MelittaBean to Cup Coffee Machine, Barista TS SMART Model F86/0-100, Bluetooth connectivity, Melitta Connect App, Whisper Grinder (Quiet Mark), Stainless Steel

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.

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.

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.