Coffee

I can't imagine ever using one of these machines (partly due to the waste you mention) but thank you for the info re Gold Blend:  I too used to love this - and some own-brand versions - and couldn't work out why my recent purchase was so disgusting and disappointing.  I've now switched to the Alta Rica version which isn't the same or so much to my taste but is at least drinkable when I do have the occasional coffee at home rather than my normal tea.

They have a shop in St Pancras now and it's very pretty with all the colours set out (reminded me of John Lewis displaying Christmas baubles by colour), but it does seem very disposable for modern sensibilities.
Don't start me on "silver tea", as a friend called their barely tinged hot water and milk.

Heathen.

You deserve it if your machine breaks if you use those.

You wouldn't know this, Tibs, but even *cough* Aldi  *cough* sells them now. 

I really don't know what the world is coming to!

Is that the one that is delivered by phone, while you wait?

I’ve got 200 free ‘Cafepod’ capsules coming today in my supermarket shop. Fifty quids worth, free in return for a review. I’ve been sent several before, usually samples or a pack of ten and they’re always rubbish and I’ve said so in the reviews. I wonder if they’re trying to batter me into submission or something.

Oh Camp coffee made with milk, that is something else. Nothing to do with coffee mind, but something else! A taste of my childhood.

It could also give rise to my new gay stage name. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Miss Camp Frappe". "Camp Frappe IS Hedda Gabler" or "The Good Woman of Setzuan" starring Camp Frappe. 

There’s a drag act called Titti La Camp.

I loved drinking Camp coffee as a child growing up in the 50s. It tasted impossibly exotic to me and I was much taken by the picture on the bottle. I then recall visiting my grandmother and thinking she was the height of sophistication for having this newfangled powdered coffee made by Maxwell House. For some reason she never bought Nescafé and it was years before I realised there was such a thing as a coffee bean.

This Americano still misses Barker's (and their caf upstairs) on that site, but I don't remember their coffee. I do remember when the best cup of coffee in London was to be had at the Copenhagen Patisserie on Haverstock Hill.

As someone who is not that keen on the taste of coffee, I had a brief fling with Camp until I realised that one of the reasons I preferred it is that it contains sugar. I didn't mind the chicory it also contains but didn't want to consume yet more invisible sugar. Mind you, that was decades ago so the formula may have changed.

Well, here's a tale. (You may like to get comfy with a coffee or two - it's a long one, but could be helpful.)

Black Friday Nespresso deals are offering a shiny new Vertuo machine, normally retailing at £199, for £89. As I know Nespresso machines and prices, I thought this a pretty good deal. Our machine is a bit temperamental, being French and all that....no... really... I had a French car once and it took me two years before, on a lone drive, I realised it liked to open the rear windows all by itself now and then. And there was I thinking it was the kids... well, you would, wouldn't you? 

But I digress. Our machine is a bit moody. I have it programmed to make a larger cup (still not quite big enough if truth be told) and it often 'forgets' to put the extra water in and I find myself rushing across the kitchen to press the button again, before it clicks off. So we decided to upgrade before it completely gives out.  

What I really liked about the Vertuo's description was that you could make 5 different cup sizes automatically, which was exactly what I wanted as the current machine can only make 3 - small, tiny and dribble. The Vertuo sounded perfect - even having a giant travel cup size available. So it arrived. Along with some giant Liliputian spaceships, in varying bright colours. No way were these pods going to fit into my twirly capsule holder on the corner of the kitchen counter. I'd have to order a new one - more of which later.

So. The coffee. It's Nespresso, right? Wrong. It tastes nothing like Nespresso. Nothing whatsoever. There is a flowery aftertaste that feels as though I've chomped my way through Kew in lilac season. Some of the stronger blends taste ok at first, but they all leave this aftertaste. There is one called 'Colombia' that defies all reasoning and I can only suspect that its taste testers were, themselves, on the Colombian marching powder when they put a cross in the box to say it tasted like coffee.  I've been to Colombia and I can honestly say that it resembles nothing (legal) that was ever squirted between my lips over there.

The only pods that are bearable are the tiny shot espresso ones. And here's where the Vertuo machine has a big, massive fail. It's too clever for its own good. You see, around the edge of each spaceship...sorry...pod, is a barcode. You put the pod in your machine and screw down the lid (not so easy for lefties) and it reads the barcode and decides how much water to whizz into your cup. You cannot change that like you can with the original. So, the only ones we thought tasted ni...er...ok-ish, were the ones that only put a teeny amount of water through the pod and we ended up pressing the button several times to get a decent quantity - kind of defeating the object of buying a machine that automatically makes big mugs.

I did contact Nespresso and asked if I could get my original capsules in Vertuo design only to be told that it's a different method of making the coffee so it wouldn't taste the same. 

Mr Tibs was doing slightly better than I was. He's a bit common you see, and adds milk to his coffee - making the taste not quite as important. I was keeping a checklist (yes, I know) and asking him which ones he liked. He hadn't found a favourite yet, far from it, but didn't hate them quite as much as I did.

"I mean," he said. "I'm not as ...um...what's the word?...as you."

"Fussy?" I offered.

"Ah. Yes. That's the one!" he countered. I'll say this for Mr Tibs. He sure knows how to be married to me. 

"Well," I batted back. "If I wasn't fussy I wouldn't have rejected all those others before marrying you, would I?"

I couldn't quite decipher the somewhat wistful look on his face, so decided to move swiftly on.

I'd had to buy a pod holder to fit these new barcoded monsters. I liked the look of one that was a kind of drawer with tempered glass on the top, upon which you could actually place your machine and see the pods underneath. It had good reviews on Amazon so I went for it...and immediately sent it back. When I stood the machine on top of it the lid wouldn't open fully as it hit the cupboards above the counter. Yes, I do have a bit of counter without a cupboard above it, but I didn't want to put the machine there, did I? (He told you I was fussy!) None of the Amazon reviews I'd read mentioned this. I changed it for a green thingy stuck to the wall, into which you slide the pods, arranged left-handedly, just 'cos it amuses me to watch Mr T fumble to get one out. (I'm amphibious, don't you know?)

Anyway. For the past two mornings we've both got up and used the old machine, unable to face another day of sucking a million mints in an effort to get rid of the aftertaste. Today I got in from work and went onto Nespresso's chat service, basically telling them we hated the coffee and could we send their machine back pretty please. They have been brilliant and agreed to pick up the machine and refund me, along with any unopened sleeves of pods. 

We're sticking with the original.  I would suggest you go to a Nespresso boutique and try before you buy. You might like it, I won't judge! But it doesn't taste like the normal Nespresso. You have been warned.

I'm now left with a green thingy, with giant holes, stuck on my kitchen tiles. I wonder what I could use it for? All suggestions gratefully received...