The Secrets of Nespresso Pods

I don’t even drink coffee, and I am happily educating myself through this amazing video at 2:51 AM. As one does. 😂

One interesting thing to note is that Nespresso seals their capsules under nitrogen flush, meaning they are absent of oxygen. That does a lot for the freshness of the coffee for up to a year vs. independent pods which I find start to taste stale around 6 months after production.

audio problem ?

It may be a good test to put Nespresso ground coffee (from a branded pod) into your foil sealed reusable pod. Then you can see how much of the magic is in the Nespresso grind technology. Additionally, you could put your best matched grind profile coffee into the emptied Nespresso pod, and reseal it with a foil sticker. Then you could see how much of the magic is in the Nespresso branded pod with filter paper. It would also be interesting to see the Nespresso grind under a microscope, compared to your best matched grind profile. There is definitely something clever going on inside a Nespresso pod. I wouldn't discount other post-processing of the ground coffee.

15:27 I never would have thought that I'd live to see James Hoffman using a scoop without a coffee scale to brew coffee. It truly is a Christmas miracle.

James, this is just a guess, but I think the jagged edges on the Nespresso receptacle may be flutes designed to allow a formerly pressurized vessel to be more easily extracted without tearing its rim off. When vessels get pressured, they're going to expand in volume a bit. That expansion can cause stickiness when trying to remove them from their chambers. By making the chamber fluted, you reduce the available surface area for that vessel to press into once it depressurizes (and thus reduces a bit in volume again), it becomes easier to extract. If you don't have that fluting, expanded vessels can stick in the chamber and then have a risk of their rims being torn off instead of properly extracted. Or it could be an anti-competitive thing, or perhaps both together at the same time.

I came across this video as an industrial product designer (not necessarily a coffee lover), never imagined brewing coffee from capsules has so much amazing tech to it. Thank you for the video, it was very enjoyable and educational at the same time.

The differences in grind size&shape are likely also a factor of the scale of the grinding equipment - when you go up to the bulk scales of industrial milling equipment, you often get fundamentally different particle breakdown processes than at smaller personal/lab scales. Its something we see with coatings and ceramics all the time, so it was neat to see you finding the effect of size and shape distribution on brew quality

More James this week?? Truly a Christmas miracle!

I was visiting French family a few years ago, and my uncle, who had very limited English, was struggling to explain how he'd made the after lunch coffee, Suddenly his face cleared and he came up with 'Le café George Clooney'. Instant comprehension. It wasn't bad, either.

The way James presents information and so passionately talks about coffee is just irresistible to me. I don't really drink coffee in fact I've never had a drop of coffee in my whole life and I do not intend to become a coffee drinker it's just I love the way he talks about these things.

I just love learning on this coffee/espresso journey you take us all on every video you post. Thank you, James!

The other side of the spectrum was my grandfather, whom I never met, and the story my father, used to tell with nostalgia in his heart from the days growing up in the 1920s. They lived in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state, very close to one of Brazil's major coffee plantation regions in the 19th century, quite near the division with Rio state. My grandfather, who was a doctor and a carpenter, woke up earlier than anyone in the house, and he made coffee like this: First of all, he purchased very good quality beans from local small producers, and roasted them in the morning every day, with a cast iron cylindrical tool, by pulling previous night embers from the wood fired oven, fanning them with a bellows blower, roasting the beans just as he liked them, and proceeding to grind the piping hot beans with a French grinder I still have to this day. As soon as the grinding was right he poured them still hot in a pot of simmering water with a tiny, almost homeopathic dose of sugar cane water (sugar cane water has sugar and salt as well), and he had an interesting technique for brewing, by letting it just begin to boil, and removing the pot from the heat while stirring, doing this 2 or 3 times, and then straining with a cloth strainer (preheated and prewashed with coconut soap). My father described the smell of coffee spreading throughout the entire house, which made everyone rise from bed like zombies, and migrate to the kitchen where he had warm bread with butter, and this amazing coffee, most people had with a bit of milk, and my dad described as the most delicious brewed coffee he ever tasted in his life.

At the end of 2014 I came to the UK from Poland. My first job (2 years) in the UK was at a coffee capsule production at Dualit. I operated a machine producing capsules compatible with Nespresso machines for Dualit brand and M&S. That's where I started drinking coffee and developed a taste for coffee. I just recently got more into coffee partially through Your channel. It's interesting to watch this film knowing the production of coffee capsules from the inside and having more knowledge about coffee. Take care James

As a coffee drinking engineer I found this genuinely fascinating. Many thanks chap.

Probably the best video I have seen on this topic. We use a combination of Nespresso and generic capsules, and now I know why the Nespresso coffees often yield a better coffee, why generics pod leak so much, and why my very fancy Nespresso machine really does not work well with compatible pods (and breaks the machine!) Thanks for this.

The foil is a pressure control device. Foil is used in all sorts of things that require exact pressures. From safety valves on train tank cars to measuring the pressure of explosions. It's pretty neat that something so cheap and easy to use is so effective like that.

Oh my god, thank you. I've been wondering why cheaper pods are rubbish for ages, even when produced by reputable roasters.

Yes I had one, put it back in the box and gone back to my favourite method, pour over, you just can't beat it.

James, I have to thank you. After watching your video, I used a rubber band around a non-nespresso coffee pod and it made a huge difference... the coffee is so much better. As it turns out, the seal for pre-infusion was very important in this case. I am a nespresso coffee drinker (because it's quick and easy) and was always excited by the potential of independent/ non-nespresso pods but was left unhappy with the outcomes.