Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 Review

The Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 comes with an integrated Brita filter, offering better-tasting drinks and less frequent descaling. Despite its prescriptive barcode technology, this machine allows you to tweak your beverages to a certain extent and save your preferred settings. But while the coffee it extracts tastes well-rounded, all of its milk pods contain sugar, rendering the milk-based drinks inescapably sweet.

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £139.99
• Tassimo Pod coffee machine
• 290 x 230 x 325mm
• Milk via pods
• 1.3-litre water tank

Convenience is key when it comes to pod coffee machines that aim to deliver you a hot beverage at the touch of a button. The Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 is an update of the brands’ first My Way machine. The new version features a Brita Maxtra filter-compatible removable water tank and comes with a free filter.

While Tassimo’s T-disc pods are all proprietary, with many from the parent company Douwe Egberts’ (owner of Kenco and L’Or) range, there are also some from the likes of Costa, Baileys and Cadbury.

Design and Features – Allows customisation within certain limits

Like most machines in the Bosch-Tassimo offering, available in sober as well as eye-popping colours, the My Way 2 comes in black, cream, white and red. Contrary to some other pod coffee makers, it is not a small machine and can be a little imposing – especially in the red of my sample. It has a wide base and drip tray, the height of which can be adjusted depending on the size of your cup.

The control panel has touch-sensitive icons for coffee strength (one to three beans) and cup size (third of a cup, half a cup or full cup), as well as the temperature icon and numbers 1-4 for programmable settings.

Press the temperature icon repeatedly and you can cycle through the options: white, yellow and red. In my tests extracting an espresso pod on the medium (half a cup) setting, the white temperatures were in the low 60s, the yellow ones in the mid-60s and the red ones in low 70s (°C). However, the temperature of your final drink will also depend on other factors such as room and cup temperature.

The control panel also includes the descale alert and “fill water tank” symbols, which will light up when either of those actions is necessary. In the middle of the panel, the lemon-shaped icon can be pressed to start the extraction process. However, this can only be done when a pod or the orange cleaning disk is inserted.

The machine also stops you from running water through the same pod twice unless you open the brewing unit and close it again – another example of an automatic safety/quality measure. Like all Tassimo’s machines, it features the Intellibrew barcode technology – essentially a tiny scanner inside the unit that will read the code on your chosen pod and automatically adjust brewing time, water and temperature levels. The machine is always aware which type of pod it is extracting and doesn’t allow for nonsensical adjustments like tweaking coffee strength on a cup of milk.

Nevertheless, My Way 2 – as it says in the name – allows for some modifications, such as making your drink slightly shorter. Extracting from same espresso pods gave me about 75ml on the small, 85ml on the medium and 95ml on the large cup setting. (You can’t go rogue and extract a full americano out of an espresso pod meant for a latte. It’s likely Tassimo knows best here and it wouldn’t be a nice result anyway.)

Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 coffee quality – Coffee tastes good, but sweetened milk is mostly a let-down

With a pictorial guide, a troubleshooting booklet, a getting-started crib sheet, a cleaning guide and several explanatory stickers on the machine, the My Way 2 can be set up by even the most absent-minded user.

To make a Costa caffe latte, two pods needed to be used: a liquid-filled milk one that needs to be shaken first and another with ground coffee for espresso.

Extracting the milk, the machine started off a bit noisy, then calmed down before letting out lots of steam and a hissing sound at the end, which reached 77db. The machine also managed to splash some droplets of milk.

The steam is released for cleaning the machine after each extraction. When finding a place for it in your home, best treat it akin to a kettle and keep it away from anything that could be impacted by steam over time.

Steaming the latte milk on the medium cup setting took about 1min20secs, with the espresso taking another 50secs. It’s not the fastest pod machine, but just over two minutes is still fine for a cup of coffee.

The caffe latte came out frothy on top, but this reduced quickly, disappearing completely when the drink was swirled around in the cup. Compared with milk from powdered pods, the milk here had a creamy mouthfeel. But all Tassimo milk pods contain sugar – I found it overly sweet. Setting the coffee strength to maximum (three beans) wasn’t enough to mask the excessive sweetness.

I then tried to make an espresso on its own – mostly to avoid the sugar. Even the smallest cup setting made the espresso quite long (about 70-75ml), but the flavour hit all the right notes, characteristic of Costa’s signature Mocha Italia blend. Instead of crema, I got a significant layer of froth here – possibly an effect of the mere 3.3 bar pressure.

I then turned my attention to making a cappuccino. Contrary to the usual order of adding coffee and then milk, a cappuccino here is made in the same order as a latte macchiato. This means it didn’t end up looking that much different from a latte. But the 2cm of froth on top of the cappuccino stayed fluffy for longer, even when swirled.

A Costa gingerbread latte proved to be the greatest success, perhaps indicating that this machine is best for flavoured novelty drinks. While the gingerbread latte milk pods contain sugar as well as syrup, the gingerbread syrup works to mask the sweetened UHT milk, while leaving room for the coffee aromas to come through. Due to the way the syrup is combined in the milk pod, it’s also evenly distributed, with no syrupy surprise at the bottom of the cup (which can, on occasion, happen at an actual Costa).

Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 maintenance – Automatic descale alert and dishwashable parts

A CALC symbol will light up when it’s time to descale your machine. The Brita water filter and its holder will need to be removed from the water tank. To rinse out the machine, the orange cleaning disc should be used – it’s stored in the handy little alcove on the left side of the machine.

The drip tray and the removable parts of the brewing unit are dishwasher-safe, while the cleaning disc, water tank and lid should be rinsed by hand.

The pods can be recycled through Terracycle, but drop-off points are limited.

Should you buy the Bosch Tassimo My Way 2?

If you like sweet milky drinks and convenience, then the Bosch Tassimo My Way 2 will be perfect for you. It can successfully deliver good coffee as well as various other drinks. But if you’d rather steer clear of sugar, you may want look to something like the De’Longhi Nescafé Dolce Gusto Genio S Touch instead. Or, even better, opt for one of our best Nespresso machines, and add real milk into the mix. Otherwise, one of our best coffee machines will give you alternative choices.