Barista TS Smart

Over the years, I've owned (and still own) many types of coffee maker. My espresso needs have been met, for the last 10 years or so, by a Sage machine but it had become a chore to have to do every single aspect from grinding to pulling, manually. My wife also refused to get involved, so the coffee making always fell to me. As a result I was looking for a bean to cup machine for a while, but hadn't really thought about a fully automatic until I looked at the Barista TS SMART. I compared it to a number of others, and the fact that it was on offer at the time sealed the deal. I'll start with all the good bits, and there are many. Firstly, it makes really great coffee in no time at all, and with almost no input from me. If you're not getting good coffee out of the Barista TS SMART, look for better beans and thank me later. The self-cleaning processes that run at both startup and shutdown mean one of the biggest drawbacks of any espresso machine are removed immediately. Yes, it increases your water consumption but, take it from me, the alternative is much worse. The range of drinks it can make are extensive and, if we're honest, probably overkill. Out of the 20 listed, I've probably not used more than half a dozen of them. Better too many than too few, though. The "obvious" drinks like espresso, cappuccino, and latte are available from a row of buttons on the front of the machine. The rest take a bit of work to get to, but you soon get used to it. The ability to adjust every aspect of the recipes is excellent, and makes a huge difference if you have two people who like their drinks prepared differently. These variations can be stored in up to 4 separate profiles, for ease. Another good example of this being very useful is that we have 340ml cappuccino cups, and the "milk only" programme defaults to 120ml. What I do is set the default cappuccino recipe to get to 220ml total milk/coffee, then simply hit the milk button to top up to the 340ml level. The Barista TS SMART is smart enough to know what needs cleaning and what doesn't. I mistakenly turned it off, and triggered the shutdown flushing process, without running the milk easy cleaning programme first. Not wanting to leave milk in the system, I turned it back on and ran the easy cleaning. When turning the machine off again, it knew it didn't need to run the shutdown flush again, as no drinks had been made. A small thing, but welcome nevertheless. Being able to use 2 different types of coffee beans has been useful, but the ability to turn off the feature and let the machine use whichever side of the hopper has beans in, is very nice if you only tend to use a single variety. The water tank is about as big as it can be without increasing the size of the machine significantly but, as I mention above, you do go through a lot of water so expect to fill it twice a day if you're making 10/12 cups. Cleaning is easy and quick, and the Barista TS SMART prompts you to run the milk cleaning process, both the easy cleaning every time you use milk, and then the full programme with the cleaning solution periodically. It also prompts you to empty the bottom container where the waste water goes, but I'm in the habit of emptying it at the end of every startup flush process. Overall, several weeks in, it's a purchase I'm still really pleased I made, and have absolutely no regrets. But, as the title of this review suggests, the machine is not without its flaws. First, the milk foaming is great apart from the milk is just not warm enough coming out of the machine. This is not unique to this brand/model, it's a drawback of fully automatic machines and the balance between convenience and speed. The solution is just to microwave it for 30 seconds to bring it to the desired temperature. Don't microwave for too long, or you will burn both the milk and the coffee. A bit less is better than too much. The process for accessing the recipes that aren't on the front of the machine is also a little unclear and awkward at first, even with the included card, but a bit of trial and error does get you there in the end. The included milk container has, so far, remained unused, mainly because it's quite big, and doesn't keep milk cool. I simply use a small stainless steel jug together with the optional milk wand that you can buy (£10). You soon learn how much milk to pour without wasting any, and it's much easier. And now I'm going to save you some time. Just ignore the fact there's a Bluetooth app for this. You can't power on the machine with it, and you can't keep your milk cool unless you pay over the odds for the stainless steel model, so you need to go and stand in front of it anyway unless you're making drinks constantly. I've never even downloaded it, and I'm 100% convinced I neither need nor miss it. The only use the app could have, but which is very unlikely given it wopuld need to be built into the machine itself already, would be to update any firmware. The very slight niggles aside, I have no complaints about the Barista TS SMART. Making 2 drinks used to take me about 20 minutes and involved a lot of mither. I can now do it in 5 minutes and without breaking even a mild sweat. The fact the drinks taste so good is almost a bonus, although it's obviously the main point! I highly recommend the Barista TS SMART. Learn to live with the quirks, and you'll love it.

