Simple tips on choosing a coffee pod machine
Why pod machines anyway?
By far the biggest news in kitchen appliances has to be the new-found love for proper coffee. Sales of in-home machines have soared, with over 1.5 million machines sold in Australia over the last couple of years! Coffee pod sales are well over $775 million each year and forecast to double by 2020.
Thanks to Nespresso, we've become a nation of in home coffee connoisseurs - just pop a pod in the slot and press go and you get a consistent result every time.
So, the question we are often asked is what machine should I get?
Helpful thoughts from customers
Think about your needs and your budget. Do you make more than 1 or 2 coffees in a row? Do you have milk based coffee or espresso or long black? Do you have a particular colour scheme in your kitchen? It definitely seems that you get what you pay for with these machines. Customers tell us that while the cheap supermarket machines sound like a good idea they are not as reliable as the Nespresso machines and even in the range of Nespresso machines the entry level ones (U and Inissia) are regularly singled out as models that are less robust and have more problems. That is to be expected, as with most things the cheaper the model, the shorter the life.
Based on the experiences of hundreds of our customers we have been able to cut it down to just two models. Oh and by the way the best way to get a great price is to buy at Christmas or Mother’s Day. You will get a great cash deal from the electrical retailers and then get a cash back from Nespresso on top. We are happy to help with this is you need, just send us an email.
Recommended models
Here are the options:
1. If you make more than 1 or 2 coffees at a time and you have cappuccino or latte then the best machine is the Nespresso Latissima. The mechanism is very robust (we have processed thousands of pods through our test machine and had zero problems) and will comfortably make multiple coffees one after another. The beauty with this model is that the milk-frothing unit is integrated so a one-button push can make any variation of milk or non-milk coffee that you want and the frothing unit will make multiple coffees before needing to be refilled. The real beauty if this is that the unit does not need to be washed after every coffee is made and if there is milk left in it then you simply unplug it and put it in the fridge! This is our favourite machine and if you can find a good deal on the Lattissima Plus (The Good Guys seem to have them fairly regulalrly) then take it, there is no better machine.
2. If you only make one or two coffees at a time then the Pixie machine is what we would recommend. This has robust componentry and customers report very few problems with this. As with all machines except for the Latissima you will need to think carefully about the milk frothing requirements. All Nespresso frothers must be washed out after every coffee is made as the milk warming process creates a film on the inside of the frothing unit that will burn if more than one coffee’s milk is frothed. The only machine that comes close to the Pixie is the Citiz but this model takes up a larger amount of space on the kitchen bench.
Coffee pod waste
The biggest issue with any coffee pod machine is the amount of waste that it created. In Australia it is estimated that 3 million plastic and aluminium pods are used each day and that the average Nespresso drinker will use 1000 pods per year which is enough waste to fill a shipping container over a lifetime of drinking.
Fortunately, it is now easy to get fully biodegradable pods from Ethical Coffee, a Swiss company set up by the founding CEO of Nespresso who has spent years in R&D perfecting a pod that disappears in 180 days. This coffee is sourced from the best growers, packed in eco-friendly pods and cost less than Nespresso ones. We are the local distributor for Ethical Coffee and while we love the Nespresso machines and what they can do we don’t like the waste.
The great news is now we can have all of the benefits of the Latissima or Pixie machine without any of the negatives associated with the waste.
Plastic capsules can take more than 500 years to degrade while aluminium capsules can take between 150 and 200 years, compared to the 180 days for ours its a simple decision.
