Nespresso Essenza - Essentially Nescafe (Krups Nespresso XN2005)

Name: Nar2

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Product:	Krups Nespresso XN2005
Date:	15/10/07 (1147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stylish looking, classy, minimises espresso procedure, lightweight.

Disadvantages: Bourgeoisie style expensive purchase & ownership, noisy, no frother, no cup warmer.

You know, it is easy to see why consumers prefer using microwaves to conventional ovens; they're smaller, can be fit into the tightest of spaces and normally cost a quarter of a conventional oven which offers the same features. And that's the impression I'm getting with everything these days in the household appliance market. The same applies to coffee makers, which in terms of searching for an Espresso machine, they no longer take up the whole kitchen worktop with odd pipes to clean and more parts than a child's easy to put together 8 part jigsaw. ** This is a long review **


** Nar's Quick Skip Review Spec: **

* 1250watt,
* 19 bar pressure,
* Height 25cm, Width 17cm.
* Normal price on average £70 to £100 or half price.



At the time I wasn't in the market for an Espresso machine but a cheap stereo. And oh how I laughed with Linda the shop assistant who advised me to keep visiting her to see the latest line up of stereos in the shop, only to be greeted by this same Krups coffee machine looking all alone on top of a slim line hob.

"Still there?" she'd hear me say when I'd enter the shop...

When I returned home one week of a holiday away from my parents, I was horrified (to say the least) to see the same model gracing our kitchen work surface;

"I've never bought anything like this before," beamed my mother looking and touching (almost stroking) this monstrosity.


** The Mother's Price **


Well it certainly pays to haggle; mother dearest managed to buy the Nespresso Cuckoo Nest/XN 2005 at £35-00 with two containers of coffee pods (if I remember there were 10 pods in each tray) when she was supposed to only come away with one tray! Scottish Power was probably desperate to make a sale regardless of whether it was the official half price of £45-00 or not! In her eyes, she thinks she has a bargain, but time can only tell. Across the internet it seems that this model commands a high price of around £100-00 or slightly lower of £70-00. John Lewis had it on sale at £99-00 for example, in terms of high street outlets.


** Nespresso's Aim **


Firstly, Nespresso aren't responsible for the machine. This award goes to Krups of whom I have always regarded as being one of the leading brands when it comes to coffee equipment and prep machines. Nespresso however is a company who are obvious in name from the first three letters in the "Nespresso" tag. It is a name which is feared greatly here on many review channels simply because it holds a large petition/boycott against its products and services. If you still haven't guessed by now, I shall utter the word for you; Nestle of Switzerland.

Nespresso apparently minimises the traditional preparation of espresso, taking away the mess of the metal hand tamper, metal sieve and fixing it to the main water jets which traditionally with steam extract the beans/grind's full flavour and quality.


** Availability of Pods and Cost Price **


Where does the coffee grind go?

Well it doesn't, for starters. Nespresso may well promote the cleanliness of minimising powdery mess which can be attributed to traditional espresso machines but you can only use sealed coffee pods which are only available from the same company and if you don't like using Mail Order, then this machine has been a waste of money.

These coffee pods are a strange breed however and please don't leave me comments about "oh I worry about the waste" because these pods look exactly the same as plastic milk pods you can find in McDonalds and Burger King (and given the proportion of customers who travel daily to consume coffee and tea with milk pods, I bet the largest amount of waste can be found directly at these fast food places rather than the kitchen of the humble Nespresso owner.)


So the only way of buying the pods is from mail order (through the "club" which you are automatically a member of, when you send in your first order) or if you are lucky enough, darling to live in the throws of Kensington, you will find the only Nespresso shop in Knightsbridge, the home of Harrods in London. You can't get more exclusive than Knightsbridge, let alone Harrods! Prices are equally expensive too, particularly if you just order a box of 10 pods (this is the minimal arrangement) of one flavour. So far, my mum has devoured the complimentary trays and bought around £60 worth of coffee pods and further merchandise from Nespresso. To say that she has been sucked in is a major understatement! £60 is a hell of a lot of money that could have normally been used to buy myself another cheap vacuum cleaner!

