Europe: Tchibo Cafissimo Single Serve Coffee Machine

I have original grey one(costs only $140). It is great, however we have just move back from Europe and the machine does not work with 110V. I got $150 transformer to have our coffee taste back but no luck it works on 50Hz frequency cycle:(
Posted by: Rifat Gorener at October 13, 2007 3:16 AM

I have tested major Single Serve coffee machine and here a short summary of my findings. 1. Keurig: Coffee is not strong enough for me and felt that the machine quality is not there. It does not make espresso, and does not have steam wand. If you like light coffee it is one of the affordable solution out there. Pros: Affordable, large water tanks, quite good selections of capsules. Cons: No espresso, steam wand. Watery coffee. 2. Nespresso: I really like to taste and aroma of their capsules. It is the reason we start using single serve systems. However my wife thinks that the capsules contain lots of chemicals than the competitors. Offcourse she rules we are out of Nespresso. But I strongly recommend it. Pros: Great espresso, Steam wand options nowadays available. Cons: Capsules contain coffee concentrate not dry coffee. Expensive to obtain and operate. A few capsule selections. 3. Tchibo: It is the same thing as Gaggia's Caffitaly system. It is my favorite system. great taste, powerful machine with lots of customizable functions. Not only an espresso but also a quite good coffee maker. It has three different pressure selection to brew coffee; espresso, americano (cafe cream), regular (mild). Steam wand is very powerful takes matter of seconds to get thick frothing for your cappuccino. Pros: Very cheap comparing to its competitors. Only 99 Euro in Europe, per capsules cost around 30 cents (euro). It has auto shut off after 2 hours. All three pressure buttons are programmable; you can change the amount of water. 15 bar powerful pressure pump provides great steam and perfect espresso. Inside of capsules have 2 filters. Small footprint. Cons: It has only a few selections of capsules. Not available in the US. And it works only in 230V 50Hz. It is very loud while pump is running. Lavazza Blue: This is the second best for us after Tchibo/Caffitaly/Caffisimo. Quality of the coffee is great. Better than Tchibo capsules; 100% Arabica. The good news for us; capsules are same size as in Tchibo/Caffitaly/Caffisimo systems. Therefore we can start using our existing inventory home that we brought from Europe. Pros: Selection of coffee capsules is great. It has 8 different coffee and 8 different non coffee drinks available. Powerful pump and not noisy comparing others. Cons: Very expensive to get and operate. 75 cents per coffee capsules. Steam function is not powerful enough. It takes couple of minutes to get hot and thick froth from cold milk. Large footprint. Model 1010 (cheapest) not automatic; you need to manually turn on and off the knob to operate. So amount of water can’t be fixed for your espresso.
Posted by: Rifat Gorener at October 17, 2007 1:26 AM

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