Bosch TIU20109 300 Series Fully Automatic Espresso Machine with Milk Express (in-cup frother), OneTouch Milk-based Beverages and 5 Beverage Options, Black

No gimmicks. Just good coffee.
I bought this machine after researching everything from half this price to 3xs the price. This one got the best reviews, and was within the price point we were aiming for. It’s a big leap for us, compared to our coffee pod machine, and entry level espresso machine. After about 3 weeks of regular use, it’s proven itself so farPros:+ it makes good espresso-based drinks – espresso, cappuccino, and machiatto. It’s so good enough that you will taste a difference from coffee pods, or preground drip brewers. It’s not “like” espresso it IS espresso with the coffee pucks, 9 bars of pressure, and everything.+ it’s easy to use and fairly intuitive.+ you can adjust grind size, strength, amount, or even do cold brew.+ it has a self cleaning function that rinses the pipes and hoses everytime it’s turned on or off.+ besides coffee drinks you can also froth milk. It can handle about 3ozs of milk at a time (it swells to about 7ozs). This way you can use the milk froth option to preheat and prep a larger milk drink (say 6-9ozs of milk), stir a bit, then press machiatto or cappuccino and it will add more heat and froth producing a 14-20oz drink.+ the milk frothing wand is easy to clean, it’s attached with magnets so it pops on and off without hassle.+ you’re not paying for any dumb gimmicks or wasted features like a smart phone app, spinning the coffee, or a complicated screen (ie, another thing that can break). The cost goes into making this an easy to use machine that produces great coffee.* it can spoil you if you’re used to preground coffee, pods, or the labor of manual espresso machines. Coffee geeks will still want to enjoy the manual brewing process of chemex, aeropress, rok, flair, kalita, etc. But even for the enthusiasts and purists, sometimes you just want good coffee brewing for you while you’re tidying the kitchen, doing the dishes, or reading the news from a cuneaform scroll (like need is supposed to be read).Cons:- you might think 20 oz hot espresso drinks are normal, so you may be disappointed when this does an ACTUAL normal portion for single-serve coffee drinks (1.5-3oz espresso, 5-7oz Americano called “coffee”). You may have to do 2 or 3 coffee cycles to fill your Stanley cup before yoga class.- it’s not magic, so it doesn’t do ALL it’s own cleaning even if it has a pretty darn good auto-cleaning function.- it can’t fit 16 oz yeti-style tall tumblers. I guess I’ll just have to use short style 16oz tumblers and mugs instead. Oh well.- the water tank is in the back left. It’s awkward to lift out. But this isn’t a real problem since you can just lift the lid and pour directly into it from a cup or pitcher.- it’s noisy, about as noisy as you would expect a coffee grinder to be.- the setup instructions aren’t clear about how to set the water filter (it has 3 settings but there’s no mention of what the 1,2, or 3 signify) or how to use the water softness test. By the time I figured it out, I’d ruined the one test strip that’s included.- it doesn’t have a “hot water” function. That’s probably my only real gripe about the functionality of the machine since everything else is negligible. It would be nice to just squirt some hot water for a cup of tea, or to top off an Americano.Overall, I’m very pleased. I’ve used it at least once a day since we’ve had it. Not one bad cup of coffee yet.

Did not work
I only used it twice and needed to clean the brewing unit. I removed it cleaned it and tried to reinsert it. I lifted the red lock but it would not go back all the way no matter how hard I tried. Therefore I could not close the door because the black part would not line up with the door.Time to return it.