Firstly, forget about the Bluetooth connectivity as this is an unreliable gimmick, but the Melitta App is highly useful for the maintenance and cleaning of the machine. Each part of the cleaning process is explained in the simplest way, a must have if trying to see the instructions on the machines screen is hard for you. Ok, on to the machine itself. Unpacking the machine is easy enough, but you do need to read the instructions carefully to ensure you have the hardness of your water and other information as and when needed. On first use I did an extra 2 coffees to flush the machine before actually drinking what it makes to ensure that it is only coffee you’ll be drinking and not lubricants. For drink preparation the machine can make 4 coffee variations from the front panel, but there are many more available from the menu system on the machine. The ability to save your favourites by person is useful to a certain extent and is extensive in the options for each coffee type but is limited to 1 setting per person per coffee option. To use a mycoffee option, you first press the mycoffee icon then select cappuccino or latte and the machine starts straight away. I mostly use this due to a set coffee cup size and bean settings for latte and cappuccinos. The grinder is not silent but it is quiet enough not to be annoying, the bean hoppers hold enough for 15 - 20 cups in a single coffee dose setting and the machine is conservative in warning you about the hopper being empty and on swapping brands or strengths you do get a mix of beans for a couple of cups. As far as cleaning, the machine rinses itself on startup and shutdown and after each brew it asks to easy clean which sterilises the milk tube and milk system. The biggest thing that you do need to do every day is to empty the drip tray, I find this fills up after only a few cups have been made, else water will spill over and onto your counter top. For the cleaning of the machine and brew components it is easy to do and I do it every 10 to 12 days, it says a weeks interval but the machine doesn’t get that dirty inside. My conclusion with owning the Melitta Barista TS Smart is that if coffee is an important treat that you want to enjoy at home, this is the Bean to Cup machine for you. I am very pleased with the speed of warm up to coffee production is mere seconds and the taste of the coffee it produces. The coffee is hot enough to drink shortly after being made but hot enough not to go cold straight away. The cost and maintenance needed to actually own one of these machines should be considered, as pod machines can give close to bean to cup performance as a better price point. But this machine is a good balance of value for money and the production of great coffee at home.

UPDATE: Well, I did learn to love this machine but, after only 18 months it has stopped making coffee. Instead of dispensing coffee through the nozzles on the front of the machine… the coffee just goes straight into the drip tray! And, yes, I run the cleaning routines whenever prompted, sometimes even sooner. And that includes taking the brewing unit out and giving it a thorough wash. I called the UK Melitta support line… which just rings indefinitely with nobody answering. I sent them an email, which has not been acknowledged. ORIGINAL REVIEW: Having previously owned (and loved) the Melitta Caffeo Bistro, I though this would be a fancy upgrade. Unfortunately, they’ve added a load of fancy-looking features that work incredibly unreliably. Instead of mechanical buttons, you have a touch interface, that’s horribly unreliable. Sometimes you tap on the -/+ symbol and it does what you expect, most times it does nothing. It’s designed primarily for use with dark roast beans in the left hopper and mild beans in the right. If you want to use the dual hopper for car vs decaf, then you’re going to need to remember to use the bean selector before making any coffee… otherwise the machine will automatically select them based on the recipe. “Cafe Crème”, “Cafe Latte” and “Cafe au Lait” use the right hopper (“Beans 2”) by default, unless you select “Beans 1” beforehand. “Red Eye”, “Black Eye” and “Dead Eye” (seriously… who’s heard of these?) use beans from both hoppers, so these recipes rather depend on the hoppers being filled with dark and medium roast beans rather than a caf/decaf split. Although maybe shots of espresso in a decaf would give the same visual effect? The portions you get from the recipes are rather random and extremely stingy… a standard home coffee mug is typically between 200-300ml. Yet the Americano recipe only dispenses 150ml and the Cappuccino a miserly 130ml! I’ve included a photo of a cappuccino to show (to scale) how absurd that is. Even the latte is only 180ml. The largest recipes are the “Americano Extra Shot” and “Latte Macchiato Trip’e Shot” which are 210ml each. These amounts may be fine for your local overpriced coffee shop, but they’re too small for home use. You can override this and use the slider on the machine to adjust the total amount… but (and this is incredible) you can only do this AFTER