Customer Reviews

Saeco S-TRP-ST Talea Ring Plus Super Automatic Espresso Machine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I owned a Jura Impressa S90 for 6 years at a daily rate of 8 espressos . No problems , I sold it to upgrade it for a professional like machine.. Bad decision, The Talea Ring Plus has a beautiful design and is relatively small for a full automatic, but...
After 4 months it was leaking (faulty 0 rings ), it wastes more water that it goes into the coffee, it is very high maintenance to clean (new filter every 2 weeks, cleaning tablet every 3 weeks, descaling twice in 3 months), but most important if you have a problem forget about Saeco customer service:rude, incompetent and they don't return emails or calls, so you better have a good relationship with your retailer to enlist their help. After the repair of my NEW machine, Saeco lost my original box and protective pads, they scratched the led display and plate and the serial number sticker was missiing...
After 8 single coffees you must empty the grounds and the drip tray! the container is flooded with water.
What about the coffee? Just OK , not any better that one could get with a machine one third of the price.
If you are thinking superautomatic forget Saeco( at least this model)

Just purchaseed this machine this week.I must say at first i was a little leary from the not so great reviews i read on Amazon. However I did some more research and found many positive reviews elsewhere online so decided to give it a try>
The Saeco Talea Ring is very advanced and offers many settings that you wouldn't find on the average super automatic machine. It can be pretty tricky to find the right setting for your taste but definatelly possible. After 4 trial expresso's and maybe 20 min to setup all the settings I had perfectlly brewed coffee with nice rich crema. I did not experience any leaaking or messes mentioned on the other reviews.
My only negative comment if you want to call it that is the machine is a bit pricey however i love my coffee and my beleif is satisfaction justifies the cost.

We have always been big Saeco fans - had their machines for many many years and got a lot of our friends turned on to the brand. So we finally decided it was time to get their latest and greatest - the Talea Ring Plus.
Oh my goodness! I can't believe how poorly this has been. The Espresso is quite good and I like the adjustments and controls. But frothing milk is a catastrophe! It usually will not create an froth, just hot milk. No matter whether you use the cappucchinatore or island. And the island tends to leak or come loose... Should you ever drop the glass carafe of the milk island, you will be surprised how much a replacement is. After a few months, the machine started to leak and now we got a taste of Saeco's so-called customer service. It was the worst experience ever, period. After many weeks of phone calls (I am not making this up!) we finally got authorization to send it in. The returned it very quickly (impressive) and now the leaking seems fixed for the moment but still no froth! It is ridiculous - any cheap, older Saeco (i.e. Vienna) used to do this great!
If this has not scared you enough, please do a Google search for it - you will find tons of bad reviews and disgruntled owners. Wish I had done that!
I would so not ever buy another Saeco - I feel I got screwed for my $1,500. Next stop - Jura.

The crema produced by this coffee machine is delicious, very dense. Easy to operate and to mantain. I just miss the heating tray for the cups on its top.

I've owned 2 previous Gaggias. This takes expresso to a new level. Easy to use, can fine tune to desirable tastes,Easy to clean, compliments any kitchen. Even my techno-phobe wife finds it pleasurable & simple. Glad I didn't listen to previous comments or I would have missed out. Sturdy construction. Quiet-ceramic burr grinder that does not over heat beans. Down-side: smaller water tank, dredge draw & bean hopper then I had been accustomed to but well worth it in the overall scheme of things. A true find!!!!!

Had heard great things about this machine, so finally saved up enough cash to buy one from the Saeco dealer in Vancouver, BC in 2008.

Almost immediately started having problems with error messages: "Fill container with coffee" (even though container was full) Took it back three times to dealer, first two times they were really rude and told me there was nothing wrong with machine. Third time, with warranty running out, they replaced the grinder and it worked fine for about two months.

Same old problem returned, took it back, same attitude from dealer.

Now we have new error message: "Close water/steam knob" that won't go away and machine is frozen. Clears up a day or two later, make a few coffees, freezes up again.

Absolutely no support from Saeco.

Took machine to Vancouver dealer this week and guess what? They're out of business and the office is empty.

Absolutely no way we will buy Saeco again. Highly priced, and abyssmal after sales service and support.

I bought my Ring Plus as a replacement for my trusty Saeco Vienna which finally burned out the boiler. As has been mentioned by others the design is very sexy and compact but the execution leaves a bit to be desired. The unit uses a microcontroller and gets easily confused if you interrupt any process. For example you NEVER want to open the bean tray during the brew process or it gets very confused. It also will occasionally go through a cycle and never produce any output. Fortunately I bought it from the local repair shop (new) because the first week I had it the machine kept rebooting and/or ending the brew cycle with an error. I had it in the shop at least 3 times and they were on the phone to the Saeco a lot but never really figured out what was going on. It eventually settled down and has been producing coffee mostly reliably for about 4 months.

The fit is ok but not great. It is all plastic and the things like the water tank don't fit all that well and you have to jiggle it to get it seated correctly each time you refill it (which for me is several times a day). Some parts are way too delicate. For example the "stage" that holds your cup is held up by a small piece of plastic which can easily break off. I know this because when I first bought the unit they jammed it into the box incorrectly and when I got it home I opened it up and the tray was broken off and hanging by the wires (it has a control to move it up and down for whatever reason).

I ended up dealing with the factory reps more than a few times. They are polite and mostly know what they're talking about but they seem to have issues following through. When they ordered me a replacement frothing unit it took 3 calls to get it to actually ship. Lots of "oh I forgot" and "I don't know why that hasn't left the warehouse."

And speaking of the (optional) frothing unit I cannot recommend it at all. It is very poorly designed. It leaks so you have to reseat it several times during frothing. It is very difficult to clean. It produces nice foam when it works but I rarely use it because of the overhead of cleaning, coaxing, etc. I originally had the smaller foam unit which they replaced with the larger one. They're equally bad although I think the smaller unit was easier to clean.

Finally there is the issue of cleaning. When I was having troubles the repair shop claimed I should be cleaning the brew group every 2 cups. That is crazy. I have settled in on the once-a-week recommended cleaning and thats about right. The brew group gets pretty crusty after about a week of coffee making. The unit also has a built-in descaling process that kicks in a lot (once a month for me) and there is no way to cancel out of it. Since I used filtered water its mostly an annoyance because I have pretend to go through the descaling process just to clear it. I actually managed to buy some of the liquid descaler that it requires from a Canadian dealer but couldn't find it available in the US. This makes the descaling process VERY expensive if you actually need to do it.

All in all this unit was a disappointment from a long time Saeco owner. I am not replacing it until it dies but I have a bad feeling about our future together--too many issues when the unit is less than a 1/2 year old. I definitely don't think I am receiving the value I expected from such an expensive unit.

Everything seems to work and taste just as described, but the one big problem is the "drip tray". The manual doesn't really mention anything about it but after making about 6 cups of coffee the "drip" tray will be full!!! It leaks at least half of the water out and spills on the drip tray. There is no warning when it's full (only when the coffee is full). I called the company up and their technicians say that is normal. I don't know why the manual neglects to say anything about it's significant accumulation of water. Very disappointing for $1,100 purchase at[..]. I'm still debating whether to return it for one that does not leak so much.

This Taleo Ring has been in Saeco service four times in 3 1/2 years, and now... it's broken again. Previously it was the steam wand leaking, but now its the main controls are broken and it won't start at all.

If you know what's good for you, avoid this model (and maybe all Saeco products).