Demonstration, Training and Tasting: The Pillars of Sage Appliances’ Strategy

Launched in France in 2020, Sage Appliances (Breville Group) is now distributed by Bastide. Under the leadership of Romain Maulavé, the brand is strengthening its presence on the French market with machines designed to reproduce professional barista techniques at home and make specialty coffee accessible to a wider audience.

Sage’s expertise is rooted in the third-wave coffee movement, with its emphasis on bean quality, freshly ground coffee and precise extraction techniques to recreate at home the kind of coffee served in the best coffee shops. Like professional machines, Sage models rely on four essential parameters: a precise dose of freshly ground coffee, extraction at 9 bars, a stable brewing temperature of 93°C and steam at 130°C to produce fine, silky microfoam. Mastering these elements sets the Australian brand’s machines apart from fully automatic models, which focus more on simplicity.

TRAINING TRUE SPECIALISTS

“Letting people taste a cup of coffee is the best way to reveal the full potential of our machines,” explains Romain Maulavé, who has made retailer training and in-store demonstrations a priority. His teams provide retailers with extensive support, enabling them to develop a genuine understanding of specialty coffee. Just as a wine merchant or sommelier might talk about wine, they learn to explain the origin of the beans, the work of the roaster, the importance of grinding and the subtleties of extraction. The machine then becomes an extension of genuine expertise rather than simply another household appliance. Tasting brings this entire approach to life. Offering customers an espresso, allowing them to compare two extractions, inviting them to try the machine themselves and showing them how simple the settings are helps overcome barriers to purchase while demonstrating that it is possible to make coffee at home worthy of the best coffee shops. The conversations focus as much on aromas, origins and extraction methods as they do on the machine’s performance. According to Romain Maulavé, this approach produces remarkable results for retailers who put it into practice. He cites Les Arts en Cuisine, a member of the Cuisine Plaisir network in Mâcon. Its manager, Nadine, readily admits that she does not particularly like coffee. Yet this has not prevented her from achieving excellent results with Sage, thanks to the quality of the support and demonstrations provided. This is further proof that success depends above all on education, advice and the in-store experience. Sage will once again exhibit at Maison&Objet, where its first appearance last year on the stand of its distributor Bastide proved highly successful. Retailers placing orders worth €3,500 excluding VAT before the end of October will receive a Barista Express Impress, enabling them to serve high-quality coffee to their customers and organise demonstrations. The Sage range is structured around three levels of use. Fully automatic machines prioritise simplicity, assisted models guide users through each stage of preparation, while the most advanced versions provide complete control for those who want to recreate a barista’s techniques. Available for several years, the Barista Express Impress remains one of the brand’s benchmark models. Its Impress Puck system automates dosing, guides tamping and gradually memorises settings, allowing users to become increasingly independent.

A RAPIDLY GROWING MARKET

The rise of specialty coffee is accelerating the transformation of the market. A growing number of manufacturers are now investing in the segment, while new machine launches are multiplying, helping to introduce this world to an ever-wider audience. Portafilter machines, used every day by professional baristas and regarded as the benchmark for specialty coffee, are benefiting fully from this momentum. Although still a minority segment in France, they continue to enjoy sustained growth. The Australian and New Zealand markets and, more broadly, English-speaking markets have already demonstrated that they can become mainstream within just a few years. According to Sage, the French market is gradually following the same trajectory.

Source : Home Fashion News #62 – September 2026 / / Traduction : Leila Ahmad