but crema doesn’t taste good to begin with (which is a staple Hoffmann argument). Aerated coffee cream is probably a lot tastier.
I guess this might be subtle but the entire video is him dunking on Nestle gimmick coffee. The meta point is that they’re claiming the machine does something it isn’t actually doing while using patented technology as woo to lock low-info consumers into the brand. It’s pretty cynical yet not that surprising because that’s how bullshit companies like Nestle operate. The good news is the machine appears to be capable of good extraction yields so you can still make decent coffee with it by sourcing specialty or reusable pods.
it’s not subtle at all, I’m just saying he isn’t doing a “good” job at it, but he is making it very entertaining.
The end results is he made a very entertaining video in which he shows that a pretty cheap machine that is extremely easy and convenient to use is making decent dark roast coffee if that’s your thing.
If I was contemplating buying one, this video is more likely to persuade me into buying one than the other way round, which I don’t think was his original plan.
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If there’s one thing I didn’t find to be particularly clear, it’s that the machine is absolutely a DRM-locked coffee system à la Juicero. I thought he was implying that the lawsuit allowed third parties to make pods for all of their machines, but that was only regarding the original Nespresso pods. There’s a DIY reusable pod hack that appears to be 10x more complicated than just doing a French press.
UNTIL THEN
I’m brewing Happy Mug Ethiopias that are 2 months off roast and they’re very good. Not quite as bright as I remember them; maybe a bit more balanced yet muddled / not as separated. The off-gassing seems about the same as right off roast. I purposely didn’t freeze them, just kept in airtight containers.
Currently drinking this:
This is the first time I’ve hit S/W with the new grinder and it didnt’t disappoint. Almost shocking difference in terms of overall profile compared to what I had been drinking. My first impression was dark (“opposite” of sour) acidity with mild sweetness. That impression quickly vanished as it morphed into a complex floral bomb. I’m not good enough to call out individual florals but that’s definitely the defining characteristic of this coffee. I feel like the finish had a mild citrus acidity but I’ll have to reevaluate that in the coming days.
In case it’s not clear what I’m talking about, this coffee changes in your mouth in a span of about 1 to 3 seconds. It’s one of the defining and most unusual properties of what I consider to be the crème de la crème of coffee. The absolute best coffees I’ve tasted had three distinct phases, and I tend to think of them in terms of both quality and contrast to one another. So for this one I’d say:
Open (1): Dark acidity, mild sweetness (like berry juice)
Quality: 2/3
Middle (2): Floral, earthy, complex like infused tea
Quality: 3/3
Finish (3): Mild citrus
Quality: 1/3
Contrast 1 → 2: 3/3. The transition was fast and stunning.
Contrast 2 → 3: 1/3. Release was slow and into a finish that is unremarkable.
That is probably the best way I can describe what I’m tasting and what I’m looking for. That would be 10/15 points on the coffee scoring metric I just invented which is extremely high compared to most other coffees I’ve had. The absolute best I’ve had would probably score 12-13 on that rubric. Most coffees do not even have three distinct phases and/or would receive zeros in some categories (e.g., absence of phases, medicinal aftertaste).
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Wife got me the coffee grinder recommended here for our anniversary. Arriving tomorrow. Pumped
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Another tip if anyone decides to order from S&W: they don’t do free shipping but have a coupon code (redditor15off) that never expires. They ship 16 oz bags so I bought 48 oz for $49 shipped. You’ll get a similar $/oz if you order 2 lbs. Slightly over $1/oz is about the best you can do on coffee of such high quality (Happy Mug is the other roaster I like at this price point). S&W is just two dudes in the middle of Indiana somewhere who are really nice, so please order your coffee from people like them instead of Nestle-owned bullshit like Blue Bottle.
I would recommend this Peru to anyone wanting to try an acidic, floral coffee that changes flavors as your drink it. This is one of the best examples of floral coffee I’ve had, and the acidity is interesting while not overly bright. On this second attempt, I’m getting more of the citrus which I’d describe as mandarin orange as opposed to lemon. It’s probably a bit less extracted than yesterday and not as clearly separated which is likely due to changing the recipe slightly.
Late to the party, but I wanted to add my comments as a Nespresso drinker.
First, the video was hilarious but also extremely informative. A few things in the video were way over my understanding as a coffee n00b, but others were very interesting. I came out with a sense that the coffee I’m drinking is actually decent even by an expert’s standard.
