Ben’s Weblog

If you’ve been around here all that much, you’ve probably noticed I took a couple trips over to Germany in the past few months. Up until now, I haven’t been able to say much, but since it’s hitting the web and store shelves now, I can finally get into it.

I’ve been working on the team supporting the launch of the milk components for the Tassimo beverage system. It’s Kraft’s spin on the single-serve coffee brewing system, only better. Not only does it make the usual coffee and espresso, but it’ll also do cappuccino and latte (with real milk, not powders!) that will (in my opinion) rival anything you can get at your local coffeeshop of choice, and also crema, hot teas, and hot chocolate. The machine is about as simple to use as it gets. Put in a pod, wait a few seconds for the water to heat, and hit the button.

So far, it’s received some good reviews on the web - here’s a little of what I found over at Technorati:

Singleservecoffee.com:

The Tassimo 8 oz cup cup of Signature Blend Coffee crema was excellent. It has a rich flavorful taste with notes of chicory like flavors. It’s important to note that each T-Disc is different and the coffee crema produced from the Tassimo was a little more real than the Senseo.

The latte produced is quite good. It has a nice rich buttery taste with pretty decent temperature. We think this is above average for a totally automated latte…

…we are hot chocolate fans! We often get hot mint-mocoa things are the local coffee shop and the Suchard hot chocolate is excellent. The 8 ozs of hot chocolate produced is from a liquid hot chocolate - not a powder. We’re pretty sure this tips the scales on why the hot chocolate is so good. It’s way better than using Quik or the like, and is on par with many of the hot chocolate drinks we’ve made in the past using much more time consuming measures. We even added a shot of espresso to the hot chocolate and found it to be quite good and quite the caffeine buzz.

The Tassimo is a great machine and hot beverage system. Since the machine is not solely focused on coffee, but spans the entire hot beverage making arena, we have to give it high marks for making an excellent cup of coffee crema, decent espresso, and yummy hot chocolate.

Here’s some pictures of the machine making a cup of coffee that I found over at Flickr. (how’d he get the machine so early, though?)

Seriously, it’s good - why pay $3-4 for a tall cappuccino at a coffee shop, when you can make one that’s just as good (because we’re using real milk too) in about a minute for about $1? No messy steam wands, no coffee pots to wash out, no grounds to dispose of. Just two little pods. And, it’s more consistent than your average barista.

As usual, “Kraft” and “Tassimo” are trademarks of Kraft Foods Global, Inc. And, as usual, I’m just speaking for myself, and not for Kraft. All of the factual information can be garnered from the reviews, press releases, etc.