Customer Reviews

Bosch TCA6301UC Benvenuto B30 Thermoblock 15-Bar-Pump Digital Fully Automatic Espresso Machine

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Bosch Benvenuto B30 is an exceptional coffee maker. We used to have a fully automatic Saeco model for the past 9 years, but it recently started leaking and so we decided to get a new machine.

Before buying the Benvenuto B30, we researched quite a few machines: The Saeco models we saw on store display didn't strike us as too well-made. Our old one was largely metal but we found the new models to be made of relatively flimsy-feeling plastic. We then looked at the Jura machines but ultimately decided against them due to their high prices, reviews we read that the coffee isn't made hot enough, and also because Jura machines only allow for three different coffee strength settings - weak, medium, and strong. We wanted more choices.

Having had experience with these types of machines for almost 10 years, we knew what we wanted: a height-adjustable spout, the possibility to use both beans and ground coffee, a relatively quiet operation, and an intelligent design which would tell us when to refill water, beans, when to clean, descale, etc. The B30 does all that and more. Moreover, it offers stylish design and is very well made.

The machine does not take long to reach its required operating temperature and the electronic display informs you when it is ready. The coffee strength can be adjusted from mild to extra-strong. Furthermore, the amount of water can be adjusted to accomodate small Espresso cups, XXL coffee mugs and pretty much everything in-between.

Undoubtedly the best feature is the height-adjustable spout, or rather spouts (the B30 has 2) which let you brew 2 cups of coffee simultaneously - a huge time-saver in the morning! We found that although the height can only be adjusted by little over 4 inches, there is no problem to use cups higher than that. This is due to the clever design that gives ample and easy access to the spouts from the side as well as from the front - we just move the cups under the spouts holding them at a slight angle. With our old Saeco machine, we always had to remove the grille and tray to be able to accomodate larger mugs.

Another very nice feature is that the water temperature can be adjusted. At the Maximum setting, the coffee is piping hot - very useful when adding cold frothed milk to it because with other machines, this makes the coffee too cold to be enjoyable. The B30 even has a heated top grille for pre-heating your coffee mugs!

And if all of that weren't enough, the machine even has an automatic timer function to automatically turn itself on at a pre-set time, and turn itself off again after a set number of hours.

In summary, this machine is incredibly easy to operate, fast and makes excellent coffee in all kinds of strengths and sizes. An integrated steamer to froth milk, etc. is of course standard.

The only other thing I would like to mention is that if you are a larger family of coffee lovers, you may find the water tank to be a bit on the small side. In our house we're just two people and find that we have to refill the tank every day after just 2 - 3 cups of XXL-size coffee. Then again: This also ensures that the water is always fresh and not stale from sitting in the tank for too long. So you be the judge whether this is a negative or not.

I whole-heartedly recommend this machine which in my opinion offers a lot more than the overpriced Jura machines, especially when it comes to flexibility!

The Bosch is a great machine - I owned a Jura F7 for about 18 months and finally returned it to Sur La Table (great return policy at Sur La Table by the way). The Jura was absolutely acceptable when it worked, but I think we killed it when my wife switched to decaf and started using the bypass chute every day. It started showing error messages and would refuse to work from time to time. I finally got fed up when some beans got stuck in the grinder chute and would not budge! So back it went.

ANyway, I found this machine and it has a very similar style to the Jura-Capressos (internal mechanism, same steam wand, etc.), but it makes WAY better espresso than the Juras. It is consistently stronger and richer than the Jura. SOmetimes in the Jura I would feel the need for two shots just to taste the coffee through the milk in my capuccinos. In the Bosch, one shot'll do you. I never knew what I was missing with the Jura.

I also tried the Saeco Incanto Sirius which I really liked as well, except that it made crappy soap bubble foam (why do people put up with that? have you never had good dense microfoam??). Unlike the Jura (and now the Bosch) the Steam Wand on the Saeco was not at all modifiable. See my Jura F7 review for the modification to the Jura and the Bosch to create a traditional single hole steam wand. No big deal - basically it involves screwing a Krups tip on the existing wand. Righty tighty, lefty loosey is all you need to know. Learn to use a traditional steam wand and you will NEVER be satisfied again with the crap foam that is created by any of these so called "frother aids." By the way the steam pressure on the Bosch is much stronger than the JUra - almost hard to control, but once you get the hang of it, you will be making capuccinos like an Italian barista, only without the tamper, dregs box and mess.

