Tassimo by Bosch My Way 2 coffee machine review

As well as offering the tech to personalise your drink, the My Way 2 is notable for its ample 1.3ltr (2.3 pint) water tank complete with Brita filter. 

Each Tassimo coffee machine takes T-Discs – its name for the pods – which all have Tassimo Intellibrew barcode technology. This enables the machine to automatically adjust the brewing time, temperature and amount of water needed for each beverage – be it a short espresso or tall, creamy hot chocolate.

Known for having a daily coffee, or perhaps three pre-deadline – the team here at Saga Exceptional couldn’t wait to get our hands on the latest coffee pod machines for testing.

To give the My Way 2 a fair trial, we tested it alongside other coffee pod machines on the market and compared results. We gave it the works in both the Exceptional test lab and in a domestic kitchen environment, rating the machine on design, performance, ease of use, speed and versatility. 

We sampled a variety of Tassimo T-Discs to review flavour, and chose drinks that required varying cup heights to see how well they worked under the coffee dispenser. We measured the time it took to make an espresso and how quickly it heated up, and noted the temperature straight after dispensing.  

We also looked at the cable length and measured the noise level – as nobody wants to wake up to a noisy coffee machine. Read on to discover what we think are the highs and lows of this versatile machine.

Easy on the eye, the Tassimo My Way 2 has a shiny plastic finish, which looks and feels surprisingly premium and well made. A touch of metal on the capsule lever and part of the drip tray add a touch of luxury. Our lab noted that it looks far more futuristic than other coffee machines we tested, with a noticeably sleek and more curvaceous design than its peers.  

The My Way 2 comes in a choice of four colours, including a fresh white, cream, dramatic black or punchy red (this is the one we tried and it looked great against our granite worktop).

Both in our lab comparisons and domestic kitchen setting we were impressed at how lightweight the machine was to use, move and store, while also feeling very stable in situ. It’s likely to be a permanent fixture on the worktop. 

At 29cm (11.5in) high and 32cm (12.5in) deep, it sits neatly on the countertop without taking up too much room. It’s light enough to be moved in and out of a larder or utility room as and when needed, but is just a little too large to house inside your standard kitchen unit. It also has a long 88cm (34.5in) cable for flexibility.

The Brita water filter fits neatly inside the ample water tank. We found it easy to insert and a dial on the lid of the tank lets you know how long you have before the filter needs to be changed. (They tend to last around 30 days depending on the level of use).

We really like this addition as it means the machine is less prone to getting clogged up with limescale as some premium coffee machines can. It also makes the water fresher so your drinks should taste better. 

On the box, Bosch announces this coffee machine as a design with “space for every cup”. But while the space between the dispenser and drip is generous, and the drip tray can be easily moved up to accommodate shorter drinks, we had to remove the drip tray away to use a taller latte glass. 

The machine produces a nice amount of froth when creating milky drinks such as cappuccino and hot chocolate, but there’s no separate milk frothing wand. While we were pleased with the overall design of the My Way 2, an addition like this would really enhance the design as it would mean you could add frothy milk to coffee drinks that come without the added creamer. 

Making a hot drink with this coffee machine proved very quick and easy. The touch control panel is simple to use with limited settings so it doesn’t confuse matters. We found our way around it intuitively and didn’t need to read the instructions first. 

Once we’d got the machine out of the box and plugged it in, we simply needed to lift up the lid to insert a T-Disc. These need to be placed upside down, and once the lid is shut you wait for the orange light to stop flashing before you can start the machine or adjust the size and strength of your drink.   

One downside is that, unlike many coffee pod machines, there’s no bin to collect the used pods, so you have to take out each one after use. This means that if you’re making drinks back-to-back or a cappuccino that uses two pods, you’ll need to take care when taking out the used pod as it may still be hot. 

On the subject of safety, the machine does have an auto switch off feature. After a minute it will switch to standby mode, then turn completely off after 90 seconds. 

The barcoded T-Discs that the Tassimo My Way 2 uses make preparing a hot drink very straightforward. The hardest part is choosing which drink to have, be it a punchy and strong espresso to wake you up or a refreshing mint tea to help while away the afternoon.  

