Every time I book into a hotel that boasts a Nespresso machine in each room, I let out a sigh. It should be seen as a nice touch—but while the coffee looks the part, with a consistently dense crema, I find the taste so insipid.
Simon Stockton, the reserve judge at the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships (CSWWC), convinced me, however, that Nespresso, the machine, is brilliant; only Nespresso, the pod, is not. Being Australian, Simon is serious about his coffee. When the CSWWC judged in Tunbridge Wells, he always made the judges take a pit stop at The Black Dog while moving between the tasting venue and our hotel. The Black Dog serves the best coffee in town (Monmouth coffee), and it is not for nothing that is it known as a “little bit of Australia in Tunbridge Wells”!
Taking Simon at his word, I did a little digging and discovered that Nespresso was invented by a Swiss guy called Eric Favre as long ago as 1976. This was itself rather puzzling, because Nespresso has really only been a “thing” since 2006, when George Clooney became involved.
Favre had started working for Nestlé in 1975, at the height of the instant-coffee market, when Nescafé instant coffee—which Neil Armstrong took to the moon and back—was one of Nestlé’s most lucrative brands. It’s no surprise, then, that when Favre invented Nespresso at the company’s packaging division just one year later, there was little incentive for Nestlé to commercialize it
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
