This Automatic Espresso Machine Changed My Mornings. It’s Down $600 for Black Friday

I’m often hosting friends and family. As a home and kitchen editor, you can imagine there are nifty gadgets throughout my place, but none gets more attention than my coffee system. 

The TK-02 is like having a premium coffee shop in my kitchen, but there’s never a line and I get to control every nuance of my morning latte, cappuccino or flat white. 

The fully automatic TK-02 features a built-in frother, allowing you to create a range of coffee drinks or simple espresso shots with the push of a button. It grinds fresh beans to order, dropping them down from a built-in hopper. It’s also easy to use — perfect for guests — and has a sleek, expensive look. And that’s because it is expensive.

There’s an argument to be made for the premium coffee system at its normal price of $2,000, but it’s currently $600 off, bringing it down to $1,395 for the bundle that includes a bean subscription or $1,495 for the machine alone.

What the TK-02 does

The TK-02 is an all-in-one automatic coffee maker, espresso machine and live-in barista (basically) that grinds beans and brews fresh coffee in seconds using filtered water. The TK-02 taps its in-machine frother to bring frothy cow’s milk or nut milk into the mix for Italian coffeehouse drinks.

And it makes just about every coffee drink you can dream up. The sleek machine brews shots of espresso, iced coffee and smooth Americanos, along with foamier coffee drinks, including lattes, flat whites, macchiatos and cappuccinos. If you prefer classic American drip coffee, it brews a piping-hot cup in about two minutes. And if you or a guest drinks tea, it’ll fill up a cup with hot filtered water using a dedicated spout. 

It’s easy to operate — like, really easy

That phrase is often bandied about, but the TK-02 truly earns this compliment. I found the digital controls perfectly intuitive with no excessive settings or features, and the navigation is clear and to the point — exactly what you want in the morning. I never consulted the manual, which is certainly not the case for every coffee maker I’ve tested.

In addition to brewing your coffee, the built-in computer helps manage settings, including grind size and the amount of coffee the machine dispenses when you request a drip. If you want your lattes stronger, simply adjust the espresso-to-milk ratio and save the new settings. 

There’s an app (of course) for brewing coffee remotely from bed. I didn’t find myself using the app for making coffee but occasionally for managing the brew settings, grind size and perusing cleaning supplies and replacement filters. 

It’s cleaner than most coffee makers

The day-to-day maintenance is significantly less than that of a manual espresso machine or even most drip coffee makers. The TK-02 performs an automatic hot rinse after you’ve made your morning coffees and alerts you when the machine is due for a more comprehensive cleaning or an even more serious descaling, both of which are also done automatically. You can easily check the cleaning schedule to see how close or far the next one is and order the necessary materials from TK-02 or elsewhere.

The individual parts are dishwasher safe except for the top portion of the frother chamber, which houses the milk tube. However, the frother develops its own hot flush after every few uses, and mine has remained clean for several months since I’ve been using it. 

All coffee machines suffer splashes and stray piles of grinds, but I don’t find that the TK-02 makes a noticeably big mess. When there was visible schmutz, it was no trouble to take the parts out and reassemble them after rinsing in the sink or running through the dishwasher. 

Most impressive of all? The size

Perhaps most impressive is how the folks at Terra Kaffe managed to stuff all of those coffee-making smarts into such a compact machine (17.5x10x14 inches). Similar products I’ve encountered, mostly at the aforementioned fancy restaurant breakfast bars, are double or triple the size. Even an average espresso machine is the same size or larger.

Is the TK-02 coffee maker worth it?

Making coffee in a drip machine is simple enough, and most quality espresso makers are easy to operate, but having one machine that turns out drip coffee, creamy shots of espresso, lattes and hot water for tea with the press of a button is the dream. 

The TK-02 made quick work of turning me into a devotee. Even so, it’s tough to recommend it at the sticker price of $2,000. 

At $1,395, where it currently sits for Black Friday, the TK-02 is easier to endorse and a splurge I’d make for myself or as a gift for a coffee-loving person who has been particularly good this year. And it is a splurge. Even on sale, this is by no means a budget buy and doesn’t purport to be.

While I wouldn’t put the machine’s output against the best coffee drinks I’ve had — the foam, for instance, doesn’t get quite as dense as the stuff frothed by hand — most of what it made was close, certainly better than what I could whip up, especially when in a hurry and uninterested in dosing espresso shots or taking the time to whip milk into a lather.