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Coffee lovers... would you pay $349 for this machine?

Dee*Jay

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I've had three cups of coffe in my entire life that many years later stand out to me, but I didn't know why... UNTIL my office got this fancy new Nespresso machine and now every day at 4:00 I have a double with raw sugar and some warm half and half. Ooh la la!

I would love to do the same thing at home on the weekends (translation: I would like the CB to make me the same thing at home on the weekends and bring it to me in bed!) but a shot of espresso just ain't enough for this girl who grew up in a super sized society. I don't need a venti of the stuff, but a full cup would be nice.

There is a machine that will make 8 oz of coffee (not espresso) BUT with the crema layer on the top (which is what I've realized is the key ingredient... oooohhhh... *TEXTURE*!!!). In the interest of full disclosure for the nit picky among us (i.e., people like me), this coffee maker does't technically produce a crema later, but it produces micro bubbles that are very similar. Close enough for government work!

This machine has apparently been discontinued for US distribution but you can still get it, however it's pricy. I'm my mind it's worth it, but if anyone has experience with the particular machine or has an alternative I'm open to ideas!

Regarding the pod aspect, I *could* get one of those refillable thingys, grind coffee, etc... but let's be honest: I won't. I'll buy the pods. Just a fact.

Feedback if you would please!

http://www.amazon.com/Senseo-Single-Serve-Gourmet-Coffee-Machine/dp/B001QTVS5K
 

TravelingGal

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I would pay anything for something that makes good stuff that wake me up in the morning. :)

We used the cheap $25 Costco coffee maker for years. We just recently bought a Saeco Super Automatic...it costs twice the machine you have asked about. I adore it. You can program it to make a full cup (a normal cup, not a giant american sized one) as well as just a single shot.

Anyway, the point is, yes I'd spend that much on a machine that I think would give me coffee enjoyment . We were wasting a lot of coffee with the regular coffee maker, and I was doing stuff like nuking cold coffee in the afternoon that was leftover in the pot. I don't like the pods myself...I like having a bit more variety, and have been enjoying the Lavazza Super Crema. The super automatic grinds and pulls for you. Is it as good as a machine where you do it yourself? Nope, but as you said, good enough!
 

TravelingGal

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Calliecake

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You better get going DeeJay. They only have 8 left in stock. One of my friend loves coffee and believe me she'd buy it in a heartbeat. Just think of how happy you'll be every morning having this to look forward to. Buy it, teach the CB how to use it, and you are good to go!

How was your Halloween party?
 

missy

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My first reaction is absolutely I would buy it if it would bring me that much pleasure. A good cup of coffee is one of the most beautiful things in the morning when we wake up. But then not being familiar with this particular machine I read the negative reviews. And it makes me wary of purchasing.
http://www.amazon.com/Senseo-Single-Serve-Gourmet-Coffee-Machine/product-reviews/B001QTVS5K/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

I wish I had something I could recommend for you. We just buy organic whole beans at Whole Foods (Allegro coffee-delicious) and grind it up in our Vitamix (yeah the Vitamix really does do everything lol) and then just brew it in our regular coffee machine. Growing up my mom had an espresso machine and I do love me some good strong espresso yes I do. But haven't gotten around in the last 25 years haha to purchasing one.

If the one at work is the same one they are selling on Amazon and you already know you love it I say go for it. Are you a prime member? If it doesn't work out you can return it. Good coffee shouldn't be a privilege it should be a right! :appl: :cheeky:
 

VRBeauty

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$350 for a good coffee making machine? You bet!

$2.00 per pod of coffee? That, I'd balk at - LOL! So I'd probably go for a good nespresso, to be used with refillable capsules. (And then break down and buy the pre-filled capsules most of the time anyway. ;)) )

BTW I was introduced to nespresso coffee makers in a home exchanged apartment in Rome. When we found a nespresso "bar" in a local department store, we stocked up a variety of pods to last us through our ten day stay. Heaven!
 

