Bosch Benvenuto B30 Digital Fully Automatic Espresso and Coffee Center  Product Reviews

"A truly wonderful coffee maker. But $1,200 (what we paid)for a "coffee pot???" Is it worth it? It depends. If you are a "StarBucks regular," like we were, then the answer's a resounding yes. We've had our B30 for 13 months. Figuring $5 a day if we'd done our usual daily "StarBucks stop," our B30 paid for itself in nine months Now, we're actually saving $ with it! (-: For me, coffee is coffee; I drink it to wake up. But my wife is really into it and she thinks a brew from the B30 equals anything she's had in Italy. It's really difficult to think of it being any easier. I get up and it's already turned on. I flip the switch to "double XXL coffee" and push a button. Beans are measured and ground, pressurised hot water courses through the grinds and into my cup, grounds are dumped into an internal container and it's ready to go again. I switch to "double expresso" and press the button again. That whole process takes less than 1 1/2 minutes! It tells you when to add water, when to empty the tray containing grounds, when to change the filter and when to clean it. What??? For 1,200 bucks you have to CLEAN "the pot?" Yup. You drop a cleaning tablet into a port and push a button. (-: I can't begin to tell you how much easier this machine has made our morning. Plus, I now add an extra $140 a month towards our trip to Spain next summer!"

"The Bosch is a great machine - I owned a Jura F7 for about 18 months and finally returned it to Sur La Table (great return policy at Sur La Table by the way). The Jura was absolutely acceptable when it worked, but I think we killed it when my wife switched to decaf and started using the bypass chute every day. It started showing error messages and would refuse to work from time to time. I finally got fed up when some beans got stuck in the grinder chute and would not budge! So back it went. ANyway, I found this machine and it has a very similar style to the Jura-Capressos (internal mechanism, same steam wand, etc.), but it makes WAY better espresso than the Juras. It is consistently stronger and richer than the Jura. SOmetimes in the Jura I would feel the need for two shots just to taste the coffee through the milk in my capuccinos. In the Bosch, one shot'll do you. I never knew what I was missing with the Jura. I also tried the Saeco Incanto Sirius which I really liked as well, except that it made crappy soap bubble foam (why do people put up with that? have you never had good dense microfoam??). Unlike the Jura (and now the Bosch) the Steam Wand on the Saeco was not at all modifiable. See my Jura F7 review for the modification to the Jura and the Bosch to create a traditional single hole steam wand. No big deal - basically it involves screwing a Krups tip on the existing wand. Righty tighty, lefty loosey is all you need to know. Learn to use a traditional steam wand and you will NEVER be satisfied again with the crap foam that is created by any of these so called "frother aids." By the way the steam pressure on the Bosch is much stronger than the JUra - almost hard to control, but once you get the hang of it, you will be making capuccinos like an Italian barista, only without the tamper, dregs box and mess. The only things keeping this from 5 stars are: 1) poor foam out of the box (but that applies to ALL super automatics), 2) first shot is always bad and way too cool - easily solved by running a rinse first (which is not as simple as the Jura since there is no rinse button - have to trick it into thinking you put grounds in the bypass chute), and 3) when you ask for a double, it just doubles the water - same as the Jura. Some of the Italian machines (like Saeco) actually brew two shots in succession (but as I noted above - generally one long shot is sufficient.) By the way, bought it at Costco Online for about $1150. Costco is the way to go for so many reasons."

"I had several expresso machines of different degrees of auto functions. This provides what you need: the amount of coffe you want, how strong do you want it, the type of grind you want. You have the options of using full beans or grinded coffee that can act as a secondary coffee bin ready to use if you don't want what you have in the whole beans. It then provides manual options as you may need. It actually tells you on the LED when needs water or coffe or cleaning, and when you should change the water filter. I did not give it a 5 because of the steam, the steam produces good steam and also froth but the mechanism to change from steam to froth and to turn off was not practical for me. Another good point in its favor is that it has a very good customer service, that actually you can call! and they answer on the spot....!Overall, it is a very good auto expresso machine."

"I researched the usual suspects from SEACO - BOSCH and some others that escape me a the moment. I decided on the B30 because it received a glowing review here & I found a great price and it seemed to have everything I was looking for. First and most importantly it makes a great cup of coffee! And I like the easy to use controls, which are much easier to set type and size of coffee/espresso, etc. compared to some other systems. Its relatively easy to fill the H2O, and the beans. It works great with even the most oily beans, such as KILLER BEANS. Some other units I've seen have problems with oily beans. I haven't had any thus far after 100 cups. Items that need some work: 1. The clock does not survive even a small power outage, so every time you lose power or unplug the unit the current time is lost and therefore the on-time will not function. IMO in a unit that cost $975.00 this shouldn't be. 2. The bean container isn't removable. Makes it nearly impossible to change beans. 3. The hot H2O dispenser spits water and splashes very hot water onto your hand. They even include a warning tag with the unit. It would be nice it they just fixed the problem instead of warning you. 4. The unit doesn't warn you that the puck container or the tray that the dirty water flows into needs emptied, again SEACO units have this feature and this unit IMO should also at this price point. 5. Contrary to the other reviewers opinion, I think the coffee could be hotter, even at the maximum setting, once you add a little cream, its certainly not pipping hot. So all-in-all I am happy with the unit, however the deficiencies shown above kept me from giving the unit a 5 star rating. "