starting the recipe but BEFORE the coffee starts dispensing. That’s a 10 second window to make the adjustment. But it gets worse: the machine display does not tell you what the total amount will! Instead it tells you “Coffee 65ml Milk 115ml” and you have 10 seconds to add that up in your head and decide whether that’s suitable for your chosen mug, adjust, repeat. If you want to tinker further with the recipes or create your own, you can do so via the iOS app; however, I found that it does not reliably select the beans you asked for. Instead it seems to select whatever was chosen by the last person to use the physical controls. Also, it does not have the option to adjust the total amount while keeping the coffee to milk ratio consistent. I used the app for a few days, then went back to the standard machine controls. I do find it astonishing that such a computer-based machine does not have any means for the customer to upgrade the firmware. I did ask Melitta support and they told me if there is a firmware issue, it has to go back to the manufacturer to be updated. Let’s finish with some positive saving graces though, as you’ll be wondering why I gave it 4 stars. The coffee this machine makes (from the recipes, using good quality beans) is delicious. I was particularly impressed at the 3-layered Latte Macchiato… make that in a glass for the full effect! The flat white and cappuccino are especially tasty. I source my beans from CoffeeLink, who also do really good decaf beans. If you know for sure that the total will fit in your mug, then you can simply choose “2x” to make double the amount (which is actually intended for making two tiny coffees side-by-side). I use that setting all the time. The milk container that comes with the stainless steel model (which I got) is a proper flask that keeps the milk fresh and cold for ages. I definitely recommend you purchase the milk “lance” (it’s about £10) if you only intend to make a single milky coffee, as it’s quicker and easier to clean than the flask and no milk is wasted. You simply stick that in your milk bottle/carton. It should really be bundled with such an expensive machine though, shouldn’t it? So, overall, I’m happy with the machine, despite all the shortcomings above.

This is not my first Bean to Cup Machine and in the last years I mainly used a Nespresso Latissima which now became quite dated and faulty, so I got this one when it was on sale and it is one of the expensive buys I do not regret a bit. The coffee tastes amazing and the milk froth and crema it creates is outstanding for a home machine. Before I purchased it a read a lot of reviews about it and some are mentioning that it does not make hot coffee, well this is true in standard-setting but you can set it to a hotter temperature that solves this problem easily. Most important for me was the taste and with the right coffee beans, you get a really good result and a nearly perfect latte, as perfect as it can get at home I think. The important part for the taste is the right coffee beans, not every coffee is suitable for such machines so a bit trial and error is needed to get an amazing taste out of this best, I personally use coffee beans from insomnia coffee shops, which taste on this machine nearly as good as on the highly professional ones in their shops. But the Melitta does not only for me a good job, we also use it for the Mocca from my wife and the hot chocolate for our little one and it is just super easy to use and also super easy to clean as it basically cleans itself, especially after you use milk. If you although only buy it because it is smart, then don't, while the app is quite decent, it only connects via Bluetooth, and that lasts around 5 meters, while BT standard is usually at least 10 and the app disconnects quite frequently. It is sad to see that Melitta has not gone for a wifi connection and maybe also provide an Alexa skill, this would have made this machine really smart and not pseudo smart. I do like though very much the possibility to create own recipes, so we can have both a latte programmed with different strength and volume which is super handy. All in all this Melitta is one of the best coffee machines I have ever used and we really enjoy it a lot! My Pros: - on sale a really good price for such a high-quality machine - high-quality material - tons of features - can make all kinds of different coffee, hot milk, and water - easy to clean - very good readable display - takes amount adjustments ( milk, coffee ) on the fly during the process - option to set up own recipes - 2 different bean containers and 1 for ground coffee - easy to disconnect milk container for keeping it refrigerated My Cons: - Machine is huge, takes nearly the whole depth of a kitchen worktop - Smart function could be improved by a lot - short-range of Bluetooth - needs some adjustments in settings to get hot coffee, milk - bean container lid is weird to close with the rubber lip All in all I purchased it with a price of 750£ and it is definitely worth the price and I would highly recommend it if you a coffee lover like me.

