Although Mars asked for a coffee maker of the non pod variety, I feel the need to give a shout to the ubiquitous Nespresso pod machine.  Made by the evil multinational, rain forest destroying, child labour-employing employing conglomerate that is Nestle *, and using an individual plastic or aluminium package for each cup, it does nonetheless make really good coffee. And you can recycle the aluminium pods or use a refillable stainless one. My personal red line is the plastic pods. 

My machine is one of the original ones that just makes espresso, with none of the fancy hot milk stuff. My only gripe is that it's a bit noisy.        

*  that's a joke by the way

@majordennisbloodnok, I agree. I've not yet opened the machine, but the information I got online was that it has a "high brewing pressure of 19 bar". The controversy of this post increases. 😀

Posted by: @kev-m

Made by the evil multinational, rain forest destroying, child labour-employing employing conglomerate that is Nestle *, [...]

*  that's a joke by the way

So do you think their dodgy actions described on https://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree are a joke?

The closest to a sustainable pod machine may be the compostable Saeco / ESE ones. Not Nespresso-compatible.

@editor just forget the descriptions on that one. They're riddled with errors. Espresso pressure is normally around 9 bar, so 19 bar would probably result in odd-tasting (underextracted) coffee. That's one of the reasons the similar-tasting Moka coffee cannot be called Espresso, because it's extracted at 1.5-2 bar (just high enough to force the water up the spouts and through the gratings), not 9.

By the way, I suspect that induction Moka pots are the most energy-efficient way to make coffee, unless there's a drip machine out there with a pressure boiler.

Posted by: @mjr

Posted by: @kev-m

Made by the evil multinational, rain forest destroying, child labour-employing employing conglomerate that is Nestle *, [...]

*  that's a joke by the way

So do you think their dodgy actions described on https://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree are a joke?

The closest to a sustainable pod machine may be the compostable Saeco / ESE ones. Not Nespresso-compatible.

Interesting, @mjr. The formula milk issue that started the boycott is precisely why I on principle won't buy or consume anything knowingly associated or affiliated with Nestlé. I'm not a fan of the direction the site you highlighted has taken the original gripe but nonetheless I do feel the conglomerate has only acted ethically when it has been found out. In short, I have absolutely no confidence whatever in Nestlé's moral compass.

@kev-m, I know your comment was made tongue-in-cheek but in fact I can't see anything but the literal truth in what you said. If anything I think you were too soft on them. Nonetheless, even if you take all the ethics out of the argument the pod system makes little financial sense. Nestlé sell their machines at a very reasonable price in order to get their pod system out there. They then put a high profit margin on the pods themselves and make their profit on a locked-in consumer base (third party pod manufacturers aside). Certainly not just Nestlé doing this and certainly not a purely coffee pod tactic (think disposable razor heads as another example), but personally I prefer to just get the coffee itself - beans or ground - au naturel and avoid all the shenanigans; I can get better quality coffee as a result anyway.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

Posted by: @mjr

 

@kev-m, I know your comment was made tongue-in-cheek but in fact I can't see anything but the literal truth in what you said. If anything I think you were too soft on them. Nonetheless, even if you take all the ethics out of the argument the pod system makes little financial sense. Nestlé sell their machines at a very reasonable price in order to get their pod system out there. They then put a high profit margin on the pods themselves and make their profit on a locked-in consumer base (third party pod manufacturers aside). Certainly not just Nestlé doing this and certainly not a purely coffee pod tactic (think disposable razor heads as another example), but personally I prefer to just get the coffee itself - beans or ground - au naturel and avoid all the shenanigans; I can get better quality coffee as a result anyway.

I never said Nestle is an ethical company, I only said my pod machine makes, in my opinion, good coffee.  I know about the business models behind coffee pod machines, printers, razors and the like.  The original Nespresso pods can now be bought for about 15p each for aluminium ones or 10p for plastic ones and Nestle get nothing from these sales.  The machines, as you say, are cheap, if not loss-leading. 

Anyway, maybe we shouldn't be consuming a product that is grown thousands of miles away and shipped here on highly polluting cargo ships.  We should probably stick to drinking something British, like a nice cup of Yorkshire tea, instead.  

Anyway, maybe we shouldn't be consuming a product that is grown thousands of miles away and shipped here on highly polluting cargo ships.  We should probably stick to drinking something British, like a nice cup of Yorkshire tea, instead.   

Made from tea grown in the expansive Yorkshire Dales tea plantations 😂

Here’s our review of the Cuisinart Grind and Brew Plus. It’s a really simple, easy to use and maintain coffee maker.

As an aside, this unit is currently on sale as part of Black Friday deals in the UK, and you can pick up the Cuisinart Professional Grind and Brew Plus on Amazon or directly from Cusinart’s website.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3gpT9RM

Cuisinart: https://tidd.ly/3VcBOu9