3 ms·

Many 3 star restaurants serve Nespresso. So yes, good coffee can be found in many places.

by jules 13y ago

icebraining 13y ago
Nespresso isn't that great either.
- jules 13y ago
  For judging what is good coffee, I'm gonna go with the taste of the chefs of those 3 star restaurants, rather than with icebraining on hacker news.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    If you actually read why they pick Nespresso, "the best taste" is not part of the reasons. They cite size, cost, consistency, usability, etc. "in our business, you spend so much time trying to be perfect with food and service that it's very hard to put the same dedication into a coffee program." Don't get me wrong, it's better than what I drink at home, but it's hardly great coffee.
    - jules 13y ago
      Do you really think that at 3 star restaurants, where they have about 5 staff per customer, they would serve Nespresso if they thought it isn't good coffee? Sure, it may not be the best coffee in the world, but even 3 star restaurants, which usually spare any expense to improve the quality do not think it is economical to make better coffee themselves. Do they think that Nespresso doesn't have good taste and just "consistency"? Of course not. Can you show me any evidence that better coffee can be obtained in a reasonable other way? I know it is romantic to think that you can make better coffee yourself, but lets see what you're up against. Nespresso burns and grinds and vacuum seals coffee that is then placed into a machine that delivers a fixed amount of water at a particular speed and temperature. All the parameters in this process have been tuned by professionals backed up by panels of taste testers. Being at home gives you no particular advantage. Why would a restaurant be able to do better, let alone significantly better, at a reasonable price and effort? Contrast this with, for instance, making bread. Bread tastes 10 times better when it is fresh. Unlike coffee, vacuum sealing a bread is impossible. So even if a factory managed to bake a bread with perfectly tuned parameters, by the time that bread is on your table it doesn't taste great anymore. Coffee simply doesn't have this.
      - icebraining 13y ago
        Do you really think that at 3 star restaurants, where they have about 5 staff per customer, they would serve Nespresso if they thought it isn't good coffee? It doesn't matter what I think, you can read what they said. Of course it's not Starbucks quality level, but it's not great coffee, just good enough for the other qualities to win over better tasting coffees. Can you show me any evidence that better coffee can be obtained in a reasonable other way? Sure, the way multiple coffee shops do so here: you buy a decent Italian espresso machine (such as a La Marzocco), you get a few baristas with a couple of decades or more of experience serving coffee, buy decent beans and grind them yourself daily. Of course, this isn't reasonable if you're a restaurant which serves a few dozen cups a day, which are just a small part of the whole "product". But for a dedicated coffee shop, which might serve more than a hundred per day, the costs are reasonable. I know it is romantic to think that you can make better coffee yourself I didn't say that. I have a capsule machine myself. But I don't need to make better coffee to know that better coffee is made. Nespresso burns and grinds and vacuum seals coffee that is then placed into a machine that delivers a fixed amount of water at a particular speed and temperature. All the parameters in this process have been tuned by professionals backed up by panels of taste testers. Sure, Nespresso is a great value for its price. But nothing in that process is better than what I'm describing. Why would a restaurant be able to do better, let alone significantly better, at a reasonable price and effort? Not restaurant, coffee shop. And I don't know what you consider "reasonable". The reason they do better is because they have different constraints in terms of space, marginal costs per cup and importance of the coffee to their line up, which allows them to invest more in it. Coffee simply doesn't have this. Grinding many days in advance, even if vacuum sealed, does have an effect on the taste.
        jules 13y ago
        > Sure, the way multiple coffee shops do so here: you buy a decent Italian espresso machine (such as a La Marzocco), you get a few baristas with a couple of decades or more of experience serving coffee, buy decent beans and grind them yourself daily. So which part of this makes the coffee better than Nespresso? Is the espresso machine doing something better than a nespresso machine? I don't think so. Are the beans being grinded better than in a nespresso factory? I don't think so. Are the beans themselves of higher quality than the ones that nespresso uses? Perhaps, though unlikely to be a significant difference unless you are willing to pay a much higher price, and even then. Even if these is some small advantage that the barista can have, does that weigh against the advantages that Nespresso has, namely being able to perfectly tune the whole process with taste testers? > Grinding many days in advance, even if vacuum sealed, does have an effect on the taste. Why? What is the difference between a coffee particle sitting "inside" a bean, and sitting tightly packed in a vacuum? And if there is an important difference, why is the former better? For all we know it tastes worse. There is at least one blind taste test that was done: http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/julian-baggini-coffee-artisans/ http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/julian-baggini-coffee-ar... Admittedly not very scientific with a low sample size, but the result of this test was that Nespresso is better than the coffee of an experienced barista. At the very least there isn't an obvious perceptible difference in favor of the barista. Do you know of any blind taste tests showing the opposite?

