We at the PlusSide, like most journalists, are coffee connoisseurs and we’ve been busily testing out as many coffee brewing apparatuses as we can get our hands on so that we can find the perfect cup. Luckily for you we are going to share all of our findings without making you go through the arduous product testing process yourself. The first brewer we tested is the Nescafe’ Dolce Gusto.
The Nescafe Dolce Gusto is one of the very popular single cup pod style brewers currently on the market. Nescafe makes its own pods, which do not appear to be compatible with their competitors’ products (like the Verismo or the Keurig). Nescafe makes pods in various styles and flavors like standard coffee, cappuccino, mocha, espresso and chai tea, among others. While Nescafe’ offers a reasonable selection of pod types, it appears that they have been somewhat less successful than their competitors at luring other coffee manufacturers onto their platform. Unfortunately this means that if you aren’t a huge fan of Nescafe’ coffee, this probably isn’t the right machine for you.
Putting pod selection aside for the moment, Nescafe’ does some things very well. The brewer is exceptionally easy to us and heats up almost instantly. From the time you decide to make a cup of coffee to the moment the cup is steaming and ready to drink you can’t even get your cream and sugar ready to go. The coffee itself is a little weaker than I like my first cup of coffee in the morning to be but truth be told is really perfect for my second, third and fourth cup of the day. I tried the Cappuccino, which is actually 2 pods, the first a coffee pod and the second a milk pod and I was actually impressed with the quality of the foam. It isn’t as good as a cappuccino made at your favorite coffee bar but hey, the milk pods need to be shelf stable and it will do in a pinch.
And now back to pod selection…. There are about 30 varieties of Nescafe’ pods, which seems like a lot but many of the coffee varieties taste very similar to one another. Additionally, if you consider that many of the pod variations have to do with the addition or subtraction of milk and not a fundamental change in the coffee, there are even fewer real choices. This isn’t a problem if you love the Nescafe’ coffee but it bears consideration because if you don’t like the pods, no matter how good the machine, you won’t end up using it.
The Nescafe’ Dolce Gusto does a great job at making a quick cup of coffee with minimal fuss or mess. However, at the end of the day we didn’t like the coffee options as much as we liked some of their competitors’ coffee. At $115.00 for the Dolce Gusto, it is a bit cheaper than its direct competitors but unless you know you are going to like the pods offered, it isn’t necessarily a great deal.
You can buy a Dolce Gusto here: Nescafe Dulce Gusto
