Senseo Review

I got a Senseo coffee maker for Christmas this year. For those that remember, last Christmas I had bought a Nespresso C-190 which is a great coffee maker. In fact, after sipping coffee at many cafes in Paris in November, I realized just how good my Nespresso was. So why try a new coffee maker?

Well, I thought that since the coffee itself was quite a bit cheaper than the Nespresso coffee, it would be worthwhile to try. I wasn't expecting coffee nirvana from it, but from everything that I heard, I did expect a cup of coffee a step ahead of drip.

Boy was I wrong!

Here are the problems that I had with this machine:

1. Not hot enough. The coffee that came out always needed a few seconds in the microwave after brewing. I'm not a 'heat fanatic' but it came out at an unacceptable temperature.

2. After use, there was always water on my countertop. It leaked.

3. The 'crema' was comprised of large bubbles. This didn't look, feel or taste like the crema at a real cafe or the crema from my Nespresso. It was embarassing looking.

4. Bottom line and most importantly: the coffee tasted very weak and bitter.

Now, maybe I got a hold of a defective machine. Perhaps the water found on my countertop was indicative of a machine that had a pressure leak somewhere. Perhaps this lack of pressure led to bad crema and bad coffee. Perhaps. But there were so many negatives associated with this machine that I decided not to try another and we just got our money back.

If you have had good experiences with the Senseo, do let me know!