The only things keeping this from 5 stars are: 1) poor foam out of the box (but that applies to ALL super automatics), 2) first shot is always bad and way too cool - easily solved by running a rinse first (which is not as simple as the Jura since there is no rinse button - have to trick it into thinking you put grounds in the bypass chute), and 3) when you ask for a double, it just doubles the water - same as the Jura. Some of the Italian machines (like Saeco) actually brew two shots in succession (but as I noted above - generally one long shot is sufficient.)

By the way, bought it at Costco Online for about $1150. Costco is the way to go for so many reasons.

A 2/8/2011 UPDATE: It has been a month short of 3 1/2 years since this purchase. That was 8,992 "brews" ago. To paraphrase Paul Simon, "Still flawless... after all these years"

A truly wonderful coffee maker. But $1,200 (what we paid)for a "coffee pot???" Is it worth it? It depends.

If you are a "StarBucks regular," like we were, then the answer's a resounding yes. We've had our B30 for 13 months. Figuring $5 a day if we'd done our usual daily "StarBucks stop," our B30 paid for itself in nine months Now, we're actually saving $ with it! (-:

For me, coffee is coffee; I drink it to wake up. But my wife is really into it and she thinks a brew from the B30 equals anything she's had in Italy.

It's really difficult to think of it being any easier. I get up and it's already turned on. I flip the switch to "double XXL coffee" and push a button. Beans are measured and ground, pressurised hot water courses through the grinds and into my cup, grounds are dumped into an internal container and it's ready to go again. I switch to "double expresso" and press the button again. That whole process takes less than 1 1/2 minutes!

It tells you when to add water, when to empty the tray containing grounds, when to change the filter and when to clean it.

What??? For 1,200 bucks you have to CLEAN "the pot?" Yup. You drop a cleaning tablet into a port and push a button. (-:

I can't begin to tell you how much easier this machine has made our morning.

UPDATE: It's been 15 months and 2,699 "brews" since we bought it. STILL works flawlessly. Again, figuring four "brews" equals $5 each morning @ Starbucks (actually, we spent more but leaving the extra $ out covers the cost of beans) we've saved $3,373 by not going to Starbucks. We,ve recouped our original $1,200, banked $1,300 for the next one (there WILL be a next one)and have $873 LEFT OVER! Is that cool, or what? (-:

I researched the usual suspects from SEACO - BOSCH and some others that escape me a the moment. I decided on the B30 because it received a glowing review here & I found a great price and it seemed to have everything I was looking for.

First and most importantly it makes a great cup of coffee! And I like the easy to use controls, which are much easier to set type and size of coffee/espresso, etc. compared to some other systems. Its relatively easy to fill the H2O, and the beans. It works great with even the most oily beans, such as KILLER BEANS. Some other units I've seen have problems with oily beans. I haven't had any thus far after 100 cups.

Items that need some work:

1. The clock does not survive even a small power outage, so every time you lose power or unplug the unit the current time is lost and therefore the on-time will not function. IMO in a unit that cost $975.00 this shouldn't be.

2. The bean container isn't removable. Makes it nearly impossible to change beans.

3. The hot H2O dispenser spits water and splashes very hot water onto your hand. They even include a warning tag with the unit. It would be nice it they just fixed the problem instead of warning you.

4. The unit doesn't warn you that the puck container or the tray that the dirty water flows into needs emptied, again SEACO units have this feature and this unit IMO should also at this price point.

5. Contrary to the other reviewers opinion, I think the coffee could be hotter, even at the maximum setting, once you add a little cream, its certainly not pipping hot.

So all-in-all I am happy with the unit, however the deficiencies shown above kept me from giving the unit a 5 star rating.

