Breville Juice Fountain Elite Review

Earning the same score as the standard Juice Fountain, the Elite didn't perform the same. This premium model did a little better than the base model at juicing soft produce, like cucumbers, celery, apples, and oranges, but slightly worse at juicing leafy greens such as kale or spinach.

Performance Comparison

Juice Quality

Meriting the most weight of any metric, this category is responsible for 25% of the total score for each juicer. We used three different recipes to test each juicer, scoring each product on the taste and quality of the various juice cocktails produced. The Breville Juice Fountain Elite did very well.

The Elite did quite well in our first test — a beet juice recipe known as "Can't Beet It" containing apples, carrots, celery, cucumbers, ginger root, and, of course, beets. The finished drink was very smooth in texture and had an overall pleasant taste, with no distinct flavors overwhelming the rest.

For our second test, we made a juice cocktail consisting of romaine lettuce, apples, and oranges, as well as celery and cucumbers. The Juice Fountain Elite performed a little worse, creating a slightly more watery blend than we would have liked. The flavor was relatively neutral, even bordering on bland, making the drink much less palatable than the very flavorful mixture produced by other juicers. But the drink's texture was very smooth, with no pulp at all.

For the final test of this metric, we juiced a recipe referred to as the "Sunset Blend," made up of sweet potatoes, orange, carrot, beets, and apples. The Elite finished this metric with a strong showing, creating a smooth and creamy beverage. However, while it did have excellent consistency, the flavor was a little more muted than some of the other drinks produced.

Soft Produce

For our next metric, we looked at the yield and quality of the juice produced when using soft produce. We used apple, orange, cucumber, and celery to evaluate each juicer, with the Juice Fountain Elite earning a decent score for its stellar performance.

The Elite did an excellent job when tasked with juicing cucumbers, generating a well above average yield of juice that had only trace amounts of pulp. There also was only a mild amount of foam produced. For celery, we only got an average yield compared to the other models in our lineup, but, once again, the juice had essentially zero pulp and only a moderate amount of foam.

Performance dropped below average when we juiced oranges, with the Elite generating about 10mL less juice than the average. The juice was still pulp-free but had roughly a half-inch of foam on the top. However, this juicer's score rebounded in our final test for this metric, earning the top score overall at juicing apples. It created over 50mL more juice than the average juicer and had basically no pulp. That said, the juice separated relatively quickly, and there was about a half-inch of foam created once again.

Hard Produce

We used carrots, sweet potatoes, and beets, as are three test cases for this metric, again scoring the juice yield and quality for each ingredient. The Juice Fountain Elite did a fantastic job here as well, finishing in the runner-up position overall for this metric. It created substantially more carrot juice than the average, with only mild pulp and almost no foam.

This model struggled a little more with beets but still generated a slightly higher than average amount of juice. Again, there was practically zero pulp created, but there was about a half-inch of foam on the surface of the beet juice. Our final test was sweet potatoes. More lovely juice with only trace amounts of pulp and foam and an excellent yield.

Leafy Greens

Leafy greens were the weak spot for the Juice Fountain Elite. Here we used curly-leaf kale, wheatgrass, and spinach, and this model struggled. We couldn't even manage to extract a single milliliter of juice for wheatgrass, while the top-performing product produced 5mL of juice from the same amount of wheatgrass (12 grams). Many juicers struggle with wheatgrass, particularly centrifugal models, but for the price of the Elite, we expected more.

Unfortunately, the Juice Fountain Elite also floundered when juicing kale, delivering about 10mL less juice than the average. However, there was almost no foam produced. This poor performance carried over into our spinach test, yielding far less than the average amount of juice and a decent amount of foam.

Cleaning

Finally, we evaluated how much effort it took to clean out each product after using it. We rated the difficulty in cleaning each component by hand, noted if they were dishwasher safe, and included a cleaning brush. The Elite finished our juicer Olympics with a solid performance.

The majority of the components for this model are dishwasher-safe, and none of them are too much work to clean by hand. All of the components are relatively smooth, with no areas prone to catching fruit and vegetable remnants. There is also a relatively high-quality cleaning tool, and it showed no signs of wear and tear even after extensive use on our part.

Should You Buy the Breville Juice Fountain Elite?

The Breville Juice Fountain Elite is a top-of-the-line, premium option and is priced to suit. It performed pretty well across the board, delivering a particularly notable performance in our Hard Produce and Cleaning metrics. As most centrifugal juicers do, it fell a little short at juicing leafy greens. It is still an awesome product, but you could find a better value pick out there if that's your priority. If you are looking for a value option, you should look elsewhere. Other models performed equivalently to this one and cost substantially less. However, if style and materials factor into your appliance decision, this one may be worth the high price tag.

What Other Juicer Should You Consider?

The ELite has an Elite price that might be hard to justify depending on your needs. The Breville Juice Fountain scored higher and is almost half the price. Unless you plan to juice primarily only soft produce, we think the non-Elite option is better. It performed better in our tests than the Elite version (for the most part), and the money saved will likely make the less impressive soft produce juicing easy to accept.