The Terra Kaffe TK-02 superautomatice espresso machine is a hotly anticipated machine in the coffee community. The TK-01 was seen as a slick, innovative new take on superautomatics. We put the TK-02 through its paces and have our thoughts to share!
Design
The design of the TK-02 is very striking. With straight lines and 90 degree angles this machine has a commanding presence on the countertop. We like the monolithic appearance of this machine and appreciate its minimalist design. This extends to the way the touch screen blends in with the face of the machine, and even when on it provides that same minimalism in its focused layout and lack of extra flair. This contrasts with some other machine touchscreens, which can be a little busy with icons and extra flash. Instead, the TK-02’s interface features white on black text and bold fonts to guide you through its menus.
The one bit of design that we’re not huge fans of is the connection between the milk carafe’s hose and the machine. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it is a little hard to find the connection point as it is under the brew unit area rather than on the side of it. This helps preserve the smooth lines of the machine, but can make it tricky to connect the hose. That minor caveat aside, we really like how this machine looks and feels to use.
Features and Performance
Let’s be honest, it’s hard to innovate in the superautomatic espresso machine space. There are so many options out there and only so many ways to brew coffee and steam milk. With that in mind, the Terra Kaffe’s main differentiator is its mechanical grinder, which is rare to find. This machine can actually adjust its grinder to different settings for different drinks. While there might not be a huge use case for this for espresso (though it is nifty), this does have a great effect on the machine’s ability to brew “drip” coffee.
Most superautos brew an approximation of drip coffee by pulling more water through the same dose and grind setting that you’d get for a shot of espresso. While this lungo style shot is common in Italian cafes and a perfectly delicious way to enjoy your morning cup, it’s not that close to the flavor of a drip brew. The TK-02 can actually adjust its grinder to a coarser setting and use reduced brew pressure to get much closer to a drip cup, then seamlessly adjust back to an espresso grind size for a latte. This makes it a fantastic machine for couples or roommates who like different styles of coffee but want to get it all from the same machine.
The milk system works well too, though it is not leaps and bounds ahead of competitors. Carafe and siphon style systems like this have really become the gold standard for milk steaming on superautomatic machines, and the results are solid here with the Terra Kaffe. There are some light frustrations that this style of milk system creates that we’ll touch on in the next section.
The thing tying all of these features together is its touch screen menu system, which we feel offers just the right amount of granularity. Using this interface you can control things like dose and volume, along with other parameters, with more specificity than you might get with other machines. An optional smartphone app opens up these controls on your phone, and provides additional recipe saving, so multiple members of the household can save their latte or drip recipe how they like it. It’s worth noting that this app is entirely optional, the only feature on it aside from recipe saving that we think is a must have is the auto-on functionality, but you can live without that too if needed.
Maintenance and Critiques
The biggest thorn in the Terra Kaffe TK-02’s side is its startup time. It takes about 5 minutes for the machine to heat after turning on, which is far from some semi-automatic machines, but a fair bit longer than many of its superautomatic competitors. You can offset this with the auto-on programming available in the app, eliminating the issue if you have a consistent morning routine. You can also just work flipping it on a few minutes earlier into the way you start the day.
The other small frustration we noticed with the TK-02 is one common to superautomatics that use a carafe and siphon milk system, and that’s cleaning the hose. While the machine does have a rinse program you can run, it doesn’t always fully remove leftover milk like we’d like it to. This means that you’ll probably want to rinse the hose manually or at least run a few cycles of the system flush after you’re done brewing your morning latte. This is a common thing for machines of this type, so it’s not a specific issue with the TK-02, it’s just a little more annoying to manage than the simple purge and wipe that you get with traditional steam wands.
Otherwise, this machine is easy to clean and maintain, with helpful cleaning programs and easy to understand maintenance cycles common to many of its competitors. When paired with a solid workflow and great performance its easy for us to recommend this machine.
Who is it For?
The Terra Kaffe TK-02 fits for a wide range of coffee drinkers, but we think it’ll be especially valued by those who like more clear granular control over their drinks. With more specificity than you get from some machines, you’ll feel more in control of brew processes, and more able to dial a drink in and let it go. This will be less enticing to people who just want to hit a button and go, though the default settings here are, of course, already solid as well.
If you want to see this machine in action and hear more thoughts about it you can check out the video below, and we’d love to hear what you think of this machine in the comments here on this article.