[Closed] Coffee again, are pod machines any good?

we have a Nescafe Dulce Gusto one - can get them for about £60 ish on Amazon. Pods are in most supermarkets and not too pricey. I think they taste great and every bit as good as pal's fancy £300 bean to cup job

Good for convenience, good for........ er........convenience..... Quick and easy to use....... er.......

I second the dolce gusto machines. It can get price for the pods, but cheaper than buying out.

Bought a senseo a few years ago for £20. it was ok for a while, but the pods aren't cheap and the coffee ain't great.

Its not much better than some of the instants and not as nice a stovetop so its now in the cupboard.

midlifecrashes - we've been using a Nespresso for 5 years - highly recommend it

I've got a Dolce Gusto which I like but I am no coffee geek. You can get the pods very cheaply on eBay.

Really rate our Nespresso.

+1 For Nespresso

Trail centres - no choice other than what is manufactured.

A nice extra bit of waste provided each time you make a coffee as well with that stupid little pod. Waste you don't have with a non-pod machine.

Who are you calling a stupid little pod? I reckon they taste nice, not like that stove top muck. Me mam has one and reckons you can get pods in aldi/lidl for loads cheaper than other supermarkets. Nowt wrang with that.

Nowt wrang with that.

Yay. Cheaper waste. Woo.

Cheers all, I'll have a look at the Nespresso gadgets too now. As for the waste, as the only coffee drinker in the house I throw away filter papers, and quite often ground coffee after it's been open too long and gone stale. Pods might reduce waste for me.

My Fianceé bought me a Tassimo machine last year for xmas. Its Brilliant! They're so easy to use and maintain and the coffee is pretty damn good. All major supermarkets carry the Tassimo pods, and if your picky, the online range is huge.

When I asked her why she chose the Tassimo over the rest of the pod machines, she said it was simply because she knows I highly rate Bosch stuff, and they manufacture the machine. Good Girl! 🙂

I have a Nespresso and I reckon the coffee is perfectly acceptable. Maybe if you're a true afficionado you will miss the 'experience' of making your own, but I think it makes a decent cup of coffee every time for little fuss.

Yes there is a bit of waste but Nespresso now recycle their used capsules, so it's not total discard.

i'm a coffee snob, but...

would rather have a pod espresso than one from an expensive machine/grinder combo where the 'operator' has no idea how to use it properly and/or they are using cheap/stale beans. so that's about 80% of cafe's and restaurants.
the pod machines offer guaranteed consistency, the coffee is always going to be acceptable.
would never buy one myself as the pods are way overpriced compared to high quality fresh beans from an artisan roaster (hasbean/monmouth etc), but i'm not going to turn down a coffee from one if offered.

no idea which system is best but the 'top hat' ones seemed o.k. to me.

Not a hope in hell's chance of a decent cuppa out of a Senseo. I got one, the first with a few settings rather than press one button. Of all the combinations, only one comes even close to remotely acceptable. The rest taste like dishwater.
Only way I can get something acceptable from it is to use the double dose pod holder, with a plastic refillable pod, filled with decent coffee. Which basically renders it less convenient than any cheap loose coffee coffee machine.
It will go in the skip and be replaced with a proper machine when I get round to it.

Yay. Cheaper waste. Woo.

And here we have STW's very own Captain Planet.

I got a Nespresso Pixie the other week with the aeroccino doodad and it seems OK. Great for when I get up in the morning to press a button while I'm getting my SPDs on and have an espresso just before I head out the door.

I'm still trying to get a taste for the different pods though. And I've also ordered a coffeeduck to see if I can make a decent cup out of shop-bought espresso grind and my own beans.

My Mum [b]has[/b] and my sister [b]had[/b] a Senseo.

I agree with the dishwater type comments. Need to double up pods for 1 cup to get anything approaching equivalent to a cheap instant even then it's quite watery.

That said if your a bit of a greeny .. my mum puts all the used pods (bags) on the compost heap.

Another vote for nespresso, perfectly good coffee for the ease with a nice crema.

Pretty happy with our Nespresso too - We have a Magimix M100.

The aerocinno is excellent for quick and easy milk frothing/etc (Whether you have a pod machine or not) too.

Is there any reason why you wouldn't want one that takes pods [i]and[/i] grinds?

I'm thinking of getting one of the delonghi cappucino machines, and it says you can use pods in it.

