Peter's Blog

I've been away for a few days. What did I miss most? Has to be the Senseo coffee machine. Three days of instant coffee was hellish and even a Starbucks Grande Latte cannot compare. Next time I go away I'll take the machine with me.

My wife bought me a Senseo coffee machine for christmas. She knows I have been vacillating about buying one. I did some googling and coffee purists were saying that you should be lovingly roasting and grinding your own coffee, not buying stale coffee pre-ground in little bags. Senseo was a little better than instant.

I like the Senseo coffee. It tastes more like percolated coffee than instant, very full flavour. I don't use a percolator because it takes a long time and it makes too much coffee for me, guaranteeing a headache as I cannot resist drinking it all.

I bought three shades, dark, mild and decaf. All are good depending on mood:

dark: makes hairs on head stand on end. Oh yeah.

mild: good breakfast time coffee, jumper leads.

decaf: good for evening, doesn't taste of chemicals, still has full coffee flavour.

Bullet points:

• it takes about two minutes to make a coffee, 90 seconds for the machine to warm up and half a minute to make it.
• Senseo pods are about £2 for 18 in Sainsburys. Not cheap.
• To make a decent size mug you need to use two pods. This does means that you can mix a dark roast and a decaf (did I mention that I'm not a coffee connoisseur) but using two pods at a time we're in 25p a mug territory (ignoring milk). Cheaper than Starbucks though.
• A mug will fit under the double spout.
• There was no coffee in the box. Had to wait two days for Sainsburys to open.

Update: back to work and my usual coffee now has no taste. I miss Senseo. Do I buy a machine for work or do I learn to relish my breakfast mug from the Senseo?

Double dark roast (dark + dark) tastes nice but gives me terrible caffeine hangover, mood swings etc. Had a problem with a printer while high and went medieval on it which didn't solve the problem. Ran out of mild but dark + decaf is acceptable substitute.

Went to Tesco for more pods and they have new 'Columbian' and 'Kenyan' bags. In my ignorance I am not sure how strong these are, bought Columbian and will see how many feet off the ground it takes me. Got more decaf to tone it down if necessary.