Each box of 10 pods costs on average £2.30 (10 pods are a minimum order in one box) which will produce 20 cups of coffee. Thankfully despite the different flavours, all of them are equally priced with the exception of the "Lungo" variety which is priced at just one pence more. Now given that I can make at least 35 cups of espresso coffee for the same type of espresso coffee in loose bags available from supermarkets between the cost of £2.95 and £3.50, Nespresso instantly turns me off because of cost and having to use mail order.

Each Nespresso pod has a shelf life of roughly 6 to 7 months unless the seals on the pods are broken. I'm more of a loose coffee grind bag buyer and use air tight boxes to keep blends in the fridge where all types of ground coffee should be kept to regain freshness and longevity.

The merchandise is equally poorly made consisting of various cups and saucers which complement the Nespresso machine (you don't get a cup in the box), and I'm hoping that eventually my mother will start to see sense in realising how poorly marketed this machine is, as is the whole she-bang of Nespresso. For a price of what was supposed to be £9-95, Nespresso charged my mum £13-95 for the set. What she got was lovely looking glass cups with the nastiest of cheap plastic saucers to match. Infact they wouldn't look out of place on a British Airways jet in the throws of breakfast and lunch when English tea is served!

Other accessories consist of a silly plastic tower horror which gives access to the different colours of pods as well as a coffee tray. I smell a trip to Ikea for most consumers there in lieu of this branded "N" tower, or when you have got over your "open space" tower coffee pod displayer, you can use it for displaying jewellery...


** Using the Nespresso **


Thankfully the quality of the Nespresso 2005 is very stylish aided by art deco like brushed metal on the pull up pod deposit lid and a metal perforated grille where the cup sits and catches spills. Surrounded by this is a matt black metal body soft and smooth to the touch with "Krups" in large lettering to the left whilst the name "Nespresso" is written in understated but clear beige writing to the right.

There are only two buttons on the Nespresso XN 2005; the On button lights up in red whilst the espresso coffee button lights up in green, intermittent when the machine is boiling up the water and trying to sense how many cups of coffee the owner wants - or so the manual would have you believe.

In reality you have to stand and watch the coffee being deposited in a cup no bigger than a tea cup or a small espresso cup (you can't use a mug as it won't fit under the permanently stuck spout) and to activate, press the green button to stop the flow of coffee! Pedantic as it may seem, all of a sudden a traditional espresso machine which stops the flow doesn't seem like a bit of a mess all of a sudden!

Another unbelievable cost cutting exercise has also been applied to the lovely looking carafe which holds water and therefore is the only vessel where water can be added for the Nespresso to work. I'd expect a glass carafe but not here; Krups have put in a rather lovely looking curved glass jug but it is made of clear acrylic plastic.

Fill the carafe at the back with cold water, lift and push into the lock at the back of the machine, lift the deposit lid upwards, select a pod that you like and handily you'll find that Krups have gone to the bother of putting the shape of the pod on the main deposit channel so that you won't confuse which way the pods go. Krups could have gone to the bother of calling this design "as simple as a child's block box to fit the shapes through the matching holes," but I don't think they want to insult the customer all at once. So, once the pod is inserted, drop the metal deposit lid and select the coffee activation button. Once the button is pushed, the noise of the motor starts up.

At first I thought that my mum had taken her Food Saver food vacuum machine out because of the associated whine and low grating noise that the vacuum sealer makes. But then I was thinking what could she be vacuum sealing at nearly four in the morning? It was the noise of the Nespresso extracting the flavour out of the pods, water prep time and depositing the finished article into a cup. Oh yes, this is one noisy son of a Cuckoo's nest!

And if the machine isn't placed on a flat level surface, it refuses to work.


** Wasteful if you Forget **


Each pod does have a longevity use though as they can last for two cups of coffee as opposed to just one. This means that you can leave the pod in the machine, switch off (and with the remaining water which must be more than 0.5 litres) you can return to it later but if you forget and go to lift the lid, you've wasted a pod and unless you know exactly what you had before you'll find it hard to find in the drop container amongst other pods.