TravelingGal

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Yeah, there are nespresso machines for less, and I'd go with the nespresso pods if I had to go the pod route.
 

Dee*Jay

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Help me out with the Nespresso concept -- that's what we have in the office and I love the espresso but I can't find a Nespresso coffee maker that gives the crema (or something similar). Am I just missing it? I'm totally willing to go that route too!
 

Dee*Jay

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About the pod cost... maybe I'm having a blond moment over those too but I did the math and I came up with about 30 cents a cup... ? If you buy the bulk pack of 8 packs of 18 for $32 then 108/32 = 30 cents or so... Yes?
 

VRBeauty

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Dee*Jay|1413841996|3770023 said:
About the pod cost... maybe I'm having a blond moment over those too but I did the math and I came up with about 30 cents a cup... ? If you buy the bulk pack of 8 packs of 18 for $32 then 108/32 = 30 cents or so... Yes?

Yes!

I'm the one who was having a "DUH!" moment. I thought it was 18 pods for $32. I missed the "8 packs of..." part. :wall:
 

OreoRosies86

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Yes yes yes, and oh did I mention.... YES!

A good coffee maker easily pays for itself over the course of ownership if you're a person who makes one or multiple trips out to takeout coffee cafes. Plus I love being able to customize sizes and flavors at home.
 

kenny

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Every morning I make a cup of the best coffee I've ever tasted in my pour-over thinge.
I think I paid 25 cents for it many years ago in a thrift store.

Suspecting it may taste of plastic I tried a $10 ceramic one and couldn't taste any the difference so I returned that one to the store.
In fact I suspect the ceramic cooled the water faster and extracted less flavor.

screen_shot_2014-10-20_at_3.png
 

kenny

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Pods are very very very NOT green, and probably the most-expensive way to buy coffee. :knockout:

My worms eat the coffee grounds and the paper filters and convert it to fertilizer for garden and house plants. :dance:
 

momhappy

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For me, it's all about ease of use (and in ease of use, I include how easy it is to get the pods). If the pods aren't readily available at my grocery store, then no, it's probably not worth it (for me). I don't have a problem spending that kind of money on a great cup of coffee, but I have yet to find a machine that is A) Easy to use B)has pods available for sale in my grocery store and C)requires very little clean-up.
 

Dee*Jay

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Let me make sure I'm clear in what matters here: I'm all about TEXTURE, not just TASTE. If there is a 25 cent plastic thingy that will give me a crema layer on the top -- bring it on baby! I'll take two! But I really think it's gonna take a machine that forces water through the coffee at a level of many atmospheres of pressure (which is what I've come to learn the "bars" mean in these types of makers) or at least something that produces these microbubbles to get the TEXTURE I'm after.
 

Dee*Jay

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LOL momhappy, for me "ease of use" in availability of pods means I can order it online and have it delivered to my door becuase I HATE going grocery shopping. I still maintain that I stayed married to Bill for over ten years just so I never had to set foot in a grocery store.
 

kenny

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We have this $6.50 frother which whips up the cream nicely.

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=14042381




YMMV, I'm not poo pooing anything or criticizing!
I love lots of my expensive doodads too. :devil:

I'm just a super tightwad with almost everything so I can splurge on a few things.

jdfjdshkfjhd.jpg
 

Dee*Jay

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Kenny, if that frother would work I'd be all over it, but unfortunately that applies to the milk/cream and not the coffee itself. And I'm not being difficult here -- I swear! -- I am just hell bent on this texture thing, LOL. Now that I've figured out what made those three cups of coffee so MAGNIFICANT, well, I'm gonna move mountains to have it that way all the time!
 

kenny

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It's totally possible if I tried your machine I'd buy one too. :sun:

Just because I'm happy with my gear that certainly doesn't mean it's best or the same.

