The specialty coffee movement, fueled by successive waves that claim it as a quality product, has also revolutionized the market for domestic coffee makers. Faced with the trend of manual methods, automatic machines are advertised as the best system to be your own barista, dealing with a small stumbling block: not every coffee lover knows how to make it right or has time for it.
Thus, while there are manufacturers that bet on ultra-specialized coffee machines aimed at the more specialist public, other companies target a different consumer. It happens the same way in the kitchen, because one can be a demanding gastronomic critic and have no idea how to prepare that dish that he does not forgive a mistake.
The Melitta Group, a historic German family-owned company founded in 1908, is aimed at that coffee fan who knows how to appreciate the quality of a good coffee and who has enough knowledge to know the details of his perfect drink, but does not want to complicate preparing it. at home. Coffeemaker Melitta Barista TS Smart It is thus placed in the group of the most advanced, multifunctional and with smart technology, to offer a perfect coffee taken care of down to the smallest detail, in the easiest way.
Contents of the box and general characteristics
As expected, this machine requires a good hole in the kitchen where it can be installed permanently, although it is not as bulky as others on the market. The box weighs its own, but make good use of packaging to save as much as possible on dimensions and avoid damage in transport; it is only somewhat cumbersome to remove the heavy machine that is stored under pressure between plastics and polystyrene.
Once unpacked, the Melitta Barista has dimensions of 37.2 x 25.9 x 46.7 cm and weighs, empty, about 10.6 kg. The box includes the following and accessories:
- Four cleaning tablets Perfect Clean.
- A milk cleanser Perfect Clean.
- A water filter Melitta Pro Aqua.
- Water hardness test strip.
- Instruction manual in many languages, including Spanish.
- External milk preparation system (thermos, stainless steel).
- Connecting tube of the milk preparation system.
- Hard plastic measuring pot for ground coffee.
Anyone who has tried a super-automatic coffee maker will be well acquainted with the operating system of this machine. Its design is very elegant and compact, clearly seeking to optimize the size to the maximum, without protruding parts, beyond the milk accessory, which is not always used. But that will not free us from having to have space around for the processes of filling and cleaning the tanks.
With a two-year warranty, it is manufactured in stainless steel and plastic high quality, with a glossy black front where the control panel is located, touch, without buttons or wheels, with a backlit digital display that shows the menu and the different options, as well as the progress of preparation of the drinks. The conical grinder is made of steel, and has five adjustable grinding levels.
The coffee grounds are extracted by pulling the lower front, where the drip tray is also located; the water tank is filled from the side, and the coffee tank has an opening at the top, with two separate spaces, plus a third tank for already ground coffee. This allows play with three types of grinding at the same time or different coffees, a selection that the machine makes automatically, but that can also be chosen manually.
Technical specifications
COFFEE TANK CAPACITY | 270 g (2×135 g) |
WATER TANK CAPACITY | 1.8 liters |
MILK TANK CAPACITY | 1 liter |
DIMENSIONS | 372 x 259 x 467 mm |
WEIGHT | AC. 10.6 kg |
POWER | 1450 W (maximum power) |
PRESSURE | 15 bar |
MATERIALS | Stainless steel and plastic |
GRINDING ADJUSTMENT | 5 adjustable grinding levels |
AUTOMATIC PROGRAMS | 21 adjustable presets |
Melitta Barista TS Smart 860-100 Automatic coffee machine, 1450 W, 1.8 liters, Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
Start-up and use at home
We said that the use of the Melitta Barista TS Smart coffee machine is very intuitive, although it should be specified that it will be more comfortable for those who do not seek to complicate too much life adjusting the parameters of each recipe.
It is not a machine designed for those who want to control every detail with the utmost precision -for that there are other coffee machines-, but it does leave room for play and customize issues such as grinding, coffee strength, temperature or volume of water or milk.
The most comfortable thing is to use the fast drinks displayed on the front touch panel: espresso, cappuccino, latte macchiato, hot milk, café crème (a kind of cut) and hot water. By simply pressing each icon you can directly enjoy the drink with the automatic parameters, without further ado.
The selected drink appears on the screen and it also allows you to adjust the volume of the drink (longer or shorter) and the intensity (using more or less coffee) on the fly. For navigate the menu It costs a bit more to become familiar with the pulsation system or to find each option, as it is much easier to customize the recipes from the application; for something this coffee maker is promoted as smart.
As for the preparation and results of the coffee, it is a good machine, powerful and fast. It heats up in a very short time and, although it makes noise – logically, since it has to grind the coffee – it is true that it is more silent than others on the market, something the brand has a lot to do with. It makes more noise when the systems are activated. Self-cleaning, since steam and water pass at high pressure through the ducts.
The preparation of drinks with milk is very simple and works very well. That the thermos is external has its advantages and disadvantages; On the one hand, it allows you to store the drink – animal or vegetable milk – in the fridge, and it can be placed for its preparation on either side of the machine, but on the other hand it can be somewhat cumbersome to have to connect and disconnect the jug and tube each time. It is important keep ducts clean after each use, or the remains of dried milk can be very difficult to remove afterwards.
We will really get the most out of the machine when we download the app Melitta Connect, which requires a Bluetooth connection with our smartphone. Although as a slap on the wrist for the company it should be noted that the version in Spanish is not available. A detail that subtracts points.
As for the design of the application there are not many drawbacks; it connects easily with the coffee machine and the navigation menu is much simpler, faster and more visual than on the machine screen. We see now suddenly the whole range of recipes preconfigured (up to a total of 21) and the option to create up to eight user profiles, so that each person can configure their recipes and save them to their liking.
It is almost addictive play with the phone screen modifying parameters and seeing how the coffee maker receives the order making the drink as we have told you; Of course, it is up to us to keep the tanks full, clean, and with the milk accessory connected, if applicable.
Conclusions
The Melitta Barista TS Smart coffee machine is a machine that gives what it promises and it more than meets the expectations of a super-automatic coffee maker in this range. The problem when recommending it is its high price, which we can only justify if we are really interested take advantage of all the features and connectivity with the app.
It is a perfect machine for those looking for a quality coffee premium with “barista” results at home, but what don’t have time to measure quantities, grind the coffee or complicate calculating extraction times, degrees of grinding or temperature. The level of customization of the drinks is more than enough to configure our favorite recipes to taste, and the results are excellent.
The biggest toll you have to pay is getting used to maintaining a good routine maintenance. With the self-cleaning of the machine, the water wears off quickly, and the drip tray must be emptied often. It is easier to always place a glass under the spout to collect that cleaning water – a very practical homemade trick.
With this coffee maker we achieve well-prepared and tasty Italian-style coffees, with a good cream in espresso and a silky and dense milk foam in dairy preparations. Are too many 21 automatic recipes? Probably yes, because at the end of the day it is normal for us to always repeat the two or three most classic drinks.
If you are only looking for an automatic machine to prepare daily coffee without many pretensions, there is no doubt that there are much more modest but compliant models on the market. But tech lover Who wants to show off with creamy cappuccinos and colorful lattes, will know how to take advantage of this coffee maker.
Some of the links posted here are from affiliates. Despite this, none of the articles mentioned have been proposed either by the brands or by the stores, their introduction being a unique decision of the team of editors.
Directly to the Palate | We tested the Sage Oracle Touch, the Ferrari of domestic coffee makers (which costs 2,500 euros)
Directly to the Palate | Manual espresso machines: which one is better to buy? Tips and Recommendations