- Set the intensity, size and strength as you like it
This is Tassimo’s flagship coffee machine. A lot more personalisation options have been introduced so that you can refine your drinks just that little bit more and make some tweaks that will further enhance your coffee experience.
If you decide on a Tassimo machine then you are in pretty good hands. First of all the coffee machine itself is made by Bosch who is recognised as a top manufacturer of small and major appliances, making anything from washing machines to dishwashers, kettles. toasters and more.
So from a quality standpoint and longevity, you are unlikely to get any faults or defects for quite some time and it comes with a standard 2 year guarantee which is reassuring.
Another reassuring factor is that Tassimo is owned by Jacobs Douwe Egberts. Maybe you haven’t specifically heard of them but you will definitely have heard of some of the brands they own.
Kenco, Maxwell House and L’OR are just a few of the brands that come under the Jacobs Douwe Egberts umbrella and there are 30 more across the rest of the world. This is a very large company that takes its coffee very seriously.
Tassimo is now firmly established as one of the UK’s and Europe’s favourite brands and is largely down to the explosion in POD and capsule-based coffee machines first introduced by Nespresso at the turn of the century and then made incredibly popular as a result of the huge advertising campaign using international superstars like George Clooney to promote their machines.
Nespresso coffee machines are a lot more expensive as a whole but this top-end Tassimo machine now comes in more expensive than Nespresso’s entry-level Essenza espresso machine so if price has been a factor when deciding which brand to go with, all of a sudden you have Tassimo and Nespresso on a par.
This top-end My Way coffee machine from Tassimo is A LOT more expensive than their bestselling Vivy 2 model
So if you are going to pay more for this than you can pay for a basic Nespresso machine and a lot more than one of the other Tassimo models it needs to do a lot of good things to justify the price.
Let’s see if it does.
Overall Score 9.2/10
Design 9/10
A decent amount of thought has been put into how this coffee machine looks.
It’s a slightly unusual looking appliance with the coffee outlet section kind of jutting out to the left of the control panel as you look at it.
The shiny body is finished in a glossy piano black that is complemented by a stainless-steel rim on the lid that you open up to insert the capsule.
The various functions are lit up on the control panel in orange and you could easily think that it wouldn’t work but it does, creating a kind of warmth that helps makes this slightly weird-looking coffee machine actually quite tasteful and pleasing to the eye.
Overall it has quite a small footprint coming in at 34.5cm deep, 21cm wide and 29.0cm tall. You’ll have no problems fitting this into most spots in your kitchen.
Functionality 9/10
The primary reason that you opt for a Tassimo in the first place is convenience and speed.
If those are your primary concerns and If you can’t be getting involved with buying and grinding your own coffee beans and you are after a well-priced pod machine means that it boils down to Tassimo and Dolce Gusto
Some coffee machines can take a minute or two to warm up before they are ready to go but no such wait with this coffee machine. With only a 5 second warm-up time you will be good to go before you have had time to select a capsule and put it in.
The 1.2 litre water tank is big for a machine of this size and will be fine for 7/8 drinks before it needs refilling.
You have 3 different levels that you can place your glass or cup on depending on whether you have a very short glass for espresso, medium-sized for a cappuccino or a tall glass for a Latte.
This ensures that the spout of the water outlet always stays close to the top of the glass or cup to avoid any splashes or spillages of coffee.
Probably the best feature of Tassimo is the barcode that is printed on each and every capsule. This is read by the machine when the capsule is in and it tells it how much water should be delivered through the capsule and when to stop. So an espresso will have a very small amount of water delivered and a Latte a lot.
This is available as standard on the Tassimo Vivy 2 and we have already mentioned that is a lot cheaper than this ‘My Way’
So what do you get on this model for the extra money?
First of all, you get to choose from three different temperature settings which is actually a very good feature because we would argue that on the standard Tassimo machine the coffee can sometimes not be hot enough for some peoples liking. So a plus there.
Secondly, you get to choose the strength of the coffee with 3 different settings. In our opinion this is a bit of a gimmick because all this does is increase or decrease the amount of water that gets pushed through the capsule to make it milder or stronger.
It can’t increase the amount of coffee that is used because the capsule has a fixed amount so it is questionable that they should really even use the word “strength indicator”.
Next, you can choose from 3 different cup sizes but if the barcode on the capsule already does this we are not sure what this is for. If you want less or more water you can just keep your finger on the big orange button to get the correct level for your taste.
Finally, you get four different programmable settings so that once you have chosen your temperature, strength and cup size you can get that immediately with one touch if someone else has messed up your settings. This is a decent benefit over the base model.
All in all, we would say that the temperature setting is good and a benefit over the base model and so is the programmable feature but the strength setting and cup size are a bit gimmicky and not worth it.
Is it worth the overall jump in price? We would say probably not but it depends how important one-touch programming and choosing your own temperature is to you.
Ease of use 10/10
If you have programmed your preferred settings then pop in the capsule and the machine does the rest.
If however, you haven’t preprogrammed then you do have to make sure that the temperature, cup size and coffee strength are set to your liking before pressing start.
Quality of coffee 9/10
One of the real benefits of owning a Tassimo coffee machine is that you never need to worry about running out of the capsules. All the popular flavours are available in all of the main supermarket chains and there are about 60 in total to choose from if you are happy to order online.
If you like milk-based drinks like cappuccino or latte then be aware that you will need to use 2 capsules, one for the milk and one for the coffee. Also, the milk is powdered so it’s not going to taste as good as fresh milk.
Value For Money 9/10
Taking everything into account we are not convinced that the extra features Tassimo have added to this flagship “My Way” model are worth the extra money over and above what you will pay for the Vivy 2
- Set the intensity, size and strength as you like it
Last update on 2024-04-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
