Away

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.

Senseo

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.

Peter's Blog - Nodes for coffee

Away

Senseo