Socal Stuff: Reviews by Donna Schwartz Mills

SVMOMSVBITMOMS Quick Look: The Tassimo Home Brewing System

UPDATED March 4, 2010 with NEW information about Recycling Tassimo T-Discs - SEE BELOW

After finishing a long kitchen renovation, I was faced with a new dilemma: What kind of coffeemaker did I want to place on the counter?

In the end, I ended up with the traditional kind that brews your drink by the pot, and overall, I'm happy with my purchase. But I can't help being a little bit seduced by the single-cup machines currently on the market.

And now that I've had a taste of Bosch's Tassimo brewing system, I'm feeling a teeny bit of buyer's remorse.

That baby brews up a fine caffe latte.

This sleek beauty of a machine has the smarts of a professional barista. The Tassimo will make your latte, your husband's decaf drip coffee, your daughter's chai and a hot cocoa for your son; quickly and expertly - with no measuring and no mess to clean up.

All you need to do is pop a pre-measured "T-Disc" cartridge (containing your favorite drink) into the machine and press the button. A barcode on the cartridge tells the Tassimo exactly how much water to use for the drink. If your drink includes steamed milk, the Tassimo knows how to do that, too.

This is not a machine for those on a budget. On the surface, buying your coffee by the T-Disc is a lot more expensive than getting it by the pound at the supermarket. That is, if you make a pot at a time and consume it all, too. There's little to no beverage wasted with these single-serve machines. You can also keep a vast array of choices on hand to please every taste in your family. So I could see where someone might want a machine that brews a pot for a dinner party... while simultaneously keeping a Tassimo in the kitchen for personal use.

That someone would have more disposable income than I.

However, I do have concerns about the environmental impact of single-serve packaging, and judging from these comments on Tassimo's own community site, I'm not alone. At this time, it looks like recycling the packaging is kind of hit and miss, depending upon where you live. I am hopeful that as the single-serve machines gain in popularity, there will be recycling programs like the ones the big office supply chains offer for ink cartridges. This is the kind of thing that might point me in the direction of single-serve the next time I'm in the market for a new coffee maker.

In the meantime, I can sit back and admire.

UPDATE: I heard back today from Heather Gordon, who represents Tassimo's parent company, Bosch:

I noticed your concern about recycling the packaging. In fact, we did some research and found out that if you remove the tinfoil cover and the left over coffee grounds (makes great compost material), tea leaves or milk, you can recycle the plastic container with your recyclable plastics. This question actually came up a few times while at the event, so I’m glad that we were able to find the answer.

That's good to know and I'll keep it in mind the next time I'm shopping for a coffeemaker.

DISCLOSURE: I was not paid to write this post, nor were any promises made to write this. This post is based upon my observations of a product that was displayed at a mom blogger marketing event and reflects my own opinions, based upon a brief demonstration. I was not given any product samples but did receive a sample beverage and promotional travel mug.

We Begin by Going Down the Toilet

Welcome to Socal Stuff, my new resource for products and services I'd like to share with my friends (for better or for worse).

Those who know me best have heard me say that Life is Too Short for Housework. I like living in a clean house -- I would just prefer it if someone else was doing the cleaning. My biggest goal in life is to win a hundred kajillion dollars in the lottery -- or at least begin earning enough -- so I can hire a housekeeper.

In the meantime, I do whatever I can to minimize the pain -- mainly by purchasing just about every cleaning product in the supermarket. I've got stuff that promises to make it easy to clean the the kitchen counter, kitchen sink, stainless steel appliances, tile floors, wood floors, carpets, windows, bathrooms... You know, I'm proud of the fact that I don't buy a lot of beauty creams and lotions that promise to rid you of wrinkles, because I realize they are all fraudulent. But if a cleaning product claims that it will do the job without any elbow grease on my part, I lap it up. Every time. 

A few years ago, everyone was putting out new tools with disposable pre-filled cleaning pads, and I must have invested in every one. Most worked OK. Some, like the "Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner," worked well for a while and then broke.

And then there was the Lysol Ready Bowl Toilet Cleaner, which was a canister full of cleaner that snapped into the brush handle, allowing you to press a button, squirt the cleaner, and brush everything away. It was neat. You could accomplish everything in one step. And to my horror, I discovered last week that refills for the thing are no longer available.

Which is how I ended up back in the household cleaner aisle last week. My sister and her family were coming to stay with me, and since I don't want to gross them all out, I wanted something heavy duty for the bathrooms, something that would be at least as easy as my beloved Lysol product with the canister in the handle. I was about to settle for an old fashioned squeeze bottle of stuff, when I found this:

Kaboom Bowl Blaster Foaming Toilet Cleaner, which claims to clean, freshen and deodorize, even under the rim - WITHOUT "hard scrubbing." You fill the cap with the magic powder, it fills the bowl with foam, and five minutes later, you flush out all the icky stuff. What could be easier? That is, if it worked.

So I gave it a try last week. I DID have to scrub, but not hard, so I suppose there is truth in advertising there. And they suggest that by using the stuff on a weekly basis, you may get by without scrubbing at all. I just gave my toilets their second application, and I'm afraid I did have to do a little scrubbing... but it was easy.

The only thing I don't like about this product is that it's hard not to breathe in the powder when you pour it into the cap, and it makes me cough and I wonder -- if it's that strong -- what that might be doing to my lungs, not to mention the environment.

I am going to continue using it -- at least, until I've finished my container of the stuff. And in the meantime, I'm going to keep scouring those supermarket cleaning aisles for something that will work even better -- because that's easier than scouring my toilet, or any other bathroom fixture.