If I come visit just don't make me any coffee.
But I will have a glass of wine. :cheeky:
 

Dee*Jay

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Here is a description of creama:

Crema consists of carbon dioxide bubbles in a film of fats, oils and sugars. Good crema is an even layer of fine bubbles that is ''elastic'', says Dickson.

To judge elasticity, you tilt the espresso cup to 45 degrees; the crema should stretch to cover the surface of the coffee, and re-form as an even layer when the cup is set right.

Good crema is an important part of espresso flavour and texture, even of milk coffee. ''A lot of the flavour in milk coffee comes from the crema,'' Dickson says.
 

Dee*Jay

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And the difference between crema and what the Senseo produces:


“Crema, the dense, reddish-brown foam that tops an espresso, is composed mainly of tiny carbon dioxide and water vapor bubbles surrounded by surfactant films. The crema also includes emulsified oils containing key aromatic compounds and dark fragments of the coffee bean cell structure.”

The foam produced by a Senseo is *not* an emulsion; the coffee in the Senseo pod [or pad] is not ground fine enough, nor is the pressure in its brewing great enough to release the non-water soluble oils and lipids to create such an emulsion… and those few oils that *might* be released would be trapped in the filter material of the coffee pod itself. [This is confirmed in left-handed fashion by Philips/Douwe's FAQ: "The SENSEO coffee brewing process is very efficient leaving hardly any oil in the brew."]

Further, it’s unlikely that the coffee found in a Senseo pod is fresh enough, or been packaged well enough that the delicate aromatic compounds, or even carbon dioxide — both such an important part an espresso’s crema — remain.

So what is this stuff? It’s *foam*. Bubbles. Mostly air bubbles, and water vapor, and probably some CO2, encapsulated by the brewed coffee solution. Again, it’s not emulsified oils.

There are a number of compounds in coffee that make lovely bubbles… long, complex protein chains that have some remarkable [even improbable] properties, surface tension being only one of them. [The physics of coffee rings is a story for another day.]

So how’s the Senseo make that foam? Well, this is where the Senseo’s designers got pretty clever!

At the bottom of the pod carrier [a little tray that holds either one or two pods... think of it as a device-specific coffee basket and portafilter if you like] is a barrel-shaped nozzle. Embedded in that nozzle is a small metal disk. This disk has a very small orifice or aperture at its center… 1mm, maybe 1.5mm in size.

While brewing, the machine’s pump pushes water through this assembly under pressure… we’re not talking espresso-like pressure here, just something on the order of 1.5 to 2 times atmosphere, or 1.5 to 2 bars [by way of reference, espresso is brewed at 9 bars].

Here’s where some junior-varsity physics comes in…

One of the interesting properties of fluids is that, when under pressure and presented with a wee, little aperture as a way to escape, the fluid will first form a little vortex or funnel above the orifice itself, trapping anything that’s *not* a fluid [air, water vapor, CO2, etc.] in its center. For an example of this, look no further than your bathtub… pull the plug on a tub full of water and watch the vortices spin. And listen to the sucking sound as air is trapped in the vortex.

When the pressurized fluid [and its trapped gasses] emerges on the *other* side of the wee, little aperture and is suddenly no longer under pressure, the gasses are *encapsulated* by the fluid in a series of amazingly uniform bubbles. The size of these bubbles can be regulated by varying the amount of pressure, or the size of the orifice, or the surface tension of the fluid solution itself. So, if you want your bubbles to be *extremely* tiny [as you would for, say, an ink-jet printer - which uses this very same principle of fluids] then the aperture would be tiny, indeed.

In the case of the Senseo brewer, then, the designers tuned the size of the orifice to the typical surface tension of brewed coffee and to the amount of pressure delivered by the pump and lo… bubbles. Lots and lots of bubbles. And lots and lots of bubbles is foam… it’s still not crema.

So there you are.

