171–180 of 223 posts
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Except that a Nespresso does not produce espresso. I guess it's an upgrade from a plunger. The coffee is ok and consistent though.
OK, I'll bite - why is a Nespresso not an espresso? The water is under pressure, and it produces a crema - as far as I'm aware these are the two critical criteria for deciding if a coffee is an espresso or not...
When I use a normal espresso machine, with my own tamped grind, it puts out espresso/coffee at a higher rate, and I find it is smoother/less bitter due to that.
I do tend to prefer a less strong cup, so for me it is nicer to use my own grind as I can vary: 1. The quantity of ground beans 2. The fineness of the grind 3. How much coffee I get by how long I pull it. ( I realize running it too long will make it bitter )
In the article I am gathering he is measuring what percentage of the "grind" is removed in the process of brewing?? It would have been nice to see this compared amongst a variety of machines, not just 1 nespresso machine and 1 manual drip. Also an acidity test of the resultant coffee would be neat.
For the interested, here are the various machines / methods I have used:
1. Standard junky drip machine ( yuck... )
2. Bodum dual glass bowl vacuum I find this to be the strongest method of brewing, but it also makes the coffee way too bitter for my tastes.
3. Keurig machines Have used 5 or so different ones of these. The higher end commerical ones tend to be a little better but mostly they produce weaker coffee and let a lot of grounds through into the coffee. I don't think the water is hot enough from these, nor is the pressure high enough to get crema of any worth.
4. Tassimo machine This is my favorite taste thus far. The programmed t-discs allow the setting to be varied ( heat and brew amount ), and has produced the smoothest coffee I've had of all the machines I have used. I own 2 of these machines. My only complaint is I cannot use my own grind.
5. Senseo This is my favorite machine overall. The pods are small cloth bags, and the pressure seems to be high enough to produce good crema. Also; I can use my own grind in reusable filters that go in it. Great consistent taste and very easy to use. Also; very easy to clean the whole machine. I own 4 of these. ( for extra parts )
6. Starbucks "instant" machine. One company I worked at had a huge automatic like starbucks branded machine. This thing tasted horrible. The coffee was the most bitter I have tasted from any machine. It also tasted like it was never cleaned and had a high amount of grinds left in the coffee.
7. Super automatic espresso machine. Another company I worked at had one of the various $5000 automatic espresso machines. Unfortunately I forget the brand at the moment. It worked well, auto grinding etc. I used my own grind with it also. This was nearly equal to the taste/quality of using my own espresso machine, but I could not vary the tamp pressure. The auto internal tamping seemed too loose so the coffee seemed to have a bit less crema. It was convenient as it had less cleanup though.
8. Capresso EC100 This is my go-to machine that I use for my daily coffee. It is just a basic espresso machine. No real thrills here, but it has adequate pressure and heat. I grind my own beans to my desired fineness, add my own amount of beans to my taste at the moment, and typically brew like 4 shots worth out of the same tamped unit. This would seem to cause it to be more bitter but it does not and produces lots of crema. I also often rip open free keurig pods from work and use them in this machine. It improves their taste over keurig machines by far.
9. Old style large reservoir steamer with huge spring/lever. I picked one of these up from a yard sale. Takes forever to heat up. Needs to be cleaned constantly. Feels very finicky. I am way too lazy to be able to get anything consistent out of this. Far too much effort for little gains.
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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…
Nespresso capsules are made of aluminium and completely sealed, so they probably retain all the qualities of the coffee inside until the very moment they're used. Blind tests would be very interesting, I hope that's what's coming in a future article!
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> 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 wi…
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My experience of making espresso based coffees with an amazingly well informed and experienced barista. There are so many nuances that make a great cup of coffee that it's hard to pin it down. I used the same fresh beans, same machine, same water etc etc and his coffee tasted a world better than mine because he had the timing and technique to making down. He explained and demonstrated that even small things like how…
>There are so many nuances that make a great cup of coffee that it's hard to pin it down. Sounds like "placebo."
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…
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.…
I use Nespresso at work and a French press at home (because someone gave it to me) with "supermarket" grounded coffee. Nespresso is marginally better and clearly more convenient (event though I drink tea and French press is mostly the same process so I don't care) but I can't shake the feeling it's too expensive, they make crazy margins and I hate the pompous stores (e.g the Opera one) with the snob employees (relax,…
You'd be surprised at how much better the average coffee is in a large American city wrt to the abomination you call espresso in Paris. :)
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Do you mean the amount of water you use? It's important to measure both the amount of water and the amount of coffee so it's consistent. I personally use 22 grams of coffee per 300ml. It's a personal choice though and it depends on the coffee and method of brewing too: for you that might be too bitter, too strong, too weak, etc. Here's what I do with a Chemex. I put the Chemex on the scales, add the filter and hit ta…
Oh I was speaking about the water itself. Do you filter or use bottle one?
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.…
I think the penetration of Nespresso in the French market might also be related to the consistently bad quality of espresso in cafés. I really don't understand how that has come to be, given that most of the other souther European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, most of former Yugoslavia…) usually have pretty good espresso and largely use the same kind of equipment and coffee blends.
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FWIW the aeropress is a very good alternative to french presses, significantly simpler cleaning (just pop the coffee plug in the compost/trash and rinse the components), almost no fines (if you use paper filters). Though the rest of the operations (grinding coffee, pouring boiling water in the press and pressing down) are the same.
I've had really good experiences too. Although I'm normally wary of kitchen gadgets that depend on consumables. I switched to this steel filter, which is pretty good : http://www.amazon.com/Filter-AeroPress-Ultra-Stainless-Coffe...