Monday, February 6, 2012

Tassimo - A bad idea made worse

A few years ago we switched our office coffee maker from a regular drip coffee maker (with fresh ground beans) to a Keurig machine. I tend to lean towards the tree hugging side of values so I had some issues with this new machine. The Keurig is wasteful. However, everyone in the office loves the thing so I accepted it.

Fast forward two years. Christmas of 2012. I, and I'm sure millions of others, found a Tassimo machine under the Christmas tree. Specifically I received a Bosch T20.

Now, I admit that the Bosch machine is a sexy bit of technology. It is a sleek design and it is easy to use. However, that is where the good story ends. My experience with the Tassimo system has not been great.

First let's talk waste. While the Keurig is a fairly wasteful system, the Tassimo takes this to an exceptional level. With the Keurig I can get a full cup of coffee out of a single K cup. The Tassimo makes a half cup of coffee and it often, depending on the flavor choice, takes two of their T DISKs for the half cup. As shown in my post picture, two make coffee for a couple of friends it creates a mountain of T DISKs.

Neither the Tassimo T DISKs or Keurig cups are recyclable, re-usable or compostable. Millions of these things are being used daily (I'd love to know the number) and non of them are recyclable. The best you can hope to do is pry off the aluminum covers and compost the grounds. (I've tried this and it is a pain)

Next, let's talk cost. I used to buy bags of unground coffee beans. If you buy a good brand, it will cost you around $10 for enough beans to last a week or two. These T DISKs are brutally expensive. Depending on the flavor you can pay between $0.50 and $2 per cup. We've found that COSTCO gives the best deal on them but it still is crazy expensive compared to beans.

Last, let's talk flavor. I've had reasonably good success with the Keurig coffees. They are consistently mediocre and occasionally pretty good. Despite the hyped technology of the Tassimo, the results have been overall pretty poor. I think the best example of that is the hot chocolate. My daughter wouldn't drink her Cadbury hot chocolate from the Tassimo. If a little girl won't drink hot chocolate it has to be bad. She is usually very happy drinking the cheapest No Name brand stuff, yet this $2 monstrosity went down the drain.

We have 4 boxes of T DISKs left in our cupboard. When those are gone our Tassimo machine is going in the closet. Back to the bean we go.


  1. Good post! I was thinking of getting one of these two machines for the one-off coffee in the evening. But I struggle with it taking up counter space. I get most of my beans from Java Moose here in Saint John and they are a little pricey ($15 for a pound, but that makes around 15 full pots of coffee) The wife and I each take two Contigo mugs to work in the morning, that takes care of the full pot. So, for the $1 per pot, I just don't see how it is justifiable to go with anything else.

  2. Thanks for the comment Greg. There is something to be said for the quick one-off cup in the evening. Really though, I find you almost have to babysit this machine for longer than it would take to put on a small pot. Since it only does a half cup at a time you end up standing beside it and waiting for the opportunity to top up the cup manually. (This also waters down the flavor)

  3. Update:
    Please read these safety recall notices about the Tassimo.

  4. Tassimo discs are now recyclable. Through their green initiative.

    1. Thanks for the comment Scott. That's definitely a step in the right direction.

      However, I'm not sure how environmentally friendly it is shipping packages of these around the country. I think that local, bulk, recycling would be required for any sort of efficiency.


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