Funnily enough though, some of the most entertaining radio happens when people forget to be careful. So when Mike Hosking brought up the issue of how recyclable Nespresso coffee pods are, I felt obliged to chip in with my views on the quality of the end product.
Given I'd had zero positive experiences with capsule coffee makers up till that point, it wasn't perhaps the greatest 2 minutes of radio publicity the team at Nespresso could have hoped for.
Entertaining? Possibly.
Since then, to Nespresso's credit, they've gone to great lengths to get me to change my mind...
I have a pretty useful espresso machine at home, better than entry level but nowhere near top of the line either. Despite a lack of bells and whistles, the Domestic Manager and I have come to rely on it as one the most essential appliances in our kitchen. She's a flat white kind of a girl, I'm a double-shot bowl latte guy. I'm no barista, but these days I can create a cuppa good enough to have high expectations of any real cafe's cup of joe.
In saying that, I am also a bit of a caffeine slut. If I'm feeling coffee deprived in the morning, my standards will drop dramatically and if I haven't dosed up by at least 10am, the withdrawal symptoms really start to kick in and I've even been known to resort to instant just to prevent myself going into shock.
This is why I've happily sampled capsule coffee when served to me at friends' houses, when it's the only option at workplaces and when that's the best thing on offer in hotel or motel rooms. All of them were gross.
This is why the team from Nespresso gagged and bound me, put a bag over my head, loaded me into a van and spirited me off to the nearest Nespresso kiosk to set me straight.
There I met a dark stranger named Chad who changed my life.
After discussing how I prefer my coffee, what kind of beans I use, how many coffees usually drink and when I usually down them, Chad proceeded to lead me on a magical journey of caffeinated discovery, featuring the best flavours from both South America and Africa.
Like an alcoholic let loose in a craft brewery, I even got to sample George Clooney's world-saving blend from South Sudan - a coffee that wasn't really my cup of tea, but it was nice to think I was doing my small part to restore basic human rights, democracy and some semblance of society to a war-torn, third-world nation. Amazing what you can achieve with a simple cup of coffee.
As I said earlier, I like a latte (been living in Auckland too damn long) and I think the main problem with my earlier capsule taste tests wasn't just the quality of the coffee, but the texture of the milk. Not all capsule machines include any kind of milk frothing option and splashing some Lite Blue into your mug straight out of the fridge kind of ruins the effect.
Enter the Latissima Touch from Delonghi, the machine that blew my prejudiced mind.
This is a machine capable of producing a genuinely good coffee, including milk heated and frothed to your taste with the push of just 3 buttons. I can't deny it, a process this simple definitely appeals to my overriding sense of laziness.
There's no fiddling around grinding beans to the right consistency, tamping it down, frothing the milk with a wand that sometimes doesn't do what you thought it would for no real reason and then having to clean the whole lot out.
With the Latissima Touch, just bung the capsule in, push the coffee button, push the milk button and you're done. To clean, it's just a matter of holding down the cleaning button. (I know, complicated right?) A minor annoyance is having to hold the cleaning button down for the whole 15 seconds or so the process takes, but I can just about cope with that.
The milk canister is self sealing and because the milk isn't heated till it's poured, you can keep the whole container in the fridge to avoid any waste. When it's time to clean it, the dishwasher-safe components all snap or screw out so easily it's hard to believe how well designed this machine is for the price.
Of course, you are left with Mike Hosking's original issue of dealing with the discarded capsules. While they are recyclable, because of the grounds inside they're not able to be put into your household recycling bin. To their credit, Nespresso have taken serious steps in the right direction offering hundreds of used capsule collection points around the country and recently even a specially designed bag you can hand over the counter at any Post Shop.
This isn't as easy as washing used grounds down your waste disposal, but the rest of the process is just so much less hassle and mess it makes it well worthwhile.
There's a massive range of different blends available, which means I can easily swap between the capsule I prefer and the one the Domestic Manager likes. There's even a selection of de-caf options that almost taste like proper coffee!
But the real bonus of using the Latissima Touch is, compared to my old espresso machine, it's actually quite portable. We took it away with us for the weekend and became instantly popular with all our caffeine-deprived friends. You don't want to be bogged down with grounds and steam wands when you're camping, but popping in a pod and pushing a few buttons is a doddle.
The upshot is, I can now brew my own Nespresso bowl latte and it's virtually indistinguishable from the one I'd make with my old conventional machine. (I don't want to admit some days I think it tastes even better, because then everything I said on the radio that day would be mere uninformed spouting-off, and we couldn't have that)
Click here for more information on the Nespresso Latissima Touch from Delonghi
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