We’ve been thinking for a while about getting a coffee machine for home. We’ve been using a French press for years.
Lately I’ve been hearing about this amazing new device called a Nespresso. They seem to be everywhere, and people who have one rave about it.
We saw lots of them when we were travelling last year, and we talked about getting one. I liked the idea of homemade espresso with very little mess / fuss. I wasn’t 100% convinced though – they seem to produce a lot of waste in the form of little aluminium pods. And you can’t choose your own beans. Then I tried a cup at a client’s office the other day, and it was pretty nice coffee. I asked around and the evangelists had me sold. I was ready to go out and buy one.
But before I did (still nagging doubts about those pods), I asked Facebook to tell me what they thought.
A very interesting debate ensued. On the one hand, people said:
I’ve had one for 2 years, Nespresso pods are good but now I use supermarket ones for half the price I love it, totally different taste to plunger, still take a bit to get the quantities right, milk, water, pod strength but you can get a good proper coffee machine taste, never the best but good, as for waste – the plastic I use in 2 weeks would be less than one plastic meat tray, and the aluminium ones are recyclable.
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Yes for sure – and I said no to a coffee machine for years. Had one for a year now and wouldn’t go back.
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It’s great. Easy to use, great selection of tastes, and the milk thingy always makes your coffee look cool.
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George Clooney
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They give you a card at the shop with a chip in it and when you go to the shop you are auto logged and they greet you…by name. So register your name as Mr Clooney….for shits and gigs
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But George Clooney…
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We’ve had one for about 4 years and couldn’t live without it. I personally think the coffee tastes great but our machine (Maestria) does allow for you to adjust more than the basic machine and we do run more water through each capsule to extract more coffee. The pods are recyclable in Chch in the standard recycling but if you want to make sure you can now drop them off at the Nespresso Boutique in Ballantynes at the proper recycle station. Supposedly they are infinitely recyclable. We recently tried another Eco-brand of some sort but it didn’t cut the mustard flavour wise.
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Love ours! Our one you steam your own milk too, which gives you part of that satisfaction of putting a little effort into your coffee, but sans mess!
It was pretty convincing stuff. No mess, and George Clooney!
But then…other people gave me pause for thought…
A very clever marketing campaign backed up by great service to make you feel part of an exclusive club, while you drink weak, overpriced coffee and damage the environment, despite the well-intentioned recycling programme.
Capsules are expensive and only available in their “boutiques” (far and few between) and online. The only good, strong Nespresso I’ve had was when I used 2 pods in one cup – making it even more expensive. Not to mention that Nespresso is from Nestle – one of more evil multi-national corporations which should be boycotted (a company with a CEO who doesn’t believe that water is a basic human right, a company that used child labour in Africa on cocoa plantations until 2005 and of course aggressively pushed formula in Africa for years resulting in an unnecessarily high infant mortality rate.)
Back to coffee, we have had a Breville Fresca for the past 4 years, which has a built-in grinder. We love it. I don’t buy takeaway coffee anymore, ever. I also like that I can buy whichever beans I choose – fair trade, organic etc.
Hmmm, I have purposefully boycotted Nestle all of my adult life…
Drinking coffee is not just about ‘getting your fix asap’. If you buy a proper espresso machine you’ll experience the joy of making a good coffee yourself. You can learn, experiment, refine your skills and it only takes a little bit longer. You can make the coffee just the way you like it best… not how Mr. Nespresso thinks you should drink your coffee.
Plus if you multi task, you can make a coffee while having a meaningful conversation with somebody who really knows your name and who is really interested in you and not just in your wallet. You don’t have to suffer through all the fake marketing bullshit so you feel ‘special’… together with the millions of other Nespresso drinkers all over the world.
And as a bonus your soul doesn’t die a little every time you drink a ‘soy vanilla caramel late with rose sprinkles on top’ because you’re not putting another ‘pod’ in the ground. That alone has got to be worth something.
So yeah… do you follow the crowd… or do you drink coffee?
Yeah, family coffee-making and meaningful conversations, I like!
Espresso machine is a much better option in my opinion. Much more control, can support local roasters.
Local roasters!
These were also convincing arguments. The two sides of the debate perfectly summarise my take on this – I like the idea of the easiness and no-mess-ness of the pods, but like the idea of making my own coffee using non-evil corporation products.
Reviewing the arguments carefully, I noted that the ‘for’ arguments all focus on the convenience of the pods, and the ‘against’ on the value of brewing your own coffee using beans of your choosing.
So I started my research again, this time including espresso machines in the mix. I had thought (wrongly) that these machines would be out of our price range (i.e. several thousand dollars). What my research showed was that there are lots of semi- and fully-automatic coffee machines in the $500-$1000 range – about the same as the Nespresso.
I showed my research to Stephen and we narrowed the options – don’t want a milk container attached, do want to be able to make steamed milk, don’t want a portafilter, do want to be able to use beans or ground coffee, do want a decent sized water container.
And so we found this little beauty.
And it is magnifica! It is exactly what we we wanted. It makes a great brew using any beans we choose, we can select different strengths, make two coffees at once, make short or long blacks, and steam milk, and it is no-mess. And for $1000 it includes a four-year service warranty.
I’ve been slightly over-caffeinated since we got it…
The Secret Life of Bebe 