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Braun Tassimo Hot Beverage System TA 1400
by MamaC
SUMMARY:
This is the first generation hot drink dispenser made by Braun that uses the T-Disk system and will ensure that your drink is ready in just under a minute. It looks ok, nothing flash and it's what I'd expect from a cheap coffee machine.
We bought this machine about 6 years ago and is kept in our bedroom for ... occassional drinks at the weekend, so it doesn't have a great deal of use. Most parts of the Tassimo are removable and are fine to pop into your dishwaser. The water tank that sits at the back of the appliance is easy to remove and fill. Beware .... don't forgot to empty the tank, as once I forgot and it began to smell after a few weeks! The drip tray is adjustable and should be cleaned on a regular basis as limescale will enivitably build up. I must say that I was quite impressed with the amount of time it takes to heat the water up. There is a special disk that is supplied with the Tassimo which you pop into the top and it tells the machine to clean itself by reading the disk via a optical barcode reader.
OPERATION:
Once the water tank is filled up, you pop your desired drink in the top of the unit and push down firmly. Don't forget to put your cup on the tray. The green light to the right of the machine indicates that it's ready to rock and roll. Press the big black button on the front and your favourite drink is dispensed. It then begins to make a rather loud noise - don't panic this is perfectly normal. Heat of the drink is ok but not as hot as we'd like it to be.
QUALITY & PRICE OF THE DRINKS:
The range of drinks available for this model are exceedingly good and range from expresso, capachino, Full English tea, hot chocolate, cafe noire/creme, and many other European flavours. And you can decide which strength you prefer. Stick with medium first and see how your taste buds become accostomed to it. The T-Discs are very expensive and cost in the region of £5 for just 10 - but I'd advise anyone to shop around and buy them in bulk.. We purchased a smart little T-Disc rack for about £25 from Amazon, looks the biz. You can buy Starbucks discs now but they don't come close to the real experience sadly
CONCLUSION:
T-Discs are expensive, although if you shop around you can probable find them cheaper if you buy in bulk. Our machine gave up on us about 6 months ago and we cannot seem to fix it even after trying various suggestions that we found on the net. Bit disappointed in this as we haven't used it that often. If you can afford it and you're a coffee lover, forget this system and go for a proper bean to cup machine for about £600. If your budget can't cope with this then a Tassimo is a good place to start if you want to enjoy a fairly good cup of coffee.
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Braun Tassimo Hot Beverage System TA 1400
by bringingsexyback
WHAT IS IT?
A system that uses pods of coffee, tea or hot chocolate to create fuss free tasty hot drinks.
IS IT ANY GOOD?
I've had this machine for three years and love it. I spend around £10 a week on the pods and buy a selection from the range, the Suchard hot chocolate is definitely my current ... favourite but I also like the Kenco Crema pod which is a quality tasting coffee with a rich foam on the top. The different supermarkets stock different varieties so it's worth shopping around to find a good selection, Sainsburys stock all the big name pods including the new and improved Cadburys drink.
The machine itself is simple to use, you just put the pod into place and set it to make your drink. It doesn't take long but the Tassimo is quite noisy while it's brewing your drink, so much that sometimes I don't use it in the day as it can wake my husband when he's working nights. The TA1400 is one of the earlier models so has a bigger footprint than more recent ones, I have a big kitchen so it isn't a problem but if you have a galley style or compact kitchen it may be a bit too big.
The drinks are always delicious, the only one I didn't like being the Twinings tea but I think tea isn't suitable for this type of product in the first place. Everything is great and as someone with a hectic professional life that includes lots of driving each day it's ideal to use a simple pod to make me a hot drink while I kick my heels off. The drinks are very small, each one being 200ml. I like a large cup of coffee and 200ml only fills my mug to 3/4 full, I've made a compromise by using a smaller mug than usual with the Tassimo so I'd like it to at least fill that smaller mug.
I've seen this model go for £7 on Ebay and the fact that mine is still going strong after so much use makes me urge you to try this model if you're not yet fully committed to a pod machine. The cost of the pods puts a lot of people off and this can lead to a bargain as people decide not to replace the pods and let the machine gather dust for twelve months after only a few uses.
4 Dooyoo Stars.
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Braun Tassimo Hot Beverage System TA 1400
by Bailey2011
We were given this machine as a gift and I was initially very excited at the range of nifty little t discs available to me. Milka hot chocolate you say? Sold! What I didn't realise at the time was that if you wanted a hot drink you probably need to heat it up in the microwave for a bit too and the first sip was a bit of a ... shock!
The coffee machine is well designed and if you're like me and want your appliances to match, this shouldn't be a problem although ours is now resigned to the corner of the kitchen. The layout is simple - a funnel at the back for water, a lid which pops at the front for the discs and an on/off button next to the filling platform.
The machine has a removable water tank with a capacity of 11 ounces and each t disc can be used once (I occasionaly use some of the stronger coffee ones twice as my partner likes stronger drinks than I do)
Cleaning is minimal as all of the messy work is done within the t disc so apart from an occasional wipe down and washing the water tank there isn't any required.
Initially I struggled to operate the machine as it only seemed to half fill my cup but eventually I got the hang of it but still couldn't get hot drinks (hot enough compared to a kettle) :(
The range of t discs available is quite impressive so there is something for all tastes (except tea of course) although for around 12-14 discs they can be quite pricey (£3 upwards from most supermarkets) so we stopped buying those as much too.
For those people who use this all the time it may be worth while but to be honest, the kettle is quicker and while I can't have my Milka hot chocolate, I can have aero!
Typically this range of machine are available from around £40 online via amazon but the Tassimo range are also stocked in retailers such as Argos and Comet.
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