I recently upgraded my life... I mean my coffee machine to the Nespresso Latissima; also know as "George". More on this later.
Previous to this magical device, I owned another fully automatic coffee machine that was quite nice; the Jura-Capresso E8. The E8 would make a great espresso (depending on your beans of course) and would make an Americano if you like as well. It did however lack any real ability to make anything with milk. While the E8 did have a milk frother, it didn't have the power needed to get you a great foam. On top of this, the arduous journey of cleaning this contraption was terrible. You had to disassemble the nozzle as if you were pulling apart a small V8 engine just to get the milk out of it. If you failed to comply with these rules, you would end up with a bit of sour milk. And as we know, sour milk is not good... No, no it's not...
The Latissima on the other hand is the Perfect design. Simple, elegant, very few moving parts and of course really, really easy to clean. The culmination of this lies within milk container and frother. It sits externally to the device and like all it's other parts are completely dishwasher safe. This is key my friends. On a day to day basis you simply remove the milk container (no waste) and put it in your refrigerator. Finally, once a week just stick all the parts in the dishwasher. It is clean as a kitten after a good tongue bath.
The beauty of this all? It makes a near perfect Latte and Cappuccino in about 45 seconds and to top it all off. It's probably the least expensive "top of the line" machine out there.
Next we have the coffee. I have long been opposed to the capsule culture of coffee. I never really believed in it and never thought that you could get a decent cup. There are many "American" brands out there that try to produce a good cup. The reality with most of these... They are simply coffee grounds wrapped in a small coffee filter. Not espresso, not even coffee. Not even worthy of ingestion.
After trying out the Nespresso line of capsules, I can truly say that their coffee will rival just about anything out there, short of a Italian bar in Florence. They come in about 12 different blends all designated a range from 2-10, where the higher the number the stronger. I like the 9's and 10's, of course.
Each of them have different characteristics that are built to suit even the most demanding pallets; you can even get decaffeinated versions, although I'm not sure why.
Back to George. George Clooney happens to be the spokesperson for Nespresso in Europe. What I didn't mention yet is anything about this company and it's reputation. Nespresso was originally a joint partnership between the Swiss Nestlé company and the German Krups company. The Swiss set out to perfect the capsule manufacturing process while the Germans made the machine to go alone with it. Could anyone imagine a better combination? The engineering and the quality of the Germans along with the absolute precision of the Swiss keeping your coffee perfectly tucked into it's aluminum foil capsule.
With introducion of the Nespresso line it has grown to become a standard for home espresso machines in Europe. They have boutiques where people can go and enjoy a Nespresso and purchase refills for their machines. I've been to the one in Munich, it's quite the experience.
Just see for yourself.
What's the catch? The downside? Well... Americans haven't quite figured this out yet. I understand... It took me a bit as well. Granted Starbucks has really brought up the quality of American's coffee drinking habits, but I fear in the home, many of us are still stuck in the 1950's with our instant coffee and our percolators.
Not me... Never... I have George.
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