The aesthetic of the foam (OK, I won’t call it crema 
) is actually very appealing to me and to the people who have drank the coffee at our place. I like the convenience of the system, but in particular my wife loves it. There is no way I would be able to convince her to spend 5+ minutes making an aeropress or v60 cup of coffee. Not happening.
We own an aeropress that I haven’t used in 5+ years until last month when, because of this thread, I brought it back from the garage and gave it a try. I have a very crappy grinder (like, lol $17.99 grinder), which I used to “grind” some decent looking beans from whole foods, and I can say that the quality of the cup was equal to superior of that of the Nespresso. No “crema” though!
Price-wise, we spent $1,500 in Nespresso capsules last year. That sounds like a lot to me, but the convenience is pretty hard to beat.
All this to say, I’m going to continue drinking Nespresso for the foreseeable future, but I’ll dabble in better stuff in the future thanks to this thread.
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This was my original concern, but it takes nowhere near that much time btw for an aeropress. Fresh grind, water warming up, and etc takes about as much time as it did for a keurig to warm up and dispense a cup. Little more work though obviously.
Beans grinded and water warm before starting? 30 seconds.
Thanks for sharing.
I think this is ambitious, but I’m going to remain agnostic on it and focus on the next point:
Holy shit at $1,500. I did some math in the post above yours and figured out I’m paying just over $1 / oz shipped for the cheapest coffee that I’m willing to buy. On the high end I’ve paid up to $5/oz for geshas but that is rare. Even the places I regularly spend up for like B&W are ~$40 / 24 oz shipped which is $1.67 / oz. I assume I’m spending somewhere between $1.20 and $1.50 / oz in any given year, but these are all very high quality coffees.
I average around 25 g / day which works out to roughly 322 oz / ~20 lbs in a year. So I could easily get by with a $350/yr coffee budget, although in practice it’s in the $400s. I’m not sure how the dosing compares to you + wife, but I’d have to increase by a factor of 3x-4x to get to $1,500. How many pods are you consuming per day?
Again, I’ll point out that this isn’t an apples:apples comparison because the coffee I’m buying is much higher quality single origin sourced to a single farm in almost all cases. I’m confident I could still beat the Nespresso cup buying value coffees in bulk. For example, HM sells single farm / co-op coffees for $20 / 2 lbs. If I searched harder I could probably find a good blend in 5 lb that works out to 50c / oz.
I’m going to make up some numbers now: assume you and your wife consume twice as much coffee as me (~40 lbs per year). I’m going to slot you in at the HM value price of $20 / 2 lbs which is undoubtedly higher quality than you are currently drinking. That’s about $400 per year for really good coffee. The extra $1100 could buy you a Baratza Forte and an SCAA-certified automatic drip machine. Or you could get a merely very good setup for around $250 and pocket the rest.
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I agree that the amount we spend is ridiculous and that the quality of the coffee is nowhere to what someone like you gets. I’d say we consume an average 4 capsules/day, which at an average price of $1.25/capsule end up in the $1,500/yr range.
I’m curious, how many cups do those 25g make? Seems like it’s about half of what we drink.
Regardless of all those arguments, the convenience factor is what really tips the scales for us.
Depends on what a “cup” is which is poorly defined and varies considerably. The 25g at 16:1 comes out to roughly 350 mL (12.3 oz) out. In the video, he measures the green capsule contents at 13g and picks 230 mL (8.11 oz) out. If that’s the amount your machine is making, then the two of you combined are drinking 2.64 times as much as me. To get that much coffee out at the ratio I like would require about 65.5g per day which works out to about 53 pounds per year.
Today I learned that Hoffman is 41 years old, I would have guessed at least 50. That dude needs to drink some decaf and get some sleep.
$1500 seems crazy until I ran the numbers for myself
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I seriously thought you guys spent at least that amount.
Biggest problem I have with the Vertuo is that you’re locked into their system of coffee which is obv exactly what they want. All $1500 is going to Nestle–it’s DRM coffee. At least with Keurig and original Nestle they’re open to 3rd party pods and have a ton of options available. Hell, you can get La Esmeralda Gesha for these things, albeit at quite a price:
If my math is correct, the Vertuo drip pods come out to $2.73/oz. That’s nearly $44/lb for coffee. As far as I can recall, there are only two coffees I’ve ever spent that much on and one was a gesha that wouldn’t make my top 20. With a $1500 coffee budget I could drink Esmeralda every day of the year which is something I imagine only kings do.