About a month ago, the On Everything household received a free Bosch Tassimo coffee system in the mail.  If you’re not familiar with the product, it’s a coffee machine that will brew a single cup of coffee in about a minute.  It doesn’t take regular coffee, though – this system only works with special coffee pods called “T-Disks,” which run about 75 cents to $1.25 apiece.

A letter accompanying the coffee maker told us that we had been selected to receive the coffee maker completely free of charge because we has previously subscribed to the Gevalia coffee-by-mail service.

Since the machine only works with special T-Disks, Tassimo, owned by Kraft Foods, seems to be giving away the coffee maker for free with the expectation of making money selling overpriced T-Disks.  I don’t know if this mining of the Gevalia customer list is a brilliant marketing ploy or not, but I don’t think they’re going to recoup their costs from my household.

As I’ve previously written, Gevalia coffee is overpriced.  When I called to cancel my membership in Gevalia, I told them that I was quitting because I thought the coffee was overpriced.  Why then do they think that I’ll pony up $1 per cup of coffee, just for the convenience of using a single-serve coffee maker?

I’ll admit, the thing is pretty convenient. You can fill it with water on a Sunday, then make a single cups of coffee all week long without having to refill it.  You simply pop in a T-Disc, hit the brew button, and one minute later, you’ have a nice hot cup of coffee. 

But you’re paying about $1.00 for that 8-oz cup of coffee, as opposed to the 15 cents or so that you’d pay if you had used a regular coffee maker with quality coffee beans.  The extra 85 cents might be worth the convenience to some, but if you drink many cups of coffee per day (like I do) it adds up pretty quickly.

Also of note:  You can get a 20 oz cup of coffee at Starbucks for $2.00.  To make a 20 oz cup of coffee with the Tassimo, you’d need to use (at least) 2 T-Disks, so it’ll cost you about the same or more.

I did do a little searching around for cheaper T-Disks, but didn’t have much luck in finding any. Even those offered for discount on eBay or Amazon carry shipping costs which obliterate any cost savings.  I also ran across a whole community of people who spend time refilling their used T-Disk cartridges, which seems like a lot of work for very little gain.

Tassimo’s target market must be coffee drinkers with disposable income, who live alone, who don’t like dealing with coffee grounds and filters, and who don’t like stopping at a coffee shop each day. That’s not me.  They really whiffed by picking me as their target customer.

All luck to Kraft with their new promotion, I hope it works out.  Like I said, it’s a pretty nifty machine, and I do appreciate the convenience.  But until T-Discs cost about 25 cents apiece or less, this thing is probably just going to collect dust.