Braun Tassimo Coffee Maker

My wife & I (and almost everyone that comes to visit us) drinks gallons and gallons of coffee, literally. Here in the great white north (Canada), you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Tim Horton's coffee franchise. We used to spend half our life in Tim Horton's drive-thru lineup's paying $1.40/cup in the mornings, the evenings, and on the weekends. Now that we bought the Tassimo, no longer.

We used to have a drip coffee maker. I like my coffee strong, my wife likes it weak. Problem. I also find it very difficult to taste the difference between good coffee and crap coffee coming from a drip coffee maker. It all tastes like crap! It's also only good the second it's ready, wait any length of time or go for your 2nd cup and you'll usually find that it's either burnt tasting or cold.

I was thinking of getting a full-fledged zillion-dollar Italian coffee machine complete with foaming systems, etc. But every time I thought about it long enough, I soon came to the conclusion that I'd never use it ... it would sit there and collect dust. When I want a cup of java, I don't want a ton of stuff to wash, add-on's to pull out of the cupboards, work to do, etc. I just want a cup of coffee with little or no effort! :)

As for the coffee, it's excellent. Variety is great. I buy everything online and it arrives at my doorstep, or most of our bigger grocery chains stock the basic types of coffee. Tea is also good.

Downside? It's a tad pricier than drip coffee, obviously. But it's still only 1/4 to a 1/3 the price of a coffee from Tim Horton's. The biggest downside is the amount of garbage you have to throw away ... it's not environmentally friendly. They HAVE to do something about that. The entire container the coffee sits in should be completely biodegradable. I have written them about this, but so far no response.

There are literally NO OTHER downsides. Highly recommended. I've owned mine for a year and I'm getting one for my desk at work (thru Ebay!).