Many 3 star restaurants serve Nespresso. So yes, good coffee can be found in many places.

by jules 13y ago

Many 3 star restaurants serve Nespresso. So yes, good coffee can be found in many places.

icebraining 13y ago

Nespresso isn't that great either.

jules 13y ago
For judging what is good coffee, I'm gonna go with the taste of the chefs of those 3 star restaurants, rather than with icebraining on hacker news.
- icebraining 13y ago
  If you actually read why they pick Nespresso, "the best taste" is not part of the reasons. They cite size, cost, consistency, usability, etc. "in our business, you spend so much time trying to be perfect with food and service that it's very hard to put the same dedication into a coffee program." Don't get me wrong, it's better than what I drink at home, but it's hardly great coffee.
  - jules 13y ago
    Do you really think that at 3 star restaurants, where they have about 5 staff per customer, they would serve Nespresso if they thought it isn't good coffee? Sure, it may not be the best coffee in the world, but even 3 star restaurants, which usually spare any expense to improve the quality do not think it is economical to make better coffee themselves. Do they think that Nespresso doesn't have good taste and just "consistency"? Of course not. Can you show me any evidence that better coffee can be obtained in a reasonable other way? I know it is romantic to think that you can make better coffee yourself, but lets see what you're up against. Nespresso burns and grinds and vacuum seals coffee that is then placed into a machine that delivers a fixed amount of water at a particular speed and temperature. All the parameters in this process have been tuned by professionals backed up by panels of taste testers. Being at home gives you no particular advantage. Why would a restaurant be able to do better, let alone significantly better, at a reasonable price and effort? Contrast this with, for instance, making bread. Bread tastes 10 times better when it is fresh. Unlike coffee, vacuum sealing a bread is impossible. So even if a factory managed to bake a bread with perfectly tuned parameters, by the time that bread is on your table it doesn't taste great anymore. Coffee simply doesn't have this.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Do you really think that at 3 star restaurants, where they have about 5 staff per customer, they would serve Nespresso if they thought it isn't good coffee? It doesn't matter what I think, you can read what they said. Of course it's not Starbucks quality level, but it's not great coffee, just good enough for the other qualities to win over better tasting coffees. Can you show me any evidence that better coffee can be obtained in a reasonable other way? Sure, the way multiple coffee shops do so here: you buy a decent Italian espresso machine (such as a La Marzocco), you get a few baristas with a couple of decades or more of experience serving coffee, buy decent beans and grind them yourself daily. Of course, this isn't reasonable if you're a restaurant which serves a few dozen cups a day, which are just a small part of the whole "product". But for a dedicated coffee shop, which might serve more than a hundred per day, the costs are reasonable. I know it is romantic to think that you can make better coffee yourself I didn't say that. I have a capsule machine myself. But I don't need to make better coffee to know that better coffee is made. Nespresso burns and grinds and vacuum seals coffee that is then placed into a machine that delivers a fixed amount of water at a particular speed and temperature. All the parameters in this process have been tuned by professionals backed up by panels of taste testers. Sure, Nespresso is a great value for its price. But nothing in that process is better than what I'm describing. Why would a restaurant be able to do better, let alone significantly better, at a reasonable price and effort? Not restaurant, coffee shop. And I don't know what you consider "reasonable". The reason they do better is because they have different constraints in terms of space, marginal costs per cup and importance of the coffee to their line up, which allows them to invest more in it. Coffee simply doesn't have this. Grinding many days in advance, even if vacuum sealed, does have an effect on the taste.
      - jules 13y ago
        > Sure, the way multiple coffee shops do so here: you buy a decent Italian espresso machine (such as a La Marzocco), you get a few baristas with a couple of decades or more of experience serving coffee, buy decent beans and grind them yourself daily. So which part of this makes the coffee better than Nespresso? Is the espresso machine doing something better than a nespresso machine? I don't think so. Are the beans being grinded better than in a nespresso factory? I don't think so. Are the beans themselves of higher quality than the ones that nespresso uses? Perhaps, though unlikely to be a significant difference unless you are willing to pay a much higher price, and even then. Even if these is some small advantage that the barista can have, does that weigh against the advantages that Nespresso has, namely being able to perfectly tune the whole process with taste testers? > Grinding many days in advance, even if vacuum sealed, does have an effect on the taste. Why? What is the difference between a coffee particle sitting "inside" a bean, and sitting tightly packed in a vacuum? And if there is an important difference, why is the former better? For all we know it tastes worse. There is at least one blind taste test that was done: http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/julian-baggini-coffee-artisans/ http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/julian-baggini-coffee-ar... Admittedly not very scientific with a low sample size, but the result of this test was that Nespresso is better than the coffee of an experienced barista. At the very least there isn't an obvious perceptible difference in favor of the barista. Do you know of any blind taste tests showing the opposite?