Tech Blog

[#1]

Two new innovative coffee makers have stormed the market in the past year, one from Keurig , the other The Bosch Tassimo .  The single serve machines promise simplicity in use as all you need to do is drop a K-Cup or T-Disc in the machine.

Over the past few months I've had the chance to try our both styles. I received a Bosch Tassimo for free in a Twitter contest.  We used it for about a month before giving it away to our house cleaners as we got ready to move.  My current office has a Keurig machine.

BOSCH TASSIMO

The Bosch Tassimo is a gorgeous, elegant machine.  The one I tested looked gorgeous on my counter, but despite the ease of use trumpted by the manual, I could never seem to get the volume filled to the right level.  The device was also very splashy if you put too short of a cup underneath.

The T-Discs sit in the unit until you manually pull them out, and I re-used the coffee ones a couple of times without any noticable difference in taste.

The drinks, once I filled the volumes to the right level, were delicious.  I especially enjoyed the chai latte.

The machine works via a barcode on the T-Disc .  When you slip it in, it automatically knows which drink you've selected and which temperature the water should be at to make the best drink.  I didn't know the temperature of water matters between coffee and tea, but it does and the Tassimo gets it right.  However, the bar codes don't seem to help select the right volume of water that should be passed through and I found myself having to stand around and manually add water for each drink - which wasn't convenient.

KEURIG

The Keurig is good looking too, and dead easy to use.  Flip the lid and the previous K-Cup drops into a trash container and then you slip in a new one and select your size.  The auto dropping of the K-Cups into the trash means you can't reuse them as they get flipped in to the back with all the rest automatically.

Really that's all there is to it. Unlike the Bosch Tassimo you actually can just press a button and walk away to have perefect coffee when you come back.

WHICH ONE

Honestly, I find both machines to be environmentally offensive and cost prohibitive.  There is so much packaging involved in buying the K-Cups and T-Discs .  They come sealed inside some plastic, and then inside a box.

If I HAD to choose, I'd pick the Keurig for it's simpler use. It's great to just pop in and walk away for a minute only to come back to a perfect cup of coffee.

If you have a large household and each person has a different favourite fancy drink in the morning, the Bosch Tassimo lets you easily flip between latte and espresso and tea with each T-Disc , but there is a lot of packaging waste.

Disclaimer: at home we just have a big french press and a bucket of ground Tim's .

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[#2]

Yup, I've been using an older model of Tassimo machine for some time now.  There's nothing like a Thai Chi Late or cappuccino in the morning!

Personally I don't think the machine taps the full potential of each disk.  When making a cappuccino or something else than requires an espresso disk, I always put it in twice.