A lot of Amazon product reviews seem to be written by those with box fresh products who are over the moon to have them so hope this review, after a couple of weeks of using it will be a little more critical and of use to somebody. There are plenty of reviews of this product on the internet so suggest reading those for further guidance. Also note I'm reviewing this in the light of paying £730 for the black model in Dec 21, it never came below £700 anywhere (genuine) in the black friday sales but would be a different proposition at full RRP of over £1200. Coffee quality. Without going into the detail that some of the coffee specialist website reviews do, this machine makes good coffee but if you are wanting more control over the process to obtain better results then a fully automatic machine like this may not be the best option. You may get better coffee from a machine which allows you a little more control and at a similar price point the Sage Barista touch may be worth looking at (I'm not picking something at random, a friend owns this so I have used it). Of course if you are looking for this level of control and actually learning some barista style skills then you probably shouldn't be looking at Amazon reviews for guidance. You can tweak plenty of settings on this machine to try to get the coffee closer to your liking but all of this is within the bounds of it's preset coffee recipes. You can save your personal preferences to one the user profiles on the machine so they are easily accessible. Unfortunately one of the settings that will make the most difference to your coffee flavour, the grind fineness, is a manual setting that you have to unclip the side of the machine to adjust. This isn't difficult but you can't set it on a per-recipe basis like other settings. This may be particular issue if you want to use the 'cafe creme' recipe which, in theory, should be with a lighter roast of bean and a coarser grind, although I suspect Melitta have accounted for this in the factory settings. The two bean chambers on this machine and automatic chamber selection on the TS model could be a key feature for this machine and was one of the reasons I selected it. If you have two or more coffee drinkers in your household with different preferences for coffee style this can be useful, you can assign bean type to each recipe you customise on a per user basis or use one for decaff beans. You can build your own coffee recipes with three 'ingredients' (1-3 shots of coffee, water and milk froth) and save them in the smartphone app but these can only be activated in the app and not transferred to the machine and the absence of hot milk rather than froth may bug some. Its worth noting you cannot change add new ingredients to the built in recipes only alter qualities, temperature and coffee strength. Finally worth noting that the steamed milk is good compared to other bean to cup machines I've used but not as good as a practiced hand will get with a decent machine with a separate milk wand. Build quality and appearance The machine certainly doesn't feel cheap and is well put together but the silver trim around the front panel of the machine is painted plastic rather than metal, I have the black model but suspect this is the same on the more expensive 'stainless steel' model as well. I think for the money it's not unfair to expect a little more and certainly some rival manufacturers do a better job here but I chose the machine for its features rather than it's appearance and it manages not to look cheap and is easy to clean external to keep it looking good. Operating and cleaning The machine is definitely more suited to an average household than a small office, the grounds container only holds 6-8 shots worth of grounds, which could be 3-4 coffees worth depending what you drink, and the drip tray is shallow and needs emptying frequently. Otherwise the cleaning isn't too difficult, it runs a rinse at start and shutdown and recommends that you plug the milk hose into the drip tray and run a quick clean after making any drinks with milk, this is all automated and other than meaning it fills the drip tray (which you can work around to an extent by keeping an empty container, such as a milk jug, under the dispensing head when the machine is not being used) is no hassle at all. The machine recommends you clean the brew unit weekly, which is just a case of running it under warm water and leaving to drip-dry and you'll find that you are filling the water tank and emptying the drip tray daily but other than that you can just follow the on screen prompts for periodic cleaning actions using recommended cleaning agents (samples of which are supplied). Having read around, it seems that this is a fairly straightforward cleaning routine for this type of machine and I can't argue with this so far. The shortcut buttons on the machine for particular types of drinks are configurable per user but each only lets you select from a subset of the recipes available which is frustrating and some drinks remain only selectable by accessing the full list of recipes on the machine however once