Review – Tassimo T20 – The easy way to a decent drink?

I picked up a Bosch TAS2002GB Tassimo T20 when they were just over £60 recently as a little present for Loz after she showed some interest in a friend’s machine. I knew roughly how they worked, but had never used one myself. When it arrived I was pretty disappointed to find there are no ‘T-Discs’ included, I thought this may have been the case and picked up some Costa Latte ones and Cadbury Hot Chocolate ones. Setting up the machine is a doddle, it recommends you run through at least 4 cups of water with the ‘cleaning disc’, I’d say do it a few more as our first drinks had a funny aftertaste.

Initial impressions were good, the Costa Latte is ‘XL’ (325ml) so will happily fill a mug, the ‘L’ size (which the Cadbury’s Hot Chocolate is – and most of them) is 265ml, which is a little on the mean side in my opinion. I didn’t really like the Cadbury’s Hot Chocolate, it had a funny tang to it (probably the UHT milk they used).

As a new Tassimo user when you register your machine on the Tassimo website you get emailed a £20 voucher to spend with their online store. You have to spend a minimum of £25 to use the voucher (and that doesn’t include the shipping charge), so it’s basically £20 off what is going to be at least a £30 spend – still not bad. The prices aren’t as cheap as buying via Amazon, but you can do as I did and pick a few packs of different things to try. I ended up with Suchards Hot Chocolate, Costa Cappuccino, (more) Costa Latte, Twinings Chai Latte and Carte Noire Caramel Macchiato. All of them were good, the Suchards Hot Chocolate is better than the Cadbury’s one, and the Chai Latte is IMMENSE.

The nice thing about the machine is that it doesn’t boil the water so the drink is usually ready to drink, I was also happy letting G give it a go making herself a hot chocolate. She’s a very small 9 year old and I don’t really feel comfortable letting her wield a kettle full of water to make a hot drink. With this, she can pop in a T-Disc, and run the machine easily. She topped her hot chocolate up with milk and squirty cream to cool it down.

I like the simple nature of the machine, it just works, it has a nice simple icons to show what’s happening, and it will tell you when it needs descaling, it’s pretty idiot proof. Add this to the fact you can have a nice tasting drink, ready in minutes, it’s pretty awesome! Obviously there is an ongoing cost buying the T-Discs, but getting them in bulk from Amazon seems to be the best value for money, and compared to actually going to Costa / Starbucks, it’s still pretty cheap. The machines start at £69.00.

If you’ve got a Tassimo what T-Discs do you recommend?