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An Analysis of Nespresso

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Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#211

Post by seszett »

josteink wrote: post #181
keithpeter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take the OA's point, however most of us (I assume) will be using a cafetiere or a paper filter based coffee maker at home rather than doing the full artisan roast and grind. In my case, I'm using pre-ground coffee in foil bags from the local supermarket at around £3 to £4 per 227g standard pack. I make myself a large diluted coffee each morning using a 3-cup mokapot. The 5 minute prep time isn't onerous and the eco…

> Coffee hacking question: If I got a grinder capable of grinding beans to the fineness needed for a moka pot, would I notice a significant difference in taste? Coffee starts losing aroma quickly after grinding. If you buy your coffee in a speciality-store and they grind it for you there, you can definitely smell the freshness of the coffee as you take it home. It's fantastic, but after not too long that fresh aroma…

> You probably don't need nor want an Italian art-deco piece of 60s futuristic polished steel priced at $1000 and upwards. But investing at least $100 into a entry-level grinder will get you coffee miles ahead that pre-ground stuff. I assure you it's a noticeable return on investment.

What about grandma's old manual grinder? Is it not up to the task? Such grinders also sell for much less than 100$.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#212

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

antimagic wrote: post #126
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

If you want to get pedantic, I think a Nespresso would fail the Istituto Nazionale Espresso Italiano standard - espressoitaliano.org :)

But really I disqualify it because Nespresso simply does not look or taste like an espresso. The crema is always a bit pale and it lacks in concentration of suspended and dissolved solids. They later being important if you want to make a milk based drink that tastes of coffee.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#213

Post by liquid8r »

theCodeStig wrote: post #173
bambax wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Coffee goes stale due to oxidization, and contact with the gases that coffee itself puts off (commonly known as off-gasing). You can halt the oxidization in a capsule if you replace the oxygen with an inert gas, but how will you prevent off-gasing?

When you roast beans, you introduce CO2. For a few hours after roasting, CO2 escapes, which is the process called degassing or off-gassing. When you grind, more CO2 escapes. Limiting CO2 impact on coffee is well understood by the industry -- you can degas in a nitrogen environment, for example.

We at HiLine Coffee did a lot of testing with different single-serve pods, and I can assure you that you can tell the quality changes over time (what you get with 1 month old pod and what you get after 6 months taste very different). This is one of the reasons why Nespresso, Keurig and other large manufacturers don't state the date of the roast on packaging. People wouldn't want to buy 6 months old coffee. Instead they buy coffee that is "best consumed by" a date in 6 months, whatever that means, particularly since stale coffee doesn't have any discernible health effects other than sadness from poor taste. After spending more than a year working on new ways to better preserve ground coffee in single serve packaging, we determined that the only sure way to deliver fresh and great tasting coffee in a pod is to roast for each individual order. This is the model that we are testing now. If you want to try it, check us out at https://www.hilinecoffee.com or send us an email for free sample.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#214

Post by Bud »

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…

This is all great advice, but it's completely non-responsive to the point of this article, which isn't about coffee. It's about espresso, and the fact that great stuff like the Aeropress and Chemex do absolutely nothing to help those who prefer espresso. And neither does any other solution under $2000 or so. Which is precisely the reason why Nespresso has won customers.

I tried a Moka pot, and liked it, but Nespresso is better. I tried Aeropress, but that just verified my preference for espresso over admittedly very very good strong coffee that isn't espresso.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#215

Post by Bud »

Stratoscope wrote: post #194
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…

I've had great luck with this scale:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Scales-AMW-SC-2KG-Digit...

A little more expensive, but it has a nice, large, level, stainless steel surface.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#216

Post by JupiterMoon »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #130
nightski wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea personally I find freshly ground makes a massive difference. In fact I was just going to ask how they keep beans fresh in those pods... Even when buying whole beans though it only lasts a week max before I can start to taste a big difference. You can usually tell as gasses are no longer released when pouring hot water over the freshly ground beans.

Freeze them they'll stay fresh.

Well this does work. Storing your ground coffee in a sealed container in the freezer is the single easiest thing you can do to improve the flavour of your coffee.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#217

Post by bambax »

toothbrush wrote: post #179
carlob wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This. My god the coffee is bad in France. I'm not the only one saying it either: http://www.slate.fr/story/86855/cafe-francais-immonde

Excellent and very informative article, thanks.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#218

Post by josteink »

seszett wrote: post #211
josteink wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coffee hacking question: If I got a grinder capable of grinding beans to the fineness needed for a moka pot, would I notice a significant difference in taste? Coffee starts losing aroma quickly after grinding. If you buy your coffee in a speciality-store and they grind it for you there, you can definitely smell the freshness of the coffee as you take it home. It's fantastic, but after not too long that fresh aroma…

> You probably don't need nor want an Italian art-deco piece of 60s futuristic polished steel priced at $1000 and upwards. But investing at least $100 into a entry-level grinder will get you coffee miles ahead that pre-ground stuff. I assure you it's a noticeable return on investment. What about grandma's old manual grinder? Is it not up to the task? Such grinders also sell for much less than 100$.

They work, but you get incredibly fed up with them after not too long. They especially suck for early morning breakfast-coffee.

If you can live with that, then no problem. Much better coffee then preground.

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#219

Post by mandor »

bambax wrote: post #96
carlob wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have been (many times) to Italy, Spain and Portugal, and while I have been consistently amazed and wowed by the quality of expressos in Italy, I can't say the same for Spain and Portugal...? Coffee in cafés there (to me) tastes very much like the ones we get in Paris? What I find strange in Paris (or France) is that all expressos in any café taste exactly the same. It's not absolutely bad, it's a little bitter and…

From my experience (I have no data), it seems that many of them use the same source for coffee: http://www.cafesrichard.fr/services-chr-nos-produits-4.html

(and this is rather cheap coffee)

Re: An Analysis of Nespresso

#220

Post by calpaterson »

keithpeter wrote: post #202
calpaterson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a rhino grinder ( http://coffeehit.co.uk/rhino-hand-grinder-1005 ) with my 3-cup in the morning. Freshly grinding it makes the coffee taste a little better but mainly it lets you keep coffee longer because beans keep longer than pre-ground coffee. When you get to the bottom of the bag the coffee is still as good as at the start.

Comments suggest so-so with expresso but OK with Moka pot. Will purchase on the grounds ( sic ) that it will be better than my food mixer grinder add-on.

I think you would struggle to get the right fineness for an expresso machine. Moka pot fineness is about as fine as a rhino grinder can do
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