What a shame then that Krups don't apply measurement gradients to the carafe at the back even if the known capacity is 1.3 litres to 0.5 litres minimum. Luckily by opening the lid again the used pod is deposited in the user container tray which at best minimises messy deposits in a bin with traditional systems.

Thankfully the whole "preparation" time only takes between 15 and 30 seconds but then judging by our old Kenwood, it only used to take 30 seconds anyway to produce a double shot of espresso.


** The Flavours & the Titles **


Briefly what annoys me the most about this palaver? Well, unlike loose espresso coffee you can buy in supermarkets and coffee houses which have a universal numerical system to indicate strength and weakness, Nespresso really have gone to town in dressing up the blends by applying fancy Italian names.

For weak strength coffee for example, there are some really far fetching names such as "Volluto" or how about "Cosi"? In all there are 9 espresso "premium" blends and 3 additional large cup blends suitable for large espresso which in this instance Nespresso call "lungo." Thank god Nespresso have added blends here which start at the highest of 10 as being the strongest to 3 and 4 for being the weakest blends. All the blends have different fancy names and have various blends of coffee in each pod, not just one blend of coffee to serve up espresso quality. There is even a blend called "Ristretto." Any serious coffee fan who knows their salt will know that "ristretto," means restricted and it does not apply itself to an individual blend of coffee. Infact if you order a Ristretto at a professional coffee shop, it's the basic espresso which has been stopped just before the full flavour of the normal espresso has been reached. You don't need a separate brand here to class it as something else!

Perhaps the worst aspect of all is that a lot of worded rubbish has been applied to the individual recipe break downs of each pod WHILST the strength numbers have been written even smaller in the guides and in the tasting trays (another cost option marketing piece of merchandise which serves up nothing other than 36 spaces for three times as many of all the varieties of pods encased in a dark metal "board game" fold up "tinted ebony" wooden like tray and the holes aren't even big enough to accommodate standard tea light candles when you tire of the pods!). Just a short blurb and a strength factor would suffice here instead of dressing up coffee with florid names.


** The Scent & the Tastes **


A couple of seconds of scent is all that you get once Nespresso has pumped the coffee into the cup and the scent doesn't travel far enough in the whole house like our old espresso machine used to do. Infact it is a good advantage if you are trying to sneak a cup in without your partner knowing! But that sums up for me anyway, the result of this whole marketing exercise. Krups don't have to worry, they have their own range of excellent machines but here the tastes of each espresso coffee leave a lot to the imagination of the company responsible for the blend. And given the quantity that my mum bought I have had every blend offered! What I find with the Nespresso is that every espresso produced lacks body, even the Lungo pods which are supposed to be made in a 110ml size cup compared to the standard smaller espresso size of 40 to 45ml.

In my experience, a proper espresso should be drunk slowly to fully appreciate the roundedness of the grind's full taste. There is plenty of crema (the gold top frothy coloured foam which adorns the top of every espresso) from each pod to the cup though which may appeal to the senses of sight but the liquid that comes out is quite thin and milky unlike the thickness of properly made commercial espresso. As a result each espresso can be drunk quite quickly with the need for more but the overall flavour dissipates far too quickly for my liking.

The heat of the espresso should also be very hot but not boiling and in this respect this is another aspect which lets our Nespresso down - the espresso produced is just not hot enough to withstand further recipes to be added to it. On its own, the heat of the espresso is okay but I would have expected a stronger temperature and we have followed the guidelines completely if the coffee is not hot enough but there has been no improvement.

Another aspect of the machine is that it claims to have 19 bars of steam pressure. Traditional espresso only needs around 9 to 10 bars of pressure and quite why Krups have fitted the machine with 10 bars more of pressure when it's not needed is unclear. No froth gun is added to this model either which presents another downside, particularly if you want to go to the bother of making other recipes which Nespresso supply a little booklet for your pleasure.


