Most days at breakfast we will have coffee from a filter jug machine then occasionally an espresso after lunch or dinner.
In France we have an ancient Krups espresso machine which we have had for about twenty five years and uses ground coffee. It is a bit of a faff, although it makes nice coffee but the packs of coffee definitely go off once opened and we inevitably end up throwing some away. In the UK we have a neat little Lavazza machine which takes large capsules. When we got it about ten years ago there was a good range of capsules readily available in most supermarkets. They are now much more difficult to find and very limited in range, except online, and can be very expensive.
Last autumn we were breezing through SuperU and spotted a L'Or Barista machine on special offer. A browse of the coffee aisle in the supermarket told us that you can get a huge range of capsules to fit it. In fact any "Nespresso compatible" capsule will fit. So we took the plunge.
We were so thrilled with it that the old Krups was soon put out to grass (in the barn) and we bought a second one in the UK. The Lavazza was then also put out to grass (in the garage).Both machines will make a little espresso or a café alongée, which we prefer, there is a large range of coffees available at sensible prices to fit them, almost everywhere.
My only reservation with these machines is what happens to the used capsules? In France we can in theory put them in with the usual recycling but in fact we've been saving them up to drop off at the déchetterie when we take garden rubbish. There is a huge skip gradually filling up with used capsules, goodness only knows what they will do with them when it's full.
When we got our UK machine it came with a plastic bag into which we can put the used capsules and take them to a recycling centre or post them. The nearest centre is at a supermarket some miles away that we don't frequent so that was never going to happen. So I did a bit of internet research.
Enter stage right the Dualit EcoPress. For a modest price this little gadget squeezes the coffee grounds out of the used capsule into a container. You then rinse off the capsules, assemble them in a pile and squash them flat to go into the recycling. The used coffee grounds can be put into garden compost or food recycling. It's a solution that makes me feel comfortable about using capsules and we can have a lovely fresh coffee when we feel like one, although we still have our filter coffee when we want a jugful in the mornings. Coffee heaven!
