W:NR, Powered by Nespresso

This is an introductory post mainly to show how and what these posts will be like. Whenever things pop in my head I’ll write about them. It can be anything from a rant, a review, an appreciation, an analysis of society… probably all of those at once. But it won’t be a dumb statement like “I like food” just to add to the post count. I’ll try to post as often as possible but I really can’t commit to a schedule. As of now this blog is not paying me a dime, so I’m not under a contractual obligation to do this at any rate. I might post several times in a single day if I’m on a roll, since different topics will get their own posts (as opposed to a giant daily post). Other times a few days might go by without an update, either because I have a life, I can’t get to my MacBook or iPad (yeah I’m an Apple drone), or I’ll simply have nothing to say. Like I said these posts have to have a level of quality.

Sooo yeah, enough housekeeping. Let’s talk about coffee. Coffee is one of the most popular drinks worldwide, has been around for centuries (millennia?), and generates billions in revenue. Some of our biggest food companies rely on it as their lifeblood: Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts I’m looking at you. (Anyone else find it odd that the flagship product of Dunkin Donuts is coffee?) So you would think that this lucrative and venerable beverage tastes delicious, right? DEAD WRONG. Coffee has to be the worst tasting drink that we willfully ingest, second only to liquid medicine (especially Biaxin). Proof of this is in coffee’s inseparable partners, cream and sugar. Without these friends, coffee wouldn’t be nearly as popular today as it is. Coffee also has a myriad of variations (mostly including cream and sugar) which are all designed to make it more palatable. None of this would be needed if coffee tasted good in the first place, and I know there are some masochists out there that enjoy coffee as black as their men, but they are a small percentage. The majority has spoken that coffee tastes like hell, so why do we drink it?!

It’s not for the caffeine, I’ll tell you that right now. If caffeine was the spark behind the coffee craze, people would have dropped the coffee itself and capitalized on the caffeine alone a long time ago. Caffeine is a readily available drug, commonly found in tablet form in any pharmacy. You can pop a caffeine pill in 5 seconds and there’s your cup of coffee, quick and easy. I take caffeine pills myself and it’s always reacted to negatively by others, saying I’m addicted or it’s unhealthy. That is not true in the slightest, if anything it’s the same thing as having a cup of coffee but without the extra sugar in my system and without the stains to brush off my teeth, not to mention all the time saved by sipping the piping hot beverage. In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, I’m surprised people still have time for coffee, even the ones who commute around with their to-go cups.

Learn to embrace it, people.

Coffee connoisseurs will tell you they drink it due to enjoyment of the complicated flavors in the various roasts. Light roast, medium roast, French roast… some roasts with flowery accents, winey aftertastes, fruity tones… I’ll tell you now they are full of it. First of all it justifies my previous statement that anything added to coffee is to not make it taste as terrible. Second of all, these additions are barely noticeable (unless it’s a hazelnut roast for some reason). Do you know of anyone who can blindly taste-test a cup of coffee and discern the roast darkness and the added tones? Of course not, and the ones that do only know because they were told (or read) beforehand what to taste for. And like any good placebo, since they had the mental picture in their head to sense for a woody tone, they will taste a tree in their coffee.

But espresso… espresso is different.

Espresso (not expresso) is basically a very concentrated coffee, made by forcing hot water through grounds at high pressure. (To compare, regular coffee is hot water that simply drips through grounds). It’s all of the flavor, caffeine, and essence of a full-sized coffee in a little over 2 ounces of liquid. To translate for the college people reading, espresso is the Everclear of the coffee world. You can sip it slowly and enjoy all 2 ounces of it, or knock it back and shudder. Espresso is a hardcore black sludge that I’m pretty certain under the right conditions can strip the paint off a car. And if it doesn’t do that, in an emergency you could dump it in the gas tank to go those extra few miles to the nearest gas station. To the uninitiated, it’s a scary drink that is immediately drowned in milk, sugar and syrup to create cappuccinos and lattés. The taste is scary, the pompousness around it is scarier, and the look and sound of a commercial espresso machine is the scariest part of it all. I used to be one of these people, a slave to Starbucks’ $4+ drinks. But not since joining the world of Nespresso.

As much as they don’t want to admit it, Nespresso is to espresso what Keurig is to coffee. A further extension of Nescafé (extended from Nestlé), Nespresso is a capsule-based espresso machine. Fill it with water, drop in your color-coded 60¢ capsule, and press the button. In less than 30 seconds you’re treated to what sounds like a jet engine taking off as well as a cup of perfectly prepared and portioned espresso. The company created its own world of espresso blends, color-coded due to intensity and flavor infusions. However unlike water-diluted coffee, since espresso is so no-bullshit these flavors are actually discernible and play with the bitterness of the drink to take over your senses. Espresso also has a slightly oily texture to it (due to its forced and pure nature) so it envelops your tongue and lingers in your throat. Espresso only lasts about a minute if you really go slowly, but it’s an impression that stays with you.

Retail Price As Shown: $7.20 (plus tax).

Espresso also successfully marries the balance between coffee and time. Coffee takes a while to make and to drink, and popping a caffeine pill takes no time at all but carries a negative stigma. Espresso (or at least Nespresso) is quick to prepare and quick to drink. I don’t believe there is more caffeine in a cup of espresso than a cup of coffee, it’s just relative to the size of the drink. This rumor probably came from ill-informed people who made espresso and scoffed at its size, then continued to make enough to fill a coffee mug. If you were to drink a few of those you would probably die.

This whole first writing session has been powered by Nespresso, and unfortunately no I was not contacted by them to write this and sing their praises (in return for them making my checking account sing). But I would love if W:NR took that direction. Remember I’m doing all of this gratis for now, out of my interest and your pleasure. But companies heed: if you want me to talk about your thing (hopefully in a positive note), come say hi and we’ll arrange something. =)

It’s amazing that we are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a machine that when it’s all said and done produces 2 ounces of black fluid. It’s kinda like that gum machine from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that goes through all that trouble to make this little nothing of a gum, and then when you taste it, whoa.