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Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

The site is unavailable so I don't know what's in the article, but from the comments I gather it's looking at the benefits of owning a Nespresso machine at home?

Here in France everyone has a Nespresso machine or two (I have three); you can buy Nespresso capsules from Nespresso shops, or alternative capsules in any supermarket, anywhere.

What Nespresso sells is simplicity and consistency, and an above-average taste.

I remember vividly the time before the Nespresso: when you went to have dinner at a friend's and they offered coffee at the end of the meal, you were terrified of what they might bring. I absolutely cannot drink the clear lukewarm water that some people (used to) call coffee.

Today you simply ask for your favorite Nespresso color, or choose among the ones available, and you're almost certain you're going to get something at least acceptable.

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> Here in France everyone has a Nespresso machine or two (I have three).

I'm French, I live in France, and I have no such machine, and none of my friends has one. YMMV.

According to a 2014 report of the "Autorité de la Concurrence", 25% of French families have this kind of machine, with 85% of those being real Nestlé products.

Among my friends, some reject hard capsules for their cost. The cost of Nespresso coffee is within 60 to 90 €/kg, whereas classic arabica coffee is sold around 12 €/kg (I buy high-end ground on-demand coffee for around 30 €/kg). Others friends have ethical objections (against Nestlé, the captive market, the amount of waste, and so on).

> I have no such machine

Okay, that's certainly possible.

> and none of my friends has one

I would very much question that.

(Edit: it's always unpleasant to be downvoted, but (at the risk of being downvoted more) I maintain that it's very unlikely that in a random group of French people of a reasonable size you would find zero owner of a Nespresso machine. Now, if the group is in fact not random and if the parent selects his friends on the criteria that they never buy products from big food conglomerates, then maybe. Still, hard to believe).

And in many companies (all of my clients for instance) vending machines are replaced with Nespresso machines placed in a corner of the office, with everyone contributing to the buying of capsules.

25 million French households * .75 (% of households that don't own) ^ 15 (number of households you are close enough to drink their coffee) = ~334,000 households that neither own nor know owners of this coffee style.

note: I made 15 up, but it's 5.9 million at 5 households and 18k at 25. I'm not French nor really a household but I think the actual number is somewhere between 5 and 25, and the numbers in that range aren't horrible.

I think the penetration of Nespresso in the French market might also be related to the consistently bad quality of espresso in cafés. I really don't understand how that has come to be, given that most of the other souther European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, most of former Yugoslavia…) usually have pretty good espresso and largely use the same kind of equipment and coffee blends.

I have been (many times) to Italy, Spain and Portugal, and while I have been consistently amazed and wowed by the quality of expressos in Italy, I can't say the same for Spain and Portugal...? Coffee in cafés there (to me) tastes very much like the ones we get in Paris?

What I find strange in Paris (or France) is that all expressos in any café taste exactly the same. It's not absolutely bad, it's a little bitter and quite strong; but why is the taste so consistent?

Food products are usually not consistent; nothing can be more different than baguettes or croissants coming from different bakeries for example.

I have zero actual information about this, but would imagine it's because all cafés get their equipment and coffee from the same vendors and never try anything else...?

From my experience (I have no data), it seems that many of them use the same source for coffee: http://www.cafesrichard.fr/services-chr-nos-produits-4.html

(and this is rather cheap coffee)

I don't know, maybe it's a matter of style. For example the coffee in Milan is not as good as the coffee in Naples. But I have to disagree with you about Spain and Portugal, I found pretty consistent good quality in Lisbon for example.

This. My god the coffee is bad in France. I'm not the only one saying it either: http://www.slate.fr/story/86855/cafe-francais-immonde

Excellent and very informative article, thanks.

I'm always surprised by bad coffee at home given how easy it is to make medium quality coffee: buy a medium ground coffee from the supermarket that mentions somewhere Africa or South America, put in a cafetiere and wait 5 minutes.

And then what? You just made coffee for 5 or 10 cups but you'll only drink one or two. And you won't throw away what's left, so you'll reheat it later, maybe twice, maybe more.

And maybe you'll find it a little too strong the second time, so you'll add a little hot water to dilute it.

And then you're well on the road to abomination.

Never had this problem. I have two large, a medium and a small one. I get to pick my coffee and it doesn't cost a fortune.

There are very small cafetière's available, including single-serving ones.

If you are willing to pay nespresso prices, you should be fine throwing out coffee in your scenario--yoh will still save money even if you always dump out half of it.

I never knew that people did that! That is incredible

I use Nespresso at work and a French press at home (because someone gave it to me) with "supermarket" grounded coffee.

Nespresso is marginally better and clearly more convenient (event though I drink tea and French press is mostly the same process so I don't care) but I can't shake the feeling it's too expensive, they make crazy margins and I hate the pompous stores (e.g the Opera one) with the snob employees (relax, you only sell coffee pods ...). Plus the waste, and overall bad machines (watch out for limestone).

But yes, it's good progress from those water-downed coffee people drink at home (still better than what you mostly drink in the U.S :))

> (still better than what you mostly drink in the U.S :))

You'd be surprised at how much better the average coffee is in a large American city wrt to the abomination you call espresso in Paris. :)

That's why in Paris I buy a thing called a Cafe Noisette (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caf%C3%A9_noisette) which is basically a large espresso with some warmed (not frothy, though) milk on the side.

Never seen it on sale outside of France, though, but any cafe there will know what you mean if you ask for one. It's one of my favourite coffees, and I now ask for a large espresso with milk on the side in cafes in the UK and elsewhere, to replicate the experience.

Consistency and pretty decent flavor is what Nespresso offers. But I do wonder about what sort of chemicals and magic they hide in the little pods...

Nestle doesn't have the best record when it comes to corporate profit vs care for humanity.

Interesting. So French people are ok buying coffee for €90 a kilo to get this convenience? I can understand this only because traditionally, the French "Expresso" was guaranteed to be a watery, bitter, creama-less wish-wash.

Expressos you get in Cafés are usually good, if a little bitter (and not comparable to what you can get in Italy).

But coffee people made at home used to be, in my own experience and opinion, an abomination. Never hot enough, never strong enough.

The truth is, everyone wants something different (decaf, strong, stronger, lighter...)

The miracle of Nespresso is that you can serve different cups to different people, at the same time, which is impossible with most other means of producing coffee at home (or very difficult, complex and expensive).

> Expressos you get in Cafés are usually good, if a little bitter (and not comparable to what you can get in Italy).

That's really not my experience. I've found it consistently hard to find proper espresso in cafés in France; one usually needs to find the one place teeming with bearded hipsters (unfortunately), and you might be lucky to get an acceptable (not excellent) espresso.

Refill cartridges for an inkjet printer are, per liter of ink, also horribly expensive. Many other things are equally expensive when compared to the bulk price of the main ingredient. So what?

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." (Oscar Wilde)

The way it gets evaluated is not "it costs €90/kilo for home-brewed coffee". It's "it costs €0.40 for a cup of coffee not too different from a proper espresso at a café".

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