you are used to it, it's hardly complicated. The options for tweaking on the fly are a little confusing, with some drinks allowing you to up the quantity based on ratio and some requiring you to adjust the coffee and milk volumes separately and the manual isn't particularly helpful, you are generally better advised to use the phone app if you want to play around but realistically, how often are you going to be doing this once you have initially set your preferences unless you have a lot of very fussy guests. Feedback on other reviews and conclusions Having read a lot of reviews there seem to be some common bits of feedback I'll respond to. The drip tray does require a little care when carrying over to the sink to empty to avoid spillage but if you empty when the machine asks you to it shouldn't be an issue. The drinks come out at an immediately drinkable temperature, my wife finds some too hot by default, and whilst a lot of reviewers/commenters indicate they prefer their coffee hotter and you can adjust temperature, this may affect the taste of the coffee you are preparing. This is probably largely down to the milk temperature which as far as I can see cannot be set. The bluetooth on the machine doesn't have a huge range and the machine needs to be turned on with a physical button so don't get any ideas about ordering coffee from bed (as some reviewers suggest) but I have had no issues using the app or connecting via bluetooth once it was initially connected. The milk container is quite large and takes up a lot of room in the fridge, about the same footprint as a 4 litre milk bottle, there is a optional milk lance available separately (£15) which you can drop into any milk container which may be handy if you want have multiple milk types in use, although I'm relatively sure you could just drop the hose into cup of milk/milk-alternative at a pinch as long as you cleaned it afterwards. Overall this machine makes as decent a coffee as you'd expect for the price. The question isn't really 'is it a good machine', it is, it should be 'is this the right machine for me' and if you are a house hold of 1-4 coffee drinkers who don't want to get too involved in the coffee making process but do want to have some flexibility then this may be ideal. If your household are always drinking the same one or two styles of coffee there may be a much more economical option out there for you which works or if you want total flexibility or just to 'play around' a bit more then a bean to cup machine may not be the answer.

Have owned this for over a week. Bought as a replacement to a DeLonghi PrimaDonna S Evo machine, which, despite high cost, failed outside of warranty within 2.5 years. This is a superb machine, which rewards time and effort spent in adjusting the various settings to help produce excellent coffee. There was, however, a notable improvement in espresso quality out of the box from the Delonghi, with a much better extraction with a more persistent crema and a better mouthfeel. Milk quality is excellent, which was a surprise, as I expected the Delonghi with its patented LatteCrema system to be considerably better (but it is not, from this experience). Great range of default recipes and all aspects can be tweaked, the dual grinder is fab (have configured it to have decaff beans in one of the hoppers) and the ability to set up to 8 user profiles is superb (I have all drink set as a decaff option, for example, in one user profile). Other plus point are the app (when it works, see below), the look of the machine (good quality plastics used and looks good in place in the kitchen) and the easy cleaning regime (screen or app take you through the processes, step by step). Downsides? Given that this is a single heater based machine (same heating system used for milk temperature and espresso), production of drinks can be slow. This may just be my own impression, coming from the Delonghi which had a dual heating system, but there is an appreciable delay in milk based drinks as the machine gets up to milk steaming temperature or comes down to espresso temperature (depending on the recipe as to whether milk or espresso is made first). The app is also temperamental, in terms of bluetooth range and it often crashes or looses connection. To be fair, the Delonghi app (also BT) had similar issues, but felt a bit more polished (eg the Melitta connect app displays an error message when a bean hopper is empty, but does not say the bean hopper is empty, while the LCD screen does). The drip tray needs emptying often (this is also because I make a lot of milk based drinks, and the auto cleaning of the milk tube dispenses water directly into the drip tray). Finally, sometimes the sensors in the bean hopper report that the hopper is empty when there are beans left in it. This is easily resolved by putting a finger in front of the sensor and grinding the remaining beans as normal. That's about it, and none of these issues are huge compared to the advantages of the machine. Excellent BTC coffee machine, with consistent results at the touch of a button (or two). Highly recommended.

