bgrier
on - last edited on by
ElizabethS
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness...
...and with that I'll end my Dickensian plagiarism and get on with it, my experience with two single cup coffee makers and the coffee they produce. And I'll write this post consuming one of my two favourite beverages, a piping hot cup of coffee 
The experience I'm documenting here concerns a Keurig K-cup single server brewer (similar to this one) and a Bosch Tassimo TAS4511/13 coffee maker (the only difference between the Bosch unit I tested and the linked one (the TAS4513) is the colour; the 13 is red).
What this post isn't
- It's not a detailed review -- I'll leave that to the experts in the coffee forums and sites, there are many of them out there
- It's not a point by point comparision -- there are two many differences between the units, and their coffee making process.
- A recommendation -- Everyone has their own reasons for a particular type of coffee maker or process. I will outline my reasons for wanting a single serve coffee maker, but yours may differ.
The Bosch Tassimo unit
A Keurig K-Cup unit
On with the post, this is it
My morning routine used to include grinding beans and making coffee with a french press. Granted, the coffee was good, but it ended up taking way too much time, and made more coffee than I needed so I ended up hauling the extra to work in a thermos. And I was late -- good coffee takes time, so I thought.
And my wife enjoys different coffee flavours than I do, so this process really didn't work for us. The single cup coffee maker was the solution for us because:
- Brew one cup at a time
- Change coffee types, roasts, flavours for each cup
- Much faster per cup than Drip, French Press, Perk, etc
The experience is brewing
Over the last month or so, I've been able to compare both units during the course of the day. Often I'd make a cup on one, then switch to the other, depending on what type of coffee I'd wanted, and that leads me to the first point of discussion.
The brew process
In single cup brewing, you buy your coffee in packets, sometimes called cups, discs or pouches. Each packet contains the ingredients to make one drink (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, latte, etc).
Of the two processes, the K-cup is the simpler and more familiar to most coffee drinkers: hot water is passed through ground beans suspended in a paper-like filter and hot coffee comes out into the cup.
The Tassimo process is quite simple from a users perspective, but much more complex technically:
All the brewing happens inside the T DISC using a unique inverse flow. Your beverage pours directly from T DISC into the cup so you can prepare different drinks, one after the other.
Pros
Of the two, the Keurig makes a faster cup of coffee. And speed doesn't really impact the flavour of the coffee produced either. In my experimentation with the two, premium brand name Columbian coffee brewed by both units taste quite good -- I couldn't say one was better than the other. Yet the Tassimo unit did take about 30 seconds longer to complete delivering coffee into the cup.
The Tassimo takes the award for diversity though. By *sequencing* T-Discs, you can create Cappuccino, and Latte drinks (first the coffee disc, then the milk disc). Or use a Chai Tea disc followed by a Latte disc and you've got a great cup of Chai Tea Latte -- surprisingly good!
Cons
The big one for me is the amount of waste produced by single cup coffee systems. Since each cup is pre-packaged, and not reusable, you basically discard some of the brewing apparatus every time you make a cup of coffee.
All is not lost though, Tassimo's FAQ discusses T-Disc recycling:
And though the K-cup system isn't really recyclable you can remove the foil lid, empty the grounds, and remove the paper filter from the plastic 'cup -- perhaps some of that is recyclable, or should be?
As well, there is a reusable K-cup insert, the My K-Cup, that's perfect for loading your own gourmet coffee or tea. Similar to a mini basket brewing system, except it handles the pressurized hot water and works with a standard K-cup brewing system.
Enough tech, what about the flavour?
Not surprisingly, both make very good coffee. Coffee packets are available from a variety of coffee brand names (Starbucks, Nabob, Van Houte, Timothy's, Green Mountain, etc).
As mentioned above, the Tassimo is really good at making different types of coffee by sequencing the discs.
But in my experience, for that early morning coffee you need as you rush out the door to catch the bus or drive to work, either quickly produces a great first-coffee-of-the-day. And that's what it's all about.