The machine is designed to quickly read the barcode on insertion, and once you press the orange button on the control panel it will automatically dispense a predetermined drink measure, temperature and strength. This can, however, be adjusted with ease using the three buttons to the right of the main start button, which give you the options of a short, medium or tall drink.

We found this easy to do and liked the fact that we could also use one of the four buttons to the left of the control panel to save our preferences. You can save up to four different preferences, which is great if there are four people in your household who all like their coffee a certain way.

Our lab noted that the bar pressure of the My Way 2 is around 3-3.5, which is considered a little low to produce a decent coffee as 11 bar is more the industry standard. We were, however, very impressed with the taste of the espressos and black coffees we were able to produce.

When it came to speed, we had to wait mere seconds before the spout was dispensing our hot drink. But surprisingly that didn’t mean the temperature was an issue; our lab tests measured an espresso at a satisfyingly toasty 83°C (181°F), and we found that resulted in the optimum flavour. 

The Brita filter is designed to enhance the taste of your coffee – supposedly adding a light, freshness and enhancing the aroma. While it was hard to tell whether it really was doing anything to improve the flavour, we enjoyed drinking every type of coffee we tried. 

We were especially impressed with Jacobs Caffé Crema Classico coffee pods, which produced a satisfyingly thick crema on our black coffee. 

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Jacobs Caffé Crema Classico coffee pods

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You can also make mint tea with no pre-infusion needed and we tried making one straight after we’d made an espresso. We were pleased to discover that it tasted great, with no residual coffee flavour from the previous use.

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Tassimo Twinings Green Tea & Mint T-Discs

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However, we were less impressed with the milk T-Discs, which you’re meant to use when making the likes of a cappuccino or flat white. We feel fresh is best, and preferred the taste when we added our own hot milk. 

The Tassimo My Way 2 is a mid-priced machine with lots of premium features. It can regularly be found on offer; at the time of writing, it was heavily discounted to £69.99 on the Tassimo website. 

If you’re looking to buy the My Way 2 you need to bear in mind the extra cost of the T-Discs, which are around £4.80 for a box of 16. If it’s espressos you want, then one box will make you 16 drinks. Meanwhile for lattes, half the T-Discs contain milk so you will only get eight. You will also need to factor in the cost of new Maxtra+ Brita filters – around £19 for a pack of three, although they’re often discounted.

A wide range of alternative options from the same manufacturer is available on the Tassimo website. These include the Finesse and the Vivy 2.

Like the My Way 2, this takes its own coffee, hot chocolate and tea pods. You can choose between hot and cold drinks too. It currently costs £90 from Argos.

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If great-tasting espresso and americanos is all you’re after, consider a machine that is solely dedicated to coffee.

The Lavazza A Modo Mia Deséa lets you choose from a range of black coffee sizes and five milk-based options using Lavazza coffee pods. It costs £249.

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The My Way 2 produces excellent-tasting coffees with thick cremas. There’s a wide range of hot drinks to choose from, which makes it a very versatile buy. It’s not, however, a design that will suit avid coffee enthusiasts who like the flexibility and flavour that freshly ground coffee beans offer. 

Some may find the lack of a separate milk frothing wand an issue, and the fact that you can only use Tassimo T-Discs a bit limiting. 

Our product tester Philip Sowels definitely falls into this group. He told us: “This more a ‘coffee flavoured’ drink machine rather than an espresso machine. This can be seen by the vast array of flavoured style drinks available in the supermarket, but it’s definitely not for the purist.”

That said, we think it’s excellent value and is an attractive design to house on the worktop. We were very impressed at how fast, effective and delicious a drink it can make, and felt spoilt for choice on drink variety. It’s simple to use, and we appreciated the addition of the Brita water filter that keeps the water fresh and stops the machine getting clogged up with limescale.

Ultimately, we loved the fact that you can insert your pod and in less than a minute you can enjoy that first sip of a satisfying hit of coffee.

We were loaned the Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 by Currys