We've mostly used it for cappuccino and lattes. The default drink sizes are a little on the small size but that's easily adjustable. Drinks are consistently well made, milk froth is much better than the type where the milk is heated/frothed in the top of the removable milk tank. Some reviews complain about milk drinks being cold, I think that's an exaggeration. They do come out a few degrees cooler than from some machines, but to my mind it's ready to drink, rather than needing to let it sit and cool a few minutes. Cleaning the machine is easy - brew unit out for a rinse weekly, milk tank run for a cleaning cycle monthly, brew head cleaning cycle run every 2 months and a descale cycle every 3 months. Mostly automated, just follow the on-screen instructions and fill the tanks with the appropriate cleaning solutions. Beyond that it's just damp cloth on the outside like any other appliance. Noisewise, it's a bean to cup and there is a coffee grinder in there. It's quieter than I expected, but still a lot louder than a pod machine. Cons : Water tank and drip tray could be larger. This machine uses a fair amount of water on self-cleaning cycles. Turn on, rinses brew head, make coffee, milk system self-clean, turn off, brew head rinse. Once you've gone through that process a couple of times the drip tray will be full, regardless of how few coffees you made each time you turned it on. The buttons on the front are all capacitive-touch non-clicky type. They could stand to be be more sensitive, especially on the coffee volume and strength adjustment controls.

I’m not some coffee expert and I don’t really require all the in depth analysis that you’ll find on the YouTube videos but I’ll provide some information that I’ve received on this product. I was looking for a machine that produced a good cup of coffee, was easy to clean and had some flexibility regarding different drinks. This machine meets all those expectations, it also has the smart phone connectivity and 8 different profiles that can be adapted to your liking. Initially I was going to return this machine as the milk based drinks are lukewarm. You will see videos on the internet showing the high brewing temperature for coffee and water at around 90deg and nothing for the milk. All of that information is incorrect. I made a milk drink when I first received the item and it was lukewarm at best, my initial reaction was that the machine was faulty. I contacted the Melitta support and they were very helpful, they told me the correct temp values, from memory the coffee on the high brew temperature and hot water should leave the machine at 82deg the milk is 53deg. There is also an acceptable tolerance of 5deg, so the machine will be deemed to be working correctly if the milk produced is 48deg. The milk temperature when stored in the refrigerator should be no lower than 5deg according to their recommendations. I measured the temperatures and the milk produced was in the 51-53deg range. I assume this will be affected as the machine ages. This is the only issue I have with the machine but I’ve accepted it as I can overcome this by slightly heating the drink in the microwave for a bit. It was a trade-off that I was willing to accept regarding the other features the machine has to offer and it does produce good coffee. I don’t like my drinks too hot or cold but you want to sit down and enjoy your drink. Regarding drink temperatures. 40ml espressos straight from the machine are perfectly fine. I make an Americano with 40ml espresso, 120ml hot water and 60ml milk from the machine, again perfectly fine. A milk coffee consisting of 30ml espresso and 85ml of milk again all from the machine will be at the 49-50deg range, in this instance I heat it for 10secs and it’s perfect. Other larger milky drinks for me are in the 45-50deg range and all need 15-20secs in the microwave. I’ve measured these temperatures multiple times and they are pretty consistent. Other machines will have their own quirks, using a milk wand, how long to get the milk up to temperature, cleaning up, etc. So for me this machine meets my requirements but I think it’s important to know that the milk output from this machine does have a big impact on drink temperature. Even with that in mind I’m very happy with the machine.