After a lot of research and knowing how tasty the Nespresso espressos are (free sample at a store a year ago that I fondly remembered), I bought the Nespresso C100 on Amazon in September 2009 for an anniversary present to ourselves. In four months, we have made about 180 cups of cappuccino or espresso for my husband and I and an occasional guest. We make about 2-3 cups during the weekday and more on the weekends.
- Very fast and easy to make, with no mess. Fill up the water dispenser, turn the machine on, pop a colored pod in the maker and close lever. Wait for buttons to stop blinking to show it is heated, then push the button. Enjoy the smell! Very easy to clean - run water through by pressing the button and dump out/wash the tray where the overflow grill is and the basket that catches the many pods.
- Aeroccino froth maker is soooo much easier than trying to use the steam nozzles that most cappuccino maker's have (no splattering and nice, consistent froth. My friends are impressed how easy it is!). Just pour the milk in (regular, 2%, or soy) up to the bottom line, put on the plastic lid, and press the button. It makes enough for two cappuccinos. I make the espresso on the lungo or larger setting (7 oz), so the frothed milk is fine for me; however, my husband likes the cappuccino hotter since the milk is warm but not hot, and he puts his cappuccino in microwave to make it hotter. If you pour the milk into the espresso, made on the espresso setting (5 oz), since it is a smaller amount of coffee, the milk tends to make it too cold. If you pour the milk a little above the upper line in the Aeroccino, it can froth over the container. The container is easy to clean up, although it seems best to clean up after each iteration; otherwise, the milk can be stuck on the bottom in brown stains and harder to get off if you heat it up the 2nd time. After cleaning the Aeroccino, make sure you dry it and put the wire whisk back on its magnetic base. A few times, I have just put it inside and later tried to froth my coffee. When it doesn't froth, it means, the wire whisk wasn't put on the magnetic base. You can push the button again to stop the machine and put the whisk in place.
- I bought two Nespresso Lungo (5 oz) glass cups when I bought my machine for about $20. When I received the machine, there was a one time special card offering two Lungo (5 oz) and two Espresso (2 oz) cups and the associated black, plastic saucers for $20 instead of $29. It worth to have at least two Lungo cups. We only use them to make the espresso, then pour the coffee into bigger coffee mugs to have room to add the milk froth. Since I am not a coffee purist and I like to get the most for my money, I push the Lungo button to get a Lungo size cup, pour it in a coffee mug, then press the espresso button to get a smaller amount and also pour that in the coffee mug, so I can get more coffee for the price.
After making all your espressos, Nespresso recommends running hot water through by pushing to button to flush out any espresso grounds, so it nice to have an extra cup to hold that water.
- When you get the machine, they very nicely give you a one of each of the Nespresso espresso flavors (12 or 14). Before I got my machine, I had ordered additional flavors from the Nespresso website based on other Amazon reviewer favorites (thanks for your thoughts!), and they arrived before my machine did. Instead of .55 each, they cost about .64 each when shipped to Maryland. They normally have 2 business day shipping, so they arrived pretty fast.
- I use a large round empty fish bowl to store my colorful Nespresso pods. It looks nice on the counter.
- I made myself a spreadsheet, copying and pasting the information from the Nespresso website to show:
Name: such as Apreggio
Type: Espresso or Lungo. I found I could use either espresso or lungo to make a lungo size cup, since I don't like my cappuccino too strong.
Intensity: 1-10
Description: From website
Pod Color: This is subjective and helpful when you want to buy more or even find which pod you want more quickly. Looking for a teal or blue? Copper or gold?
My and my husband's ratings (1-3 stars) with comments so I knew which ones to re-order.
I added in the specialty flavors which are not listed in the Nespresso book.
Here are our favorites that we re-ordered. Note that the colors are my subjective view of what the pods looked like to me:
Apreggio Espresso; intensity 9; purple - we probably have had 70 pods of this!
Fortissio Lungo; intensity 7; teal
Indriya from India Pure Origin; intensity 10; olive-grey (.62 instead of .55)
Livanto Espresso; intensity 6; copper
Ristretto Espresso; intensity 10; black
Vivalo Lungo; intensity 4; blue - mild flavor
Cosi Espresso, intensity 3; cocoa - nice, light
Decaffeinato Espresso; intensity 3; red - best decaffeinated coffee for us
Singatoba special club; intensity 8; bright blue
Volluto espresso; intensity 4; bronze gold - light
Holiday special: Variation Pain D' Espices (gingerbread) - nice spice flavor
Holiday special: Variation Creme de Marron (chestnut cream) - creamy flavor with different levels of complexity
Didn't like as much:
Finezzo Lungo; intensity 3; bright gold - not much flavor; could barely taste it
Dulsao do Brasil; intensity 5; dark gold - dry tasting
Decaffeinato Lungo; intensity 3; brick red - bitter tasting; needs sweetner
Decaffeinato Intenso espresso;intensity 7; maroon - strong, bitter; needs sweetner
Capriccio Espresso; intensity 5; green
Roma Espresso; intensity 8; dark grey - thought it was okay
Rosabaya de Columbia pure origin; intensity 8; pink - bitter; needs lots of sweetner
We really like our C100 espresso machine. It is easier to use than a normal cappuccino maker with the mess of espresso grounds and the hassle of the steam nozzle. The coffee is very worth the price and inconvenience of having to buy at the Nespresso website or at a Nespresso boutique. I would have liked to get the higher-end Nespresso machine that integrates the milk frother in the same unit but at $800, it was too much. The $300 C100 with the Aeroccino milk frother is a good value for the money and well worth it.
** Update: We just celebrated our 2 year, 2 month anniversary with our Nespresso C100, and it is still going strong! My husband accidentally threw away the basket that catches the used pods, so now we use the machine without it. You just have to cup your hand around the mini-mountain of used pods as you take it to the garbage can or empty it a little more often.
I used the descaler kit twice in the two years, just for maintenance. You need to do it next to the sink and have several cups (2-4 cup measuring cups work well) to catch the hot water that pours and pours out, such as one to catch the water and another to empty. The hot descaler water doesn't stop coming out like when you make a cup of espresso; it keeps coming until it empties all the water in the tank.
I hope this review was helpful to you and that you enjoy your espresso with Nespresso!
