Thoughts
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The Nespresso revolution = yet another myopic article
From time to time an article bashing Nespresso and its business model comes along. Latest in this list is this one from the Guardian. Recently it made the rounds on social media and was shared to us (more than once actually). We read it and reflected on it for a couple of days before collecting our thoughts, before feeling ready to make some points about it. We are more and more convinced that often these articles are written by journalists that either don’t truly understand what Nespresso is or dislike the company, for whatever reason. Why do we believe this? Because all of them are myopic takes on Nespresso and…
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Rebranding of some capsules
According to various sources (Nespresso UK website and the newsletter), there will be a rebranding of some original line capsules and a welcome return. In short:
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The controversial Nordic Cloudberry
Nordic Cloudberry is fast becoming one of the most controversial capsules ever released by Nespresso. While some like it, it’s a light cup with a pungent berry aroma, many utterly dislike it to the point of giving it away. Personally I believe it’s a weak flavor. The whole Nordic-inspired line of capsules is particularly weak, born out more of the need for Nespresso to get the approval of the lighter, 3rd wave coffee enthusiasts and Scandinavian customers than actually being quality capsules. While the Nordic Black is a weaker version of the old Paris Black and the Nordic Almond Cake is less sweet, more delicate, than a Praline, the Nordic…
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On Nespresso coffee not being real espresso
Coffee snobs and/or aficionados aren’t usually fond of Nespresso capsules for their coffee. Various reasons, more related to taste than actual quality of the coffee involved in our opinion. But that’s not the point we want to make today. Some claim that Nespresso capsules cannot produce a real espresso but something similar, that can’t be called “espresso” though. That involves two different conception of what espresso is: a method of brewing coffee and the result of such a method. In the first case, an espresso machine as can be found in any bar works by pumping hot water through grounded coffee at high pressure. Any Nespresso machine works like this…
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Tables of coffee origins
In case you haven’t noticed, we are slowly publishing a few reference posts containing a table of all the coffee origins worldwide. Divided by area of production and then by country, these are the results of our researches over many months and will be kept updated in the future as soon as we discover further information on a specific coffee variety. Consider them as a permanent work in progress posts but you can use them as a good reference already as they’re fairly complete at this point. More to come in the next days.
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The Nespresso Index: average cost per capsule in various countries
An interesting research about the different costs of capsules, taking Arpeggio as a comparison, in the various countries Nespresso sells. Clearly the EU comes as the cheapest place on average to buy the capsules (all are manufactured in Switzerland after all) but also Asia isn’t much more expensive while US and especially Africa are.
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Cold brew - longer brewing
We’ve been experimenting the perfect amount of time for a cold brew, with different coffee beans. Latest one with a simple Lavazza Espresso, medium grind, 4:1 ratio and brewed for 20 hours was lacking flavor and had a distinct bitter aftertaste, sign of over extraction. The time before we brewed for 15 hours and it was great, flavorful and oily. The previous attempt was with a Kimbo espresso blend, which is a darker roast of this Lavazza one, so it came out stronger, bolder, but not more bitter. 15 hours seems to be the right amount of time for a cold brew with espresso blends normally to be found in…
