Originally Posted by
Saracen999
Ummm .... a bit of sublime, and a bit of ridiculous.
Well, the main machine was £1999. But I was (still kinda am) planning on a grinder too, but partly, don't need it yet, and partly, not available (limited production capability (*) ) at the moment. That was another £500.
Bear in mind that quite a chunk of the cost of that machine was about convenience, and the same money (or less) buys you manual machines that are capable of better results .... or much worse if not used well.
Well .... not quite. A Nespresso machine.
Okay, you can stop laughing. And yes, I'm serious. You too, Dances. I can see you.
Look, sniggers aside, I got a report from my water company and the water round here is so hard if you threw it at a window, you'd break the window. You don't need descaler, you need dynamite. And the notion of a clogged up, scaled up two thousand quid coffee machine makes me shudder.
A friend, a couple of miles away had two successive Gaggia machines, each of which lasted about 2 years.
I'm not sure I can be done with constant bottled water purchases, and all that plastic, just to feed a coffee machine.
So .... water filtration. There's a rather looking nice RO system (sorry, reverse osmosis) which, reputedly, removes about 99.9% of everything that isn't either the first H, the second H or the O. Which probably leaves it tasting bland and, by the way, means I might have dealt with the carbonate problem but now could have a machine-damaging alkalinity issue .... and bland tasting coffee. So I may need to find a chemical adition to add some acceptable mineral balance back in. Oh, and that's about £500, plus filters, etc.
Now, you can easily write what I know about water filtration on the pointy end of the world's sharpest pin. So I've enrolled on a degree course in water chemistry, with a minor in coffee brewing.
Okay, fibbing about the degree. You got me. What gave me away?
But seriously, I need some time to sort this through.
Meantime, I came across a deal that gets me a Nespresso Vertuo Plus, their Aero-thingy 4 milk doodad, some nice glass mugs, some chocolate and descaler. Oh, and about 800 capsules. Shoud be nearly £750 and the deal was a bit over £400, over 6 months (includes a coffee subscription for 6 months).
So I now have as long as it takes me to drink 800+ Nespresso coffees to sort out the filtration. And hope that grinder is back in stock by then.
(*) It's actually a kickstarter type thing on Indiegogo and it's not so much stock, as orders exceeding production, so they release a 'batch' of order slots, then make and ship, so until some new order slots come up :(