George Clooney "no coffee pod connoisseur," says Choice

by Katiedot Thu 18 Apr 2013, 05:57

I'm not sure he chose it because he thought it was good coffee; I think it was the flavour the payment gave to his bank balance that was the main deciding factor. Thanks Henway for this.

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Clooney no coffee pod connoisseur, says Choice

April 18, 2013

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Illustration: John Shakespeare

George Clooney's brooding good looks may be the tastiest thing about Nespresso coffee capsules. Coffee experts at the consumer advocate Choice have found Nespresso's capsules taste ''musty'' and ''watery''.

Thanks to Clooney's endorsement and a massive marketing push, Nespresso's global sales hit $US32 billion ($31 billion) in 2011.

Not only are the machines found in 30 per cent of the world's 2400 Michelin-starred restaurants, as The Guardian reported, but Treasurer Wayne Swan's press secretary was recently spotted buying the pods in bulk.

The Choice experts discovered Nespresso was the most expensive, costing about 68¢ for a five-gram capsule. It also came in second-last for taste.

The best-tasting coffee capsule was the unsexily named Coffee Capsule Delights Indian variety, at 60¢ for 5.8 grams. It does not have a celebrity spokesman attracting a multimillion-dollar fee.

And when it comes to getting a quick caffeine shot, the pods fared poorly.

Fans of strong coffee would likely find the capsules ''insipid'' because they had about half the amount of coffee of an espresso from a cafe.

Choice food policy adviser Angela McDougall said the findings were a reminder to consumers that an ''expensive, exclusive product isn't always necessarily the best''.

McDougall said Nespresso had built its brand through ''premiumisation''. That's fancy talk for making a mountain out of a pile of beans.