Slow Europe

We have always loved the coffee at cafes in Switzerland. Each cup is brewed fresh, from a machine that is sort of like the espresso machines in Italy, but is less manual. When you order a coffee, you get a long espresso with a “cream” on the top.

After our 2000 trip to Kandersteg, we bought a Swiss coffee maker at home. We got the Jura Capresso - the cheapest model which was still around $1000. Put water in one side, beans in the other, turn it on, press the button and you get a perfect coffee in 60 seconds.

It broke down last year and we were heart-broken (and caffeine deprived) until the replacement latest model arrived (given to us for half price when we sent in the old broken one).

When we arrived, jetlagged and exhausted, at Geneva airport just over a week ago, the first thing that I saw on entering the terminal was a huge poster of George Clooney advertising the Nespresso Coffee machines.

We have an Nespresso coffee machine at the apartment we rented in Leysin. The coffee capsules come in boxes of 10 and can only be purchased at Nespresso stores or online through their website. The cost is 4.70CHF for a pack of 10 - 0.47CHF per capsule for one cup of coffee ($0.39). Expensive, but the coffee is great! I should work out how many cups of coffee you get from a $12 bag of whole beans to compare.

In the photo below you can see the machine we are using and Steve holding the coffee capsule. Load water into the machine and turn it on. Pop the capsule into the holder, which looks like a traditional espresso machine part, then attach it to the machine, press a button and the coffee is made.

Nespresso Coffee Maker in Chalet Damami

At our hotel in Geneva, La Cour des Augustins, we also had a Nespresso machine! The capsules were different looking than the ones we use at the apartment and that I see on the website. They were flatter and round. You put them in the machine, closed it, it punctured holes in the capsule and made the coffee. When you opened the machine to put the next capsule in, the used one disappeared into a receptacle inside the machine. Great coffee!

Nespresso Coffee Maker in our Geneva hotel, La Cour des Augustins

Besides the cost, one of the main complaints is how much stuff gets thrown away with each cup of coffee - the grounds and the aluminum capsule. In Switzerland you can recycle the capsules. I looked up the nearest recylcing point to where we are and it is in Le Sepy, the village at the bottom of our hill (where we spent 20 minutes today looking for a restaurant we loved when we were here three years ago, but the main street is being rebricked and I think the hotel and restaurant are closed).

The benefit of these capsules is how fresh the coffee is.

Resources

Nespresso - Website with coffee machines and coffee capsules (you can only buy them online)

Wikipedia - Nespresso

Clooney Studio - George Clooney advertising Nespresso

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 am and is filed under Switzerland 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.