Nespresso.
Very good coffee. I like coffee but I can't be arsed buying lots of different beans to find the ones I want to use.
2 other machines have gone the way of the bin due to failing so the waste of the pods is possibly less than those made and the future machines that would then fail.

My parents have a Tassimo but I don't think the coffee is as good but I'm used to the Nespresso.

Pods are either recycled to Nespresso or use the hand recycler to extract the coffee for the compost and the pod into the aluminium recycling.

Grizla - Member
Is there any reason why you wouldn't want one that takes pods and grinds?

I'm thinking of getting one of the delonghi cappucino machines, and it says you can use pods in it.

this depends on your definition of pods.

a pod is a teabag type container with coffee in it.

a capsule, is either the nespresso, dolce gusto or other capsule like objects..

you need to be clear before you buy - the caspules arent deformed easily into a teabag shape..

And the the OP: at work we just tested a Jura 1000CHF machine to compare the coffee and also help us with a new prototype machine, and in comparison to a violet or black nesp capsule the espresso that we got out of it was horrid. This was with a very nice hand ground coffee granule..

if you're after easy coffee, then the nespresso systems are quite good.

Can't comment on the machinery, but I have a Handpresso which is a manual affair operated like a bike pump - you pump it to around 30 bar then fire the coffee in the general direction of a small cup. Anywaty it uses ESE pods which, as a coffee snob, I rate. Pods are hard to get, of the dozen or so supermarkets in the area, only 1 branch of tesco sells pods, and they're illey pods (not bad, but not great). That said, on tinternet ukcoffeepods and caferoyale (i think) do a decent range of pods, including mixed packs.
So assuming the electric machinery can pump up to a decent pressure, and it's specifically espresso you want to drink, you might want to be looking at an ESE pod machine

Dolce Gusto Piccolo here. Never looked back.

oh and OP:

taste tests for the tassimo arent great.

very watery coffee in comparison.

I have a few friends with nespresso and they are very good indeed. Personally use a beans to cup machine.

Been pretty happy with the ESE machines I've used. Would consider one of them if ESE pads/pods were easily available in the supermarkets. Proper coffee brands too, like Lavazza, Illy etc.

Only real downside of nespresso is that it's not in the supermarket at all afaict, but available online or in a few select stores only. I'd be going to the post office with a calling card once every other week just to collect coffee. So it's trading convenience of making coffee and disposing of the waste, for inconvenience of actually getting the capsules in the first place. That, and surfing the website to check out a few types and see how much it would cost seemed to require a full user registration first.

At the moment, for me, it's either a bog standard loose coffee machine, or a bean to cup machine. Hardly any more faff than a capusle/pod, just maybe less clean waste.

Nespresso is the best quality coffee of all the pod type machines and also the machines are of a very high quality but they are a bit more expensive. I don't drink a lot of coffee and love the consistency of the Nespresso. I have had this one for nearly three years and if it broke I would buy another without hesitation.

There is a shop in Carlisle that has one of the old top of the range machines (new stock) with built in milk frother etc for £100. It is the same model as I have m200 Auto and it is great.

I have an Amodo Mio machine that uses Lavazza coffee. Good coffee, nice looking machine, highly reconmended by me.

So how did ya'll go about choosing [i]which[/i] Nespresso machine to buy?

(as you've piqued my interest and swaying me from my current object of lust - a more trad. Dualit)

My Dad had one (Magimix M100) - it worked well, seemed reasonably priced and got good reviews.

My wife loves her nespresso machine.

Been using a Nespresso for 4/5 years and like it, I just throw the pods in with the metal recycling.

[i]So how did ya'll go about choosing which Nespresso machine to buy?[/i]

As I understand it the internals are sold to the makers by Nespresso so are essentially the same on all machines. No doubt things change as time moves on.

So cheapest machine that you want in your kitchen seems to win.
We ended up with a built in Aerochino thing although I'd have preferred it separate in case one half of the machine dies but the price was good
Ended up with a Krups

So how did ya'll go about choosing which Nespresso machine to buy?

Go into a kitchen appliance shop or dept store with a decent kitchenwares section and pretty soon you'll see all the Nespressos are very similar brand to brand. As far as we could tell, it was external styling that varied most so in the end we ended up with a Magimix as that fitted our tastes best and had a deal on it at the time.

Drinking my nespresso whilst writing this - very nice it is too!!! We have the Krups Auto which works really well. It came with the Aeroccino milk frother thingy, which is good, but a pain to clean every time. If I am making a cappuccino, I use it, but for a latte, just add milk and microwave for 1 minute.