The Bosch Benvenuto B30 is an OK espresso maker, although expensive, and is not a particularly good machine for cappucinos. I've owned a Saeco, a Jura and now the Bosch: the Saeco made the best coffee but only lasted two years: replaced with a Jura which drove me mad with its washing, rinsing, cleaning cycle requirements, but it made good espresso and cappucino: then I changed countries and voltages so I bought the Bosch in the USA. It too has an annoying rinsing cycle, but unlike the Jura doesn't seem to rinse the coffee dispenser nozzles, which still drip dark coffee dregs after the rinsing cycle ends. And there doesn't seem to be a way to remove the klunky aluminium nozzle housing to clean them, so I expect that one day they'll clog and stay clogged. The steamer takes twenty/thirty seconds to produce steam, without a standby position for steam. (In other words, the steam wand is active as soon as the rotary switch is turned to steam symbol, which means dribbling water condensation before it finally produces steam). The rotary selector hot water position recommends the wand tip be uncovered to dispense hot water and to "foam" milk, but that the wand tip be covered (in the down) position to steam milk. I've tried both positions and found no difference in results. The handbook insists that the wand tip be dismantled (with a coin) every time it's used and all parts be washed in a dishwasher, after running a thin wire through the nozzle to get rid of any encrusted milk. I don't bother - I just run steam and water through the thing which seems to clean it OK, but wastes alot of water which is being expensively filtered by the recommended $30 filter which lasts eight weeks. The handbook warns that the Bosch can't handle oily roasted coffee beans - which unfortunately are the type of beans I like. So I have to push the beans down the chute to the grinder or else they stay put on the gentle slope of the hopper. Having done all this, the amount of water for an espresso is pre-determined by Bosch, so if you want your coffee very short (like a Napoli barrista's version) you're out of luck. The machine cost $1,200 and it should be better, but it's what I've got so I'll live with it. But I wish I'd bought another Saeco instead. Even if it only lasts a couple of years, it's worth it. The Italians know more about making great coffee than the Germans or the Swiss.

I had several expresso machines of different degrees of auto functions. This provides what you need: the amount of coffe you want, how strong do you want it, the type of grind you want.
You have the options of using full beans or grinded coffee that can act as a secondary coffee bin ready to use if you don't want what you have in the whole beans. It then provides manual options as you may need.
It actually tells you on the LED when needs water or coffe or cleaning, and when you should change the water filter.
I did not give it a 5 because of the steam, the steam produces good steam and also froth but the mechanism to change from steam to froth and to turn off was not practical for me.
Another good point in its favor is that it has a very good customer service, that actually you can call! and they answer on the spot....!Overall, it is a very good auto expresso machine.

I have used this coffee maker daily for 16 months. I would buy one tomorrow if this unit failed. I do not enjoy "Mr Coffee, coffee any longer". This unit is very easy to use but is more expensive to operate than I had first thought. The water filter needs changing every month along with a cleaning (with tablet), seems descaling happens every three months also. Filters are $13 + and descale is over $12 each time. Everything is based on the coffee cycles. That being said the coffee is excellent.

I researched espresso makers and purchased the Benvenuto 30 over a year ago. Like with many products, I was full of glee by the simple format change. So here it is, a year and 2 months later and I am still enjoying this purchase. There was the initial getting to know how to achieve my preferred ratio of espresso:steamed milk, but once that was discovered, the Benvenuto 30 has been delivering that perfect l-ahhhhhh-tte every time, ever since. I now find that when I am in town, I drive on by Starbucks or Seattle's best, etc. Now, some reckon that the water reservoir is not big enough. This is not a problem that interferes with my routine. Perhaps these sweet people are making more single cups of coffee than I do --- which by the way, big Ben makes quite nicely as well. The only drawback that I see, is the length of time required to run the cleaning and descaling cycles... But cleaning and descaling can be done when it is convenient to your schedule. You do have to hang around during cleaning and descaling for a few prompts to empty the trays or add a tablet. ---minor points - 'cause it's nice it cleans itself.
Summing up....Big Ben is worth the $$. It's been 15 months. If we keep going like this, Big Ben will definitely pay for himself.

Best coffee I've ever had. Definately worth the money. It's a big appliance though and takes up quite a bit of counter space, have to say, it's a commitment! My only complaint is that the coffee doesnt seem to be hot enough. I'm still tweaking though. It may be me. Morning coffee is a beautiful thing now!

For the money you may want to look at other makes/models.
I had a Saeco "easy" which I bot for 1/3 the price, it was kept on for 5 years before a small plastic piece broke.
I decided to upgrade and bot this B 30, it does have more bells and whistles. If you want simple this may be it. But be aware that the beans must be tamped down almost every time for the grinder to get them.
It has preset sizes only you cannot adjust the amount specifically (which the other automatic did - allowed by oz.
First year it is okay, but really not for the coffee connoisseur. It just does not produce the high quality great taste I expected. Sorry Bosch it is close but no cigar.