It depends on your expectations. For casual coffee drinkers who aren't concerned with extraction precision, it produces a workable grind. For anyone who cares about flavor, a conical burr grinder is a meaningful improvement.
Can I use the coffee bowl for nuts and other foods? Yes, the grinding bowls can handle dry, hard-to-grind ingredients beyond coffee and spices, including small amounts of nuts, breadcrumbs, or oats. Don't put anything wet or oily enough to damage the motor housing if it splashes.
Does the dual bowl system actually prevent flavor transfer? In practice, yes. Keeping dedicated bowls for coffee and spices and washing them between uses prevents cross-contamination. This is the product's main practical advantage over a single-bowl blade grinder.
Where can I buy the Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder? Available at Amazon, Williams Sonoma, Sur La Table, and major kitchen retailers. It's often listed alongside espresso machines and drip makers in the coffee appliance section.
Bottom Line
The Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder is a practical choice for people who primarily want a spice grinder and occasionally grind coffee without worrying too much about precision. The dual bowl design is genuinely useful for keeping flavors separated.
For coffee drinkers who care about cup quality, the blade mechanism is a real limitation. A burr grinder at any price point above $80 will produce noticeably better results. If you're buying this primarily for coffee, stretch the budget toward an entry-level burr grinder instead.
If you already own this grinder and are thinking about upgrading, the Best Breville Dynamic Duo Best Price page covers grinder and machine pairings worth considering for a more complete coffee setup.