As an interesting aside, I think the fluid dynamics at play here have some interesting implications for why espresso brewed with a bottomless portafilter seems to have a more textural quality to it… but that, too, is a story for another day.
 

Dee*Jay

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Kenny, Coffee, wine, and whatever else I've got -- you're all welcome to whatever makes you happy when you're at my house!

Geek alert: I'm having a good time learning about this! If I post at any point in the future that I'm interested in becoming a barrista I might need an intervention though...
 

Dee*Jay

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Callie, there were NINE in stock when I started this thread, now there are EIGHT... rut ro... !

Missy, I read the reviews but I just don't know how much to get spun up over them. Some people LOVE This thing and some people HATE it...

Elliott, I think you're right -- a good appliance is like a good piece of furniture! If you use and get enjoyment over and over again and then look at it from an amortization perspective, well the $ becomes very very small!
 

kenny

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Dee*Jay|1413847371|3770079 said:
Geek alert: I'm having a good time learning about this! If I post at any point in the future that I'm interested in becoming a barrista I might need an intervention though...

screen_shot_2014-10-20_at_0.png
 

momhappy

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Dee*Jay|1413846302|3770068 said:
LOL momhappy, for me "ease of use" in availability of pods means I can order it online and have it delivered to my door becuase I HATE going grocery shopping. I still maintain that I stayed married to Bill for over ten years just so I never had to set foot in a grocery store.

I'm at the grocery store at least once a week anyways. I can see how ordering would be easier, but I drink coffee daily and I just know that there would come a time when I would forget to place an order and heaven forbid, be without coffee for a day :shock:
I have one of these to go with my Keurig machine:
http://www.amazon.com/Keurig-Cafe-One-Touch-Milk-Frother/dp/B002S51RWA/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t
but I find that I don't use it much because it's just an extra step (or two, or three, or four….) when making a cup of coffee in the morning.
 

VRBeauty

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Apparently the nespresso machines also produce crema - BUT - only if you use the factory-sealed metal capsules. Apparently the refillable "after-market" capsules don't do the trick:
http://kitchenboy.net/blog/nespresso-crema-fact-from-fiction/

And I happen to agree with Kenny on the environmental aspects of the single-use capsule. The Senseo pods are much more environment-friendly, especially if you compost them.* I would be concerned however about some of the reviews posted to Amazon about the some senseo's making coffee with a burnt-plastic smell. :shock: I'd probably hold off on ordering additional pods until I was sure I got a "good" machine.

* which reminds me... I must go feed the worms!
 

Matata

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lambskin

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I am the only coffee drinker in the house so making only one large cup is difficult. I think those pods are really expensive. That said, I buy a variety of good coffee beans, make my own blend and brew a fresh cup everyday but I still cannot figure out how much coffee to put in per cup of coffee (I think I put in way too much). So sometimes my coffee tastes great and other times it tastes like crap. So the pods would provide consistency... It is still cheaper than Starbucks.
 

kenny

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Deleted threadjack and started new thread.
 

cflutist

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kenny|1413845384|3770058 said:
Every morning I make a cup of the best coffee I've ever tasted in my pour-over thinge.
I think I paid 25 cents for it many years ago in a thrift store.

Suspecting it may taste of plastic I tried a $10 ceramic one and couldn't taste any the difference so I returned that one to the store.
In fact I suspect the ceramic cooled the water faster and extracted less flavor.

LOL, that's exactly what I use, except my cup says Yellowstone National Park on it, and the plastic thingy is clear brown plastic.

Was grinding my own beans then figured out it was too much trouble. So I buy my coffee in small batches already ground at Peet's.

Neighbor across the street has Nespresso machine, yes the coffee tastes good, but too rich for my tastes.

We do take our own pods into the PD where we volunteer as they have a Keurig machine there. The jokes about cops pertaining to coffee and donuts are true, there was a major case over the weekend and when hubby and I went into work last Sunday morning, there were 8 containers of Starbucks coffee left on the center work area.
 
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