I’ve got a basic nespresso that has been faultless. Aluminium capsules are better than the plastic Aldi ones.
What is an alternative non pod machine, has to be simple I don’t want to be cleaning like I am with a cafetière. Those gaggai always seem to break, might be fixable but I don’t want to keep doing that.
Nespresso machines + nespresso capsules are the way to go. Capsules are 100% recyclable and they are great value at approx 30 - 34p per cup. 3rd party capsules are not pressure tested. Nespresso machines operate 19/20 bar. Someone bought us a case of 3rd party capsules and about half of the non alu capsules failed, which defeats the objective of saving a few pence vs. Nespresso capsules.
Capsules are 100% recyclable
Just because technically they are recyclable if they don't go in with regular recycling it's virtually pointless. Maybe you do it but clearly most don't bother. No wonder so many end up in landfill.
https://www.nespresso.com/uk/en/recycling
Nespresso will send you recycling bags FOC and the delivery driver will take the used capsules back when they deliver. Most people do recycle. Any nespresso shop or recycling centre will take the caps to recycle. Landfill probs are on the back of the 3rd party companies trying to make a few £ on the back of the Nespresso end to end ecosystem
I think those pods are the devils work. Get an Aeropress and some nice coffee,I recommend small roaster Context Coffee for that.
If you need it they even have an ace tasting decaf.
We have a Nespresso, it's perfect for me as I only have maybe one or two cups of espresso each week.
Even though I can get staff discount, I rarely go in to the store to buy capsules, it's all a bit pretentious with lots of people just going in for a free coffee.
Good thing about Nespresso is the amount of aftermarket pods you can get, some, Starbucks branded ones for example. Are made by Nespresso, so you can recycle them in the Nespressso recycling bag.
I have been using a Lavazza Desea for about 6 months. Pleased with it so far. I mainly use it for espresso, but it can do a good job of making a latte style drink without much fuss. It also makes a good hot chocolate or frothed milk, so my kids use it fairly often too. I use combination of genuine Lavazza capsules and aftermarket ones from Amazon. I bought the machine on a £1 offer from Lavazza, but do need to buy a large number of capsules from Lavazza at RRP as part of the offer, but financially seems to make sense.
Went for the Lavazza over the Nespresso options due to the slightly bigger pods which can produce a longer shot, and the fact that the used Lavazza pods go in our food waste bin. Limitation is that not many aftermarket pods are available, however I have found the standard Lavazza ones to be pretty good.
Personally I think all the pod machines struggle to make a good long coffee. The pods are too small to give enough flavour for a long drink. I would probably go for one of the pour over options if I was regularly making long drinks.
I've had a Nespresso for about 5 years and it's been faultless.
The recycling system makes me feel better about it but I have about 4 coffees a day so its pretty spendy.
That's why I bought a delonghi bean to cup machine (off here) about 3 years ago. It, too, has been faultless and way, way cheaper to run using 1kg bags of lavazza from Costco @ £7/bag.
It wasn’t
He's not a prof, and has never published in the area.
https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/alfred-hill/publications/
probably asked his opinion.
Joining this a bit late. We've always had the original Nespresso pod machines at work. They are OK. Deliver an 'espresso' sized shot. I prefer a longer coffee so add hot water and milk. The water is very hard in this region and I don't think the machines are really any good for continual use the machines break quite regularly. Work were supplying 'OEM' coffee pods from a local supplier. The coffee is OK I guess.
Last time the machine broke work bought a Nespresso Vertuo system. This has different sized pods that can deliver espresso sized to massive 410 ml mugs of coffee. Smells nice but I find the coffee isn't massively hot. The Vertuo pods are SPENDY I haven't found anywhere on line for less than 2 quid a shot. I don't think you can get Vertuo made by other makers yet?
The Vertuo pods are SPENDY I haven’t found anywhere on line for less than 2 quid a shot.
They are a bit dearer than the originals, but nowhere near £2
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50922645107_9c7b12472e_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50922645107_9c7b12472e_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2kzRSgM ]2021-02-08_02-57-24[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/85252658@N05/ ]davetheblade[/url], on Flickr
My bad. Best I'd found was £1 online. Didn't occur to me to go direct to Nespresso!!!
We have a tassimo, which MrsYeti likes, it does fancy milk varieties which neither of us like really, but she likes the costa americanos. These pods go in the bin. 🙁 we also have a nespresso machine with a stainless pod and use finely ground coffee in it. A little weak for a long coffee, but fine for shorter ones. We also recycle the pods at work, which go back to Nespresso. Great variety available all over the place, tassimo less so.
The Nespresso machines all operate at different hot water pressures, go for the one with the highest that you can find.
This ^ is not correct.
The pressure is regulated by the capsule, not the pump in the machine (which are probably all the same anyway). The machine pierces the capsule in the pointy end, and pumps water in, until sufficient pressure is reached that the flat side of the capsule expands enough to be ruptured against some spikes, and the coffee comes out. My having a more powerful pump, you'd just be reducing the time that the process takes, which is probably not what you want anyway.
If you drink milk drinks, the quality of the milk steaming is what you want to look for in a machine. I would say that the only thing to choose is whether you want to steam the milk yourself (sage) or buy one where you just press a button and have milk come out as per the recipe. Something like this:
I don't really object to them, if all you want to do is press a button and have acceptable coffee come out once or twice a day, they are a cheaper alternative to the bean-to-cup machines. However, what you are getting with those more expensive "superautomatic" machines are a much wider range of coffees to choose from.
Whatever you get - consider getting it second hand. The real environmental cost of these machines is the sheer volume in which they are being produced, purchased and then thrown away (if you look on ebay - you will see they are worth nothing second hand, just more plastic tut going into landfill).
If you order from Nespresso, they come and collect the used metal pods for recycling.
They do use less coffee than a Gaggia. Typical double espresso weight from a Gaggia is about 20g of coffee used, but for Nespresso it's about 6g. I have both - the Gaggia makes better coffee, but the Nespresso is more convenient. We only use aluminium caps and have them collected for recycling.
A cafetiere is worse than both.
Lavazza seem to have nailed their bio-degradable pods. 6 months to breakdown.
I bought some of those when they first came out (~18 months ago?) and they tasted OK but around 1 in 5 failed to work, making the overall cost substantially higher. Have they improved this?
NECRO TIME!
The missus won a Dolce Gusto machine in a raffle and has decided she likes it. However, she wants to do the responsible thing so we're looking for a decent reusable pod system, any recommendations? @fossy ?
We go through about 2.5kg of beans in a month, would be about 360 Nespresso 7g pods on a weight for weight basis versus a couple of coffee bags and V60 papers.
Which is an awful lot of pods per year at around 4,300 for one household…
Watch the James Hoffmann video, his taste reactions are priceless 😂
