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An Analysis of Nespresso

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Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#191

Post by kazinator »

theCodeStig wrote: post #167
kazinator wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. Freshly roasted is. The aroma and flavor of coffee degrades rapidly after roasting, whether you grind it or not. Grinding it accelerates the process, but you can easily get coffee in unground form, and the difference between ground and unground is visually obviously: a vendor can't sneak you ground coffee if you want unground. How long ago beans were roasted isn't visually obvious.

No, again ;-). Its freshly roasted, freshly ground, AND freshly brewed (at the right parameters). That's the gist of it, but of course the quality of the greens before roasting, the roast quality, and grind consistency all come into play. Also don't forget to use good water. In short: quality in, quality out. Any discrepancy of the above will lead to a sub-par result.

But freshly ground and freshly brewed is something you easily control as the consumer, which makes them taken for granted and irrelevant. The other parameters are the object of the coffee drinker's desperate search. :)

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#193

Post by Terribledactyl »

bambax wrote: post #78
stavrogin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here in France everyone has a Nespresso machine or two (I have three). I'm French, I live in France, and I have no such machine, and none of my friends has one. YMMV. According to a 2014 report of the "Autorité de la Concurrence", 25% of French families have this kind of machine, with 85% of those being real Nestlé products. Among my friends, some reject hard capsules for their cost. The cost of Nespresso coffee is…

> I have no such machine Okay, that's certainly possible. > and none of my friends has one I would very much question that. (Edit: it's always unpleasant to be downvoted, but (at the risk of being downvoted more) I maintain that it's very unlikely that in a random group of French people of a reasonable size you would find zero owner of a Nespresso machine. Now, if the group is in fact not random and if the parent sel…

25 million French households * .75 (% of households that don't own) ^ 15 (number of households you are close enough to drink their coffee) = ~334,000 households that neither own nor know owners of this coffee style.

note: I made 15 up, but it's 5.9 million at 5 households and 18k at 25. I'm not French nor really a household but I think the actual number is somewhere between 5 and 25, and the numbers in that range aren't horrible.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#194

Post by Stratoscope »

kaolinite wrote: post #161

When people decide they want to start making good coffee, they often go and spend the best part of $500, or more, on an expensive espresso machine. I did, anyway. I've found though that the two biggest ways to improve your coffee are really simple and really cheap. Anything else above this - an expensive grinder or coffee machine - may help, but nowhere near as much as these two things: 1. Get a pair of digital scale…

Agree about the digital scale. For anyone looking for a good cheap scale, here's my favorite for kitchen use at $6.99:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BVXU3E8/

Weighs tenths of a gram (something you definitely want for coffee) and is quite rugged - have dropped it on the floor more than once, and our housecleaners for some reason decided to wash it out twice. The inside was filled with water, the display went to all 8's, and I thought it was a goner. I shook out the water, put it in the sun to dry, and it worked like new, each time. (And as clean as new too!)

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#195

Post by Kluny »

kaolinite wrote: post #161

When people decide they want to start making good coffee, they often go and spend the best part of $500, or more, on an expensive espresso machine. I did, anyway. I've found though that the two biggest ways to improve your coffee are really simple and really cheap. Anything else above this - an expensive grinder or coffee machine - may help, but nowhere near as much as these two things: 1. Get a pair of digital scale…

I won't say you're wrong, because I haven't tried the things that you've suggested. But I use the same coffee beans at home as they buy at work - Ethical Bean from Costco, and these three factors improve the taste by about 10,000%:

1) Use a French press instead of a drip pot.

2) Grind the beans coarsely with a burr instead of pulverizing with a electric chopper.

3) Clean all the equipment thoroughly after every use.

I'm certain that could improve it further with your suggestions, but these three easy steps already make a huge improvement for me.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#196

Post by [deleted] »

kaolinite wrote: post #161

When people decide they want to start making good coffee, they often go and spend the best part of $500, or more, on an expensive espresso machine. I did, anyway. I've found though that the two biggest ways to improve your coffee are really simple and really cheap. Anything else above this - an expensive grinder or coffee machine - may help, but nowhere near as much as these two things: 1. Get a pair of digital scale…

[deleted]

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#197

Post by keslag »

kaolinite wrote: post #161

When people decide they want to start making good coffee, they often go and spend the best part of $500, or more, on an expensive espresso machine. I did, anyway. I've found though that the two biggest ways to improve your coffee are really simple and really cheap. Anything else above this - an expensive grinder or coffee machine - may help, but nowhere near as much as these two things: 1. Get a pair of digital scale…

I get my own bean, and I use a burr mill grinder, really nice one, and I use a Keurig, EZCup reusable filter holder, and ecobrew filters. Because it makes a pretty descent cup of coffee, in about a minute with no cleanup required. I've tried percolators, french press, open drip, and aeropress, and they all have uniqueness's, but to my pallet, they aren't so good that their worth the convenience. Cleaning an aeropress 7 times a day starts eating into your productivity faster than reddit.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#198

Post by Kalium »

austinjp wrote: post #105
eps wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are compost only if you put them there. Nespresso has a pod recycling program in place as does pretty much every developed country (not for pods, of course, but the aluminum).

While this is true, it's worth noting that recycling is not the preferred step in eco consumerism. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, compost. Nespresso pods cannot be reused, unless someone has hacked a kludge for that, and I doubt the recycling process composts the grounds (more info on that would be great). Extracting aluminium from its ore is hugely energy-consuming. So the most sensible thing to do is simply not us…

The kludge to re-use Nespresso pods has been hacked.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#199

Post by cma »

bambax wrote: post #58
calpaterson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised by bad coffee at home given how easy it is to make medium quality coffee: buy a medium ground coffee from the supermarket that mentions somewhere Africa or South America, put in a cafetiere and wait 5 minutes.

And then what? You just made coffee for 5 or 10 cups but you'll only drink one or two. And you won't throw away what's left, so you'll reheat it later, maybe twice, maybe more. And maybe you'll find it a little too strong the second time, so you'll add a little hot water to dilute it. And then you're well on the road to abomination.

If you are willing to pay nespresso prices, you should be fine throwing out coffee in your scenario--yoh will still save money even if you always dump out half of it.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#200

Post by [deleted] »

cmarschner wrote: post #44
bambax wrote: post #39

The site is unavailable so I don't know what's in the article, but from the comments I gather it's looking at the benefits of owning a Nespresso machine at home? Here in France everyone has a Nespresso machine or two (I have three); you can buy Nespresso capsules from Nespresso shops, or alternative capsules in any supermarket, anywhere. What Nespresso sells is simplicity and consistency, and an above-average taste.…

Interesting. So French people are ok buying coffee for €90 a kilo to get this convenience? I can understand this only because traditionally, the French "Expresso" was guaranteed to be a watery, bitter, creama-less wish-wash.

[deleted]
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