This is the Rocket Appartamento TCA or Temperature Control Adjustment. It’s a new iteration of the Appartamento with some added features, a sleek new design language, but with a roughly 15% higher price tag.
So is it worth it, are these new features a worthy improvement, and should you get this machine? That’s what I’m hoping to help you figure out in this video.
For some disclaimers, this unit was sent to me by Cliff and Pebble for review who have been a great ongoing supporter of my channel and they stock some of the best coffee machines, grinders, and accessories. They don’t get to see this review before it goes live, and all thoughts and opinions, good or bad, remain my own.
In this video I’m going to go through the build quality, workflow, performance, quirks and cons, comparison to the original Appartamento, and finally, whether or not it’s worth it. I’ll include timestamps in the description down below as well as links to any gear I’ve featured in this video that you might be interested in.
BUILD QUALITY
The Appartamento TCA has a very similar footprint to the original Appartamento. The TCA measures about 11 inches wide, 18 inches deep, and 14 inches tall.
The overall build feels about the same in terms of quality, which is good. I’ve had no complaints with the original Appartamento and the one I’ve been using at work has really had no major issues after almost 2 years.
Still mostly steel components which is great to see, with a redesigned housing with added detail that really help this machine look more modern. I’m personally a fan of the rounded design and the new integrated cup rail.
Speaking of the cup rail, when I first received the machine it was protruding slightly higher on one side so I thought I could simply snap it downwards to fix it.
NOPE - I had to open up the entire housing just to get this plastic piece to sit flush again where it should. It was difficult and quite frankly a horrible way to integrate a cup rail.
Still better than the one on the original Appartamento which as you can see here has completely fallen apart over time from being brittle, thin, cheap plastic. But still dumb.
I think they should have designed a silicone piece that sits over the entire edge of the machine, rather than make it out of plastic. It would look good still, and be super easy to remove and slap back on if needed for cleaning.
The E61 group head here while functionality remaining the same does have a nice cosmetic redesign with a modern angled look. The knobs have also been redesigned and while look nice, unfortunately are made of plastic.
I think they could have integrated a soft touch sort of material here which would have really given this a more premium feel.
The drip tray itself has also been ever so slightly redesigned and on testing the compatibility, neither drip tray is interchangeable with the old to new machines, however functionally remain identical.
Apart from those primary changes, this is largely still the same Rocket Appartamento with the signature dot pattern sides with a few new nice touches.
NEW FEATURES
The TCA has some new welcomed features which is primarily what sets this machine apart from the original. The first being the ability to adjust boiler pressure between 0.9 to 1.2 bars. And this may not sound like much but on a heat exchanger machine, this changes the actual brewing temperature, resulting in up to 4 sort of predetermined settings you can choose from.
The second feature is the ability to enable or disable an ECO mode which basically shuts off the boiler after 30 minutes with no ability to adjust the time.
And at this point you might be wondering, how do you actually make these changes? There are no physical buttons, screens, or dials here for that.
And that’s because they’ve implemented a method of adjusting these features I’ve not seen before, and also find it frustrating to use, using a combination of LED flashes and the lever.
Yep - you need to pay attention to the manual here, looking at the color of the LED that flashes, the number of times it flashes, and count seconds in between raising and lowering the lever, all to get to one of four predetermined settings for the brew pressure or swapping between eco mode on and off.
I really, really wish they had implemented some kind of button or switch system, maybe hidden underneath the drip tray just like on the Profitec Pro 800.
But the good thing is, I think most people using this machine would likely set it once and forget it as opposed to changing it up for every other type of bean they want to run through this machine.
PERFORMANCE
This is a good, simple E61 heat exchanger espresso machine that no longer requires temperature surfing, pulling great traditional 9-bar style shots of espresso, and that is the best way to summarize the performance of this machine.
Leaving the machine on for a more extended time period no longer overheats with the gurgling sound you hear on the original Appartamento, and temps have been consistent.
I’ve had good experience making up to 3 or so back to back drinks without issues and the pressure holding steady. Now obviously I wouldn’t use this in any sort of commercial or high volume environment, but given how the original Appartamento is used in an office environment with about 4 daily users throughout an 8 hour day, I don’t foresee this one having issues.
Combined with a good grinder and you’ve got a great looking setup that’s going to give you some very tasty espresso over time.
It’s a solid heat exchanger e61 espresso machine, but with competition from machines like the Lelit Mara X or Profitec Pro 400, it’s hard to recommend this machine versus a lot of the counterparts in a similar or even lower price range. You’re definitely paying a premium for that Rocket Espresso aesthetic and design if you like that.
So that’s going to be my thoughts on the new Rocket Appartamento TCA - as always if you enjoyed, drop a like, subscribe if you haven’t already and I’ll see you in the next one.
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