I tried to paint what this coffee tastes like:
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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.
are there really counterfeit V60 filters out there? I’m seeing a 3 pack of 100-count bleached filters on amazon for $19, which seems like a really good price, but it’s sold by some “samaurai japan” seller. I have definitely gotten counterfeit shit from amazon before when buying from 3rd parties but this ships from amazon so I’m guessing it’s a higher chance of being legit.
3-pack is $19 but a 6-pack is $50???
We use the old nespresso capsule system and it sucks. I actually am tempted to switch over to the crema maker
Those are tabbed. Not the same as the original Japanese papers which are faster and obviously different texture to the naked eye. If your grinder has any kind of elevated fines production the tabbed will give you fits. Can you be troubled to get the real ones from Prima (or another reputable seller) who are guaranteed to have new genuine merchandise? They have a better price on the untabbed than Scamazon. Free shipping at $49 so what I do is load up and forget about it for a year.
Maybe also get the tabbed version for value / comparison:
This guy does an A/B with your grinder and a Happy Mug Burundi:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/8cb4qu/test_hario_v60_new_tabbed_filters_vs_old/
Have you considered refilling the pods with your own coffee? I’ve seen people doing this. It might be a little extra work but you should be able to save money and drink better coffee in theory.
Never really been a coffee drinker but my sis got me this earlier this year.
It’s really pretty and makes, in my philistine mind, good coffee.
Too much work tbh.
In most other areas if my eating/drinking I spend more effort in trying to get high quality products at a decent price.
But when it comes to my morning coffee, coming downstairs half asleep, popping a capsule, pressing a button, and sipping coffee a minute later is worth the expense.
New coffee today:
My first rip matches the description. It starts out with a lemon acidity but quickly morphs into a crystal clear floral that reminds me of rose water. The acidity is present throughout. I’m only getting two distinct phases out of it but they are both highest quality and the transition is lovely. The only hint of an off-flavor I can detect is maybe some bitterness in the lingering aftertaste. This is another example of a great floral coffee yet different than the last I reviewed: think steeped flower petals vs. earthy black tea infusion.
In general, I find Brazilian coffees to be pretty boring. Most of the ones I’ve tried were nutty with notes of caramel and barely detectable acidity. Not sure how much that comes down to variety, processing, or roasting. I’d say they are generally nice gateway drugs for people whose idea of coffee matches that flavor profile (i.e., most North American coffee drinkers). But this one is unique, and, like the Peru, reminds me more of funky Ethiopian wildcard coffees.
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