EXPRESS YOURSELF

Buhle Mbonambi tried the Nespresso Creatista Plus and here’s what he had to say

MY RELATIONSHIP with good coffee started in my late teens. After tasting coffee from Tanzania at a friend’s house, I said goodbye to chicory extract and started learning more about real coffee. And boy what an education that was. It led to me bringing only coffee beans back from a holiday in Kenya.

I’ve always wanted a coffee machine. For the past four years, I have asked my closest friends and family to get me one, either for Christmas or my birthday. No one ever seems to listen. Some say it’s because coffee is bad for me and they won’t assist me in making bad life decisions. The others say coffee is an expensive habit and I should rather use that money for better things and they always have nearheart attacks when I mention how much I have spent on good coffee. Haters.

So when Nespresso contacted me in March, asking if I was interested in reviewing one of their latest machines, I didn’t need to think twice. When I didn’t get a coffee machine from my loved ones for my 30th birthday a few weeks ago, I didn’t mind – I had a Nespresso machine to try out.

The first time I came across the brand was seeing the George Clooney adverts and that’s when I knew that it was for a high LSM. I love that it doesn’t hide that. The only way you can afford Clooney is because your clientele have expensive taste.

The first time I saw Nespresso capsules I wondered just how the coffee was extracted from them. It wasn’t until I was at a hotel that had the machines and the concierge showed me how they work, did I finally admit that this was not for me. It’s too expensive a habit. So I stuck with my filter coffee.

So getting to try out the Nespresso Creatista Plus was exciting, especially because it was one of the creatista machines, which allowed me to make cappuccino, latte macchiato and flat whites, in addition to the usual espressos.

The machine itself is beautiful. The design is very high-end and it’s clearly for fans of the brand who want more than just the usual espresso machine. It makes sense that it’s co-designed by Breville, who are market leaders in coffee machines. It’s not heavy, so you can travel with it when going on holiday. There are eight coffee settings. You can set your ideal milk temperature, the amount of coffee you want from the capsule and also how much froth you want with your milk. It’s also very easy to clean and the milk wand uses steam to purge any milk remnants so it stays clean.

Using the machine for the past two weeks has been interesting. There were times where I made better coffee with my plunger than I did with the machine. That’s when I realised that choosing the right coffee capsule for the different type of coffee I was making was important.

For my breakfast espressos I chose the Arpeggio and Capriccio capsules. For the milk-based coffees like lattes and cappuccinos, I went with decaf capsules (Arpeggio

Decaf and Volluto Decaf), which were my after-work beverages. I also enjoyed the Ristretto range.

Operating the machine was a breeze after a few days. The only tricky thing was making sure that the water hardness was correct. It did take me some time to figure out how to make the various coffees, but when I eventually did, I could do it with my eyes closed.

Verdict: Buy the machine if you are really a fan of the brand and love their coffee capsules. It retails at about R5 000 at most stores, online and at Nespresso outlets.