Coffee? Cappucino? Espresso? Tea? Hot chocolate? Tassimo's got you covered!
Written: Mar 16 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: One machine for your hot beverage needs! Incredibly simple to use.
Cons: Not so easy to find proprietary T-DISCS.
The Bottom Line: I would highly recommend this machine. It's wonderful that a machine that is so simple to use provides a wide variety of high quality hot beverages.
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| jemaer_rf's Full Review: Tassimo Hot Beverage System |
What are you in the mood for?
Coffee? Espresso? Cappucino? Tea? Hot chocolate?
The Tassimo Hot Beverage System has you covered.
This one machine will make your hot drink of choice easily, and conveniently. My household is into coffee and we make our own espresso/cappucino almost every morning and lots of evenings too. The problem of course, is the time and clean-up involved. And that's where the Tassimo machine comes in.
How it Works
Simplicity is the main selling point here. Take your choice of Tassimo disc (cleverly named T-DISCS, duh!), select the right cup for your drink, and press the button. In about a minute, your drink is ready! And you can brew your next cup right away. Since the brewing happens in the T-DISC, there is no drink cross-contamination so you can go from espresso to tea to whatever drink you want.
The machine "knows" what drink to brew by reading the bar code that is printed on each T-DISC label. This allows the machine to automatically calculate the amount of water needed, brewing time, and temperature to prepare your drink of choice.
What about the Taste?
Like I said at the beginning of this review, my household is into coffee. With the arrival of our Tassimo machine, we've not used our espresso machine and it's been banished to one of our cupboards. We like the Tassimo system that much. We actually did a side-by-side espresso taste test between our espresso machine and the Tassimo machine and we were hard pressed to choose which machine made the better drink. So my wife and I now use this for our espresso/cappucino/tea needs, my mother-in-law likes the crema variety, and the kids like the hot chocolate. I'm still amazed that I can get all this from one machine.
There have been plenty of reviews on the Tassimo machine and the drinks that it produces. So far, it has come out on top in all the comparisons I've read. Also, we're in the US but I understand that the Tassimo machine has been a hit in Europe since its launch there. Not that my taste buds needed external validation but it's good to know I'm not too far off.
Operation
As already mentioned, the operation of the Tassimo machine is really, really simple. Put the disc in, place your cup in place, and press the one button on the front of the machine. What about clean-up? Hardly any is necessary. There might be a few drips from the discs as you remove them from the machine but that's about it. All the parts are supposed to be dishwasher safe but I've never thrown them in there. I just rinse them off once in a while and they're as good as new. What I'm trying to say is that it's a low maintenance machine.
The Machine
The machine itself is silver/gray, pretty stylish and feels solid. It has a small enough footprint so it doesn't take up too much counter space. Our machine has earned a permanent place on our counter so footprint size is important. There's an on/off switch in the back and four indicator lights in front. And there's one big button - that's it. The designers obviously wanted to keep with the simplicity theme.
Cost
We bought the machine itself for $170. Very competitive to stand-alone espresso machines out there. But if you consider that you get a lot more than just an espresso machine, I think the price is more than reasonable.
The different types of drinks will vary in cost from about forty cents for tea to fifty cents for espresso and maxes out to a buck for cappucino. For the quality of the drink and the simplicity of operation, this is a great price. The one thing to watch out for is that your coffee expense might actually go up because you'll find yourself drinking more coffee/tea/espresso/etc than you did before you got this machine because it's so easy to use! This actually happened in my household.
Complaints
I obviously like the Tassimo machine. Is there anything that I don't like about it? The first would be that you have to use T-DISCS. No mix and match here. Each manufacturer is trying to lock consumers into their own proprietary systems (pods, discs, etc). I don't blame them, but I don't like it. The good news is that you have a nice bunch of brands to choose from like Suchard, Gevalia, Maxwell House, etc. Also, it's not so easy to find the T-DISCS yet. I have to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Macy's, and online to buy my T-DISCS. The rep I talked to at Macy's said that once a critical mass was reached, the T-DISCS will be made available at your local grocery.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jemaer_rf
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Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 1 member
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