I failed to update the blog with the coffees I’ve tried since the last post on this topic. I’ll only tell you what I settled for: Carracci.

Despite the fact that they don’t ship to Germany (they ship to 30 Europeans countries and territories, except for Germany!), I can find them on and off at Tk Maxx (but again, it’s a hit and miss, so I can’t always drink Carracci). The Nespresso-compatible capsules exist in five varieties:

  • Palermo, strength 12 (20% Arabica, 80% Robusta)
  • Napoli, strength 10 (30% Arabica, 70% Robusta)
  • Milano, strength 8 (100% Arabica)
  • Bologna, strength 8 (45% Arabica, 55% Robusta)
  • Decaffeinato (no details given)

To my surprise, I very much prefer Napoli, despite the Robusta-favoring blend (despite all the legends, 70% Robusta with 30% Arabica is the typical strong Italian blend; the milder one is 70% Arabica with 30% Robusta, and 100% Arabica usually can’t be too strong); second-best is Milano, obviously. Maybe my preference is due to the fact that most of the time I don’t drink them at 40 ml, but longer, at about 70 ml.

For a less favorable surprise, it looks like they have discontinued the boxed capsules which used a softer plastic and an aluminum back…

…to use cheaper, hard plastic capsules in larger bags:

The capsules are still color coded, no matter what the pictures show. For the curious, the profile for each variety.

Palermo:

Napoli:

Milano:

Bologna:

Decaffeinato:

Frankly speaking, Napoli and Milano are all I can find at Tk Maxx…

UPDATE (March 19): My new number one coffee is Cellini Caffè Pure Origini Guatemala (strength 10), which I happened to find at Galeria Kaufhof. It’s much better than the other Cellini flavors, which generally don’t live up to the price.

LATE EDIT: I just realized that in neither of my coffee-related posts were Gran Caffè Garibaldi’s Nespresso-compatible capsules ever mentioned. What I like from them is Gusto Dolce (strength 9/10), and this came rather as a surprise. The (bad) surprise was actually that the 100% Arabica sorts (Selezione 1860 and Grand Cru, both strength 7/10) are actually too acidic for my taste, with Gusto Oro (8/10) being acceptable. I could only get the four flavors packaged Nespresso-style (in long bars) and rated “x/10”; the four flavors rated “x/5” and packaged with capsules in 2 lines were unavailable to me, and they seem to have been created to match Garibaldi’s mother company, Gimoka, own’s capsules (which are rather mediocre).

As a side note, I’m amazed by how stupid are most of the people who encounter problems with Nespresso-compatible capsules in their machines. Whoever experiences “a scant amount of coffee before the machine gives up” should fucking stop just inserting the capsules and waiting for a miracle to happen; instead, they should carefully punch the capsules before the insertion. Sometimes, I wonder how are all those 7+ billion people managing to survive, given their negative I.Q.