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An Analysis of Nespresso

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Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#131

Post by jacobolus »

pizza234 wrote: post #104
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correctly roasted and ground beans are probably the single most important factor for a good cup if you are willing to drink different styles. The correct roast with the correct grind will produce great coffee from a $20 dripolator from Kmart. The problem with pre-ground beans, is that ground beans go stale in a matter of hours. Whole beans from supermarkets are no better since you usually can't tell when they were ro…

> The problem with pre-ground beans, is that ground beans go stale in a matter of hours. Whole beans from supermarkets are no better since you usually can't tell when they were roasted and they are most likely also stale. The point is that in a blind test, "a lot %" of the people would never distinguish a freshly opened pack and a pack opened a week before, as much as "a lot %" of the people would never distinguish g…

That’s nonsense. I highly recommend you do the experiment yourself.

Get some whole freshly roasted coffee beans, put one half in the freezer, and grind the other half and let them sit in an open container for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, grind the beans that were sitting in the freezer. Now brew both sets of beans and do a blind tasting.

You’ll be able to tell the difference, your coffee-drinker friends will be able to tell the difference, fans of instant coffee will be able to tell the difference, and if you have access to a chemistry lab, their mass spectrometers will definitely be able to tell the difference.

It’s completely different from gold-plated audio cables, where you can take very precise measurements and prove categorically that they have no effect.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#132

Post by fulafel »

jasonkester wrote: post #42
dcw303 wrote: post #11

I don't think the pods are expensive. At 70-80 cents each, that's under a fourth the cost of having an espresso of comparable quality made for you outside of your home.

A real espresso pulled by a professional will run you €0.90 in Europe (unless you live in a the center of Paris, in which case you might get to spend as much as €1.50). There's usually one of those professionals within 50 yards of your home, possibly even on your walking route to work. So it's not always even saving you money. Certainly compared to driving out of your way to a Starbucks and paying US (or god forbid,…

An espresso usually costs around 2-3 euros in the northern parts.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#133

Post by saiya-jin »

masklinn wrote: post #68
torrance wrote: post #22

I would be on board with these if it wasn't for their terrible environmental impact. I'd be interested in an analysis on that - but until these capsules can basically compost I'll be sticking to loose grounds thank you.

> I would be on board with these if it wasn't for their terrible environmental impact FWIW in europe you can drop the capsules for recycling or give them back to the courrier delivering new ones, by and large they're just aluminium and coffee grounds so they're pretty recyclable. IIRC nespresso has >80% used capsule collection in their home country of Switzerland and in neighbouring France (where nespresso is quite p…

it's interesting that in these eco-friendly and health-consious times, nobody here cares much about pouring boiling water over Aluminimum to get a decent coffee...

last time I checked it's not the healthiest compound to work with. anything new in that topic?

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#134

Post by jarek »

lukesan wrote: post #99
jarek wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I love the gold-plated set, but: "Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tests people with normally developed ears would pick the gold cables from the copper one. The difference in sound is just too big to ignore (or at least the difference between the gold vs copper I have here at home is). Unlike the improvements you compare them to, which can us…

But as with other things based on taste: the perception matters most, not a scientific double blind study. If my perception makes me prefer one coffee over the other, I am happy.

Of course, but if we fall back to perceptions and tastes, noone gets to sniff at people for using week-old pre-ground coffee if they like it well enough.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#135

Post by saiya-jin »

tabio wrote: post #51
camillomiller wrote: post #47

I would have expected at least a comment pointing out that Nespresso is a Nestlè brand. I'm no treehugger boycotter, but I at least try to avoid the products of tentacular food multinationals as much as I could. I'm not saying that everybody should and I won't ever disregard those who buy their products, but I think that the real origin of the food-based products is always a much neglected point when we talk about th…

Why is multinational bad food?

just guessing, but multinational corporations might be viewed by some as not very helpful to humanity in long run, since they are capitalistic structures created to earn money to owners in first place. Morals usually comes a bit further down in priorities ladder (not saying anything particular about Nestle, albeit I vaguely recall some interview with their CEO where he stated all water on earth should not be free, but paid by common people, to... corporations)

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#136

Post by athenot »

moron4hire wrote: post #116
_benedict wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experience is freshly ground coffee has a much better taste. Although not much better than when you first open a bag of store-bought ground coffee. If you don't notice the coffee get less flavourful over the course of a couple of weeks, and then tastier when you open a new bag, then there's a reasonable chance you won't notice a sufficient difference in freshly ground coffee. One thing you unequivocally g…

Flavor and taste are fundamentally linked, so if something smells better, it's pretty much the same thing as tasting better.

