I owned and enjoyed using a Nespresso machine for around five years. I would tell my friends how great it was, how cheap it is and how convenient. I would recommend them to family members. Over the last few years though I have seen that convenience came at a price, both financially and to the environment. I have realised I can make much better coffee much more cheaply and in a more sustainable way. I can explore much more of the world of coffee. Below I have outline three reasons to consider ditching your Nespresso and also offered some alternatives to making coffee at home if you do.
Cost
Let’s start with the price of those pods. There is a huge range of compatible pods now available for the original range of machines, but here I will focus on the official Nespresso pods.
So the standard ‘espresso’ pod holds around 5g of coffee and the cheapest official Nespresso ones available are 35p a capsule. This increases to 55p a capsule for one of their limited edition single origin capsules (prices correct as of June 2020). Now people have said to me that’s not too bad and will offer comparisons to paying to get a coffee from a high street chain. 55p a cup is a fraction of the £2.20 they might pay for an americano at Costa etc. Now there are a whole host of other things at play here, such as premises, utilities, staff costs etc. so that for me is not a valid argument.
So lets focus solely on the cost of the coffee. If you are paying 55p for 5g of coffee we can do some basic maths to work out that you are paying £27.50 for 250g or £110 per kg. Now some of my friends tell me I buy expensive coffee when I treat myself to a bag about £10 – £12 for 250g. But even at the top end of that range that’s £48 a Kg and less than half the price of the same amount of coffee from Nespresso’s premium range. Even their cheapest capsules work out at £70 a Kg of coffee. Gram for gram Nespresso’s coffee is up there with the most expensive, micro-lot, ethically sourced and traceable coffee available in the world.
So lets look at the costs of running a Nespresso machine in a household. I am going to take my household as an example. So my wife and I both have a coffee first thing when we wake up, this is usually a V60. To replicate a similar strength americano (in a coffee shop this would be made with between 17g to 20g of coffee) I would want to use two pods of nespresso per person (10g of coffee) and then top up with hot water. So 4 pods so far. We both then often have a milk based drink mid morning. My wife a latte (1 pod) me a flat white (2 pods). I often then have an americano in the afternoon (2 pods). So a typical day would see me use 9 pods, multiply this up by 30 days in an average month and even without any extra drinks for guests that’s 270 pods a month. At the cheaper end of the capsules this would cost me £94.50 and at the more expensive end £148.50. Currently I would say I spend on average about £30 – £35 a month on coffee.
I would also then have 270 empty pieces of aluminium pod lying around, which brings me on to my next issue.
Environmental Impact
Before we tackle the enormous problem of disposable capsules I want to first consider the machines themselves.
For a while now Nespresso has offered their machines essentially for free. Right now on the Nespresso UK website (June 2020) you can get any one of eight of the original line of Nespresso machines for only £1. This includes their top of the range Creatista Pro from Sage which retails for £649.95 at high street shops. You then have to pay a monthly ‘subscription’ fee of between £20 and £70 a month for 12 months, but you can use this subscription to buy anything on the Nespresso website. This to me proves two things. Firstly that Nespresso make a fortune from selling their pods, so much so that they can substantially off set the cost of giving you a ‘free’ machine. Secondly it makes the machine itself have no value to the customer. If you have paid £650 for a coffee machine that breaks after 13 months you would put some serious time and money into getting it repaired so your investment was not wasted. If you know you can replace the machine for £1, why would you bother? If you are going to be spending the money on capsules anyway it’s a no-brainer, in fact it might even encourage you to get the latest and greatest machine every 12 months just because you can. This creates a throw-away culture where a very expensive piece of technology is consigned very quickly to the tip. The raw materials that have gone into producing that machine are simply wasted.
Then there is the capsules, the official Nespresso capsules are actually recyclable as they are made of aluminium. The problem is that they are only recyclable if you send them back to Nespresso to do it properly, you can’t simply pop them in your local council recycling box as they will just be sent to landfill. Instead you have to keep all of your pods in a big green bag that you either drop into your local Nespresso shop or arrange a collection. A bit of hassle maybe but surely most people would want to do this. However in November 2019, Nespresso revealed that only 29% of the pods it sells get recycled. Now Nespresso produced nearly 12 billion (yes billion) capsules last year. So that’s just over 8.5 billion capsules heading to landfill every year just from official Nespresso capsules. Factor in that most of the Nespresso compatible pods are made of plastic and so not recyclable plus all of the other pod machines available and it was estimated that last year 56 billion capsules were sent to landfill. That’s an incredible amount of waste.