** Additional Handbook, the User Manual & Cleaning **


Out of the box, Nespresso Essenza XN comes with a lot of paper inserts and info regarding the club, merchandise, recipes and coffee pod info. You'll also find a glossy brown folder which holds everything in place, much akin to the "welcome" folder you'd find in any top leading hotel. Here Nespresso have added handy inserts at the front and back of the wipe clean cardboard folder for additional info to be slipped into, whilst pages can be taken in and out via the standard subject type binder rings. Impressively though each page has tiny metal rings which add to the overall good quality exclusive impression.

The user manual is a bit of a bother though. Frankly it folds out to the size of a wall chart where just about every European language has been included (French, Italian, Greek, Scandinavian countries, possibly Russian and Spanish) and German language has been applied to the English section too, with the worrying aspect that the German wording is written in thick bold black lettering whereas the English appears second in small grey lettering. Very handy then! Luckily there are pictorial diagrams and colours to show just what to do with the machine if you can't find or even see the English wording whilst each page has been numbered. What a shame then that the first three pages aren't joined by pages 4, 5 and 6 and you have to look elsewhere. No wonder Nespresso have included a separate section in the welcome folder to make operation easier.

It does take a long time to read the manual though as there are too many languages going on and the manual can be folded up to reveal only the German and English sections. For a company whose only shop is based in London for the UK customers, I'd have thought Krups could have enclosed a better written manual.


** Cleaning **


Cleaning is just as easy as making a Nespresso though Krups offer up a cleaning pod which you can buy (yet more expense) for cleaning out the machine. My mum just flushes out the system with cold water from the tap (and goes about in the same way to make a coffee without actually putting coffee into the system) but recently I've been adding bicarbonate of soda which will ensure complete sterile condition; that's what we use after the chemical powder at the café I used to work in with the commercial machines so it shouldn't be any different here. The metal cup holder grate is removable and is easy to pick out. After this is done, the holder for the used espresso pod can be pulled out which reveals two parts; inner grate to store the cups and the holder itself. Being plastic however it is not dishwasher safe. I am surprised (yet again) but this time of Krups themselves for not being able to remove the coffee spout or lid pusher which pushes the pods to the extractor for complete hygiene.


** Conclusion **


One of the things that I find with Nestle's coffee pods is the fact that they relay similar tastes to their Instant coffee powders and for any coffee lover that can be a downside. The taste of each blend reminds me very much of Nestlé's Alta Rica, Gold Blend, Fine Blend, and any other bloomin' blend Nescafe have put into a jar and labelled it "instant," only in this instance you are paying through the nose for something that doesn't knock the nose for six or tickle the tonsils with long lasting delight.

There are endless problems with this machine if you are a professional coffee lover whilst the machine itself looks stylish, it very much deceives the consumer into thinking it has been professionally designed. Even the handbook professionally states fact where they show the art of espresso:

"...involves a special extraction procedure of forcing water at high pressure through a fine blend of ground coffee..." Well this is true but not at a full 19 bars of pressure where it will actually burn the coffee, Nespresso!

No litre markings on the carafe, small sizing of wording and strength indicators, poor plastic that can't be put into the dishwasher serves up a belief that Nestle just needed any partner to team up to produce a machine that could just make the coffee whilst Nescafe screw the customer for money for a product you can get in a jar and I'm shocked to the lack of customer thought from Krups here too. Was that a bit blunt for you? Listen up then:

Sadly the Nespresso Essenza XN 2005 has been marketed for inexperienced coffee lovers, for the type of consumer who doesn't have a clue about espresso coffee. The whole marketing surrounding Nespresso conjures up the type of consumers who feel that exclusivity is a major aspect of lifestyle over real taste. More often than not I get the feeling that it's a case of where Nestle seem to think they can pull the cashmere over people's eyes, even if it is posh wool. 2 stars then and if you want to rip yourself off each time with the cost and palaver of ordering the pods, be my guest - at least you have been warned! Thanks for reading. ©Nar2 2007.

www.nespresso.com

February 2008 Update

The cup button function has broken, which means that the machine will have to be sent back to Nespresso/Krups. In the meantime the use of a blunt stick to activate the pump can be used but the rubber button doesn't push backwards properly. Another example of cheap quality!

Summary: One for inexperienced coffee lovers who adore mail order.

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