That's not a given, though. Take some French cheeses which stink unbelievably bad yet have a smooth, creamy & almost sweet taste. The disconnect can be quite surprising. I'm told that Durian fruit can be similar but I have not encountered that monster… yet. :)

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#137

Post by masklinn »

saiya-jin wrote: post #133
masklinn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be on board with these if it wasn't for their terrible environmental impact FWIW in europe you can drop the capsules for recycling or give them back to the courrier delivering new ones, by and large they're just aluminium and coffee grounds so they're pretty recyclable. IIRC nespresso has >80% used capsule collection in their home country of Switzerland and in neighbouring France (where nespresso is quite p…

it's interesting that in these eco-friendly and health-consious times, nobody here cares much about pouring boiling water over Aluminimum to get a decent coffee... last time I checked it's not the healthiest compound to work with. anything new in that topic?

I'm not aware of much specific risks from anodised aluminium cookware compared to plastics or other metals. The biggest risks of dissolution are acidic foods and wet food sitting in the pan, neither of which is an issue with coffee capsules.

Furthermore, the WHO estimates that one can safely ingest up to 50mg of aluminium per day and the FDA hasn't even bothered setting an upper limit, cooking a whole meal in aluminium pans may leach 1~2mg of aluminium in the food.

There are health risks to breathing aluminium dust, but most people aren't going to snort their coffee capsules.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#138

Post by jghn »

jarek wrote: post #87
stinos wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tetsts people with normally developped taste buds would pick the freshly ground one from the pre-ground one. The difference in taste is just too big to ignore (or at least the difference between the ground vs pre-ground I have here at home is). Unlike the improvements you compare them to, which can usually not even be…

Not that I love the gold-plated set, but: "Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tests people with normally developed ears would pick the gold cables from the copper one. The difference in sound is just too big to ignore (or at least the difference between the gold vs copper I have here at home is). Unlike the improvements you compare them to, which can us…

I get what you're saying, although while I personally am far from a coffee aficionado I certainly can tell the difference w/ a lot of their tomfoolery. The same can not be said w/ the audiophile stuff, not at all.

I dabble with fancy coffee now that I've got a few solid shops on my commute to work (the rest of the times I'm stopping at Dunkin Donuts, lest you think I'm more of a snob than I think) and my own personal policy is that for whatever variable X is involved that I'll only continue with X as long as I can tell a noticeable & pleasant difference. So for instance, I'll only get pourovers at places where I notice a difference between that and the standard (which implies quality of technique, according to the coffeenistas), or whatever beans they're using for a pourover if my reaction is "meh" I'll not get it again but other times I'll get it multiple times a day until they run out.

Agreed that this is all anecdotal and not double blind, and agreed that short of nuking things from orbit that double blind is the only way to be sure. However, as someone with very little skin in this game other than sometimes I want something better than Dunks, I can tell you that some variables matter to me and some don't.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#139

Post by jghn »

moron4hire wrote: post #118
cdcarter wrote: post #5

"Speciality coffee doesn’t offer anything to the consumer who wants to drink great espresso at home, but doesn’t want a new hobby." This is an amazing take away, and I think many coffee roasters, gin distillers and beer Brewers ought remember it.

As someone who has been a home brewer for years, you don't home brew because it's cheap or convenient or even better than store bought. People home brew because they want the experience of the hobby. Which was the article's point: people want espresso at home, not a hobby. Beer can be had at home without the hobby, or it can be had with the hobby. So I think beer brewers are already there. Though, to contradict mysel…

"you don't home brew because it's cheap or convenient or even better than store bought."

I agree w/ your general premise about it being for the hobby (that's 90% of why I homebrew) but disagree with the above statement. I've known homebrewers who absolutely brew because it's cheap - I'm sure you've encountered them as well. These are the people who calculate the price per ounce and then proudly talk about how their Great Homebrew is cheaper than Crappy Macrolager. I know many people who do it because it's better than store bought, although that's becoming harder to justify as craft beer becomes better & more ubiquitous it's exceeding the capabilities of many homebrewers.

Another factor you left out, and what originally led me to homebrewing, is homebrewing because not all styles are easy to come by at the store. I started brewing because it was the only way I could taste certain things without traveling to their homelands.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#140

Post by masklinn »

athenot wrote: post #136
moron4hire wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flavor and taste are fundamentally linked, so if something smells better, it's pretty much the same thing as tasting better.

That's not a given, though. Take some French cheeses which stink unbelievably bad yet have a smooth, creamy & almost sweet taste. The disconnect can be quite surprising. I'm told that Durian fruit can be similar but I have not encountered that monster… yet. :)

Also fish sauces and pastes, fermented fish or soy products (chòu dòufu, nattō, …).
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