Nespresso Essenza C101 Espresso Maker, Titanium Grey

I was quite skeptical about such a system until I had a demo of it at my local Williams-Sonoma store. It makes a very acceptable espresso, in addition to a roughly 4 ounce coffee. No one should be under the impression that this makes the world's greatest espresso. But it is very good, and very simple. Pop in a capsule, press the button and seconds later you have a great espresso. No fuss, and no mess.

On other sites I have heard complaints that you are locked into Nespresso's capsules, which is true, however I am finding that there is enough variety to keep me satisfied.

For my casual espresso drinking habit, this machine fits the bill perfectly.

My understanding is that the patent on the Nespresso coffee pods has expired. We will probably be seeing pods from other vendors before too long. My opinion is the the Nespresso coffee will still be better, though. Nestle puts a lot of effort into making excellent coffee blends and I doubt that anyone else will do as well.

I owned this machine for 5 years while living in Europe and it performed extremely well. I gave it to a friend when I moved back to the US about 1 year ago and she is still using it. Since water was very hard over there, I used white vinegar (1/4 tank vinegar the rest with water) to clean it once every 2 months. I had purchased one kit from Nespresso only to realize it was actually pure vinegar. I ran the vinegar mixture 3 times and then rinsed the machine using 3 full tanks of fresh water.