So is paying a premium and producing all this waste worth it for what you get out?
Quality
I am not going to go out and say Nespresso tastes bad. That is a matter of personal preference and what you are comparing it to. There are just two points I think worth making.
Firstly, the standard Nespresso pod contains just 5g of coffee and the ‘lungo’ or longer coffee 7g. That is a really small amount of coffee. The standard size pour from one capsule is 40g of liquid. Sorry if I get a bit technical but that means the ratio of ground coffee in to liquid out is 1:8. Consider that in a cafe or on a true home espresso machine you would often dose somewhere between 17g – 20g of ground coffee in and aim to get somewhere between 34g – 40g of liquid out in a 1:2 ratio. So you can clearly see that the coffee you are getting out of a Nespresso is a lot less concentrated. If you then dilute it further for an americano you end up with quite a weak coffee, hence why many people use two pods when looking for longer americano style coffee.
Seocndly, I don’t know enough about Nespresso’s packaging process to know how long after the coffee is roasted they grind it and how long after grinding it they package it but bare in mind that at each stage of this process the coffee deteriorates, it will lose some of its aroma and its taste. Nespresso also de-gas their coffee to stop it spoiling in the packaging before you use it. Doing this means that it can’t make a crema in the way a traditional espresso machine does by trapping tiny bubbles of Carbon Dioxide. It’s crema is more of a foam that it makes by pushing air though the coffee. When you buy fresh beans they are usually best enjoyed within a month of roasting. All of Nespresso’s official capsules won’t expire until at least a year after you purchase them.
Conclusion
I know I have come down quite hard on Nespresso here and actually it does have a lot to offer. Unless you are willing to spend a fair amount of money and time learning how to use a proper espresso machine at home then in my opinion you won’t beat the shots it produces. There is also that convenience; no waiting time for the machine to warm up, no dialing in of the beans and no mess afterwards.
But all of this comes at a price. Both in terms of the environmental impact and the actual cost vs the quality of the coffee. If you want to ditch Nespresso without taking up the hobby of making proper espresso at home, below are some alternatives that produce great coffee at a more affordable price and are better for the environment too.
Some Alternatives
So what are your alternatives. Realistically you aren’t going to be pulling amazing espresso shots unless you invest around £500 and a considerable amount of your time. The options below could offer you some great home coffee though without all the waste of Nespresso and the opportunity to try a range of beans from different roasters. Quality fresh beans are key to all the options below.
Grinder – if you really want the best coffee at home you need to grind your beans fresh. Forget looking in Argos or anywhere like that you need a proper burr grinder. The biggest bang for your buck in terms of taste will be thanks to your grinder. I will look at grinders in more detail soon but the best entry level home grinder for filter is the Wilfa Svart. At around £100 it’s seen by many as the go to for home filter grinding. From there you are looking to spend around £300 for the next significant step up in quality and then about £1k plus for peak levels of commercial equipment.
Scales – for any filter method you’re really going to need scales. As long as they are accurate to 0.1g then they are fine. You can get a decent pair for around £20. The Yagua Barista Scales are a popular choice
V60 – A plastic one with filters can be picked up for less than £10 (or free if you sign up for a Pact coffee subscription, which also gains you a bag of coffee and you can cancel after one month). This can make delicious coffee that really brings out the flavours of the bean. Don’t get hoodwinked into thinking the expensive ceramic V60 are better, they are actually worse as they take heat away from the brewing process more than the plastic. They are also much more breakable.
AeroPress – this makes some great coffee, it also makes some pretty terrible coffee. The point is that it’s pretty cheap (around £30), almost indestructible and has lots of possibilities. There are loads of videos on YouTube showing good methods that get great results. It’s also great for travel use.
French Press – Paired with a good grinder, good beans and a good method this produces excellent results for less than £20. I highly recommend the James Hoffman technique.
So there we have it, some alternatives to your expensive and wasteful Nespresso experience. Have I got any of this wrong? Do you think Nespresso’s taste is worth the cost and waste? Let me know in the comments below.
Until next time.
UK Coffee Journey 