Coffee & Espresso Makers Tips

Surprised by the quality of the coffee Philips HD 7810 Espresso Machine I was offered a free Senseo coffee maker through a "Share Senseo" promotion that Philips was having. I paid $15 s...

Philips Senseo HD7820/60 Espresso Machine Product Technical Details01HD7820 Key FeaturesTypeEspresso MachineOperation Source...

Dear Mr. Coffee:

I have been drinking coffee since I was 10 years old, part of a Sunday-morning breakfast ritual in my childhood home. Back then it was a sign of impending adulthood to drink coffee, even if it was greatly diluted with milk and heaped with sugar — I loved my coffee then and still do today.

Eventually, I heard that there was to be a specialty coffee emporium in my area, an import from the west coast called “Starbucks,” and I couldn’t wait to try this specialty coffee that was getting rave reviews from friends and newspapers. Eagerly, I went to my first Starbucks and ordered the house blend, the stuff of legend according to my colleagues at work.

I’ll bet you’re not surprised, Mr. Coffee, to hear that something went wrong during this visit. I nearly spit out my first sip of the brew, which tasted like something that had been sitting for 10 hours in the rancid coffeepot down at Moe’s Garage. I politely commented to the youthful help behind the counter that the coffee tasted old and asked if I could get a fresh cup. A freshly brewed cup was soon offered and, to my great surprise, it tasted every bit as bad as the first cup that I nearly spit out.

Then it dawned on me: This was a form of coffee made from something called “dark roast” or “French roast” or “roasted to hell” or something along those lines. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it at all. I learned that what I liked was called “American roast,” which is a light and clean-tasting coffee without the burnt flavor of French roast.

A couple of my friends told me that if I kept at it, I’d learn to like the thick and burnt-tasting concoction from overly roasted beans. However, I don’t quite see the point in trying to force myself to like a burnt coffee when I already enjoy a fresh-brewed cup of good-old American coffee. Therefore, I stuck with my supermarket cans of ground coffee and my trusty coffeemaker built by you, Mr. Coffee. Although I eventually weaned myself from the sugary coffee of my youth, I still like the light American-style coffee with lots of milk.

Then one day I was offered a free coffeepot to review and it was too good a deal to resist. The Philips Senseo soon arrived and I couldn’t wait to try it out, especially since it came with lots of different kinds of coffee… including one called “mild roast.” In fact, it came with four different kinds of coffees, including a decaf version. All the coffees were in the form of little pregnant round paper pads, looking for all the world like something you should pat on your armpits. The Philips people call these pads “pods.”

The Senseo coffeemaker looks nothing like the ones you make, Mr. Coffee. Instead of the solid, four-square and compact appliance that I normally use, the Senseo looks like a dancing animated character from “Beauty and the Beast.” It stands about 13 inches tall, measures 12 inches from front to back and is 8.5 inches wide — overall, it consumes somewhat more counter space than your coffeemaker, Mr. Coffee. But there’s something else: When I pop its lid open, it stands an astonishing 18 inches tall! It is so tall that I can’t operate it under my kitchen wall cabinets — it must be toward the front of the counter where the lid can clear the overhead cabinet. The overall effect is that it consumes far more counter space, at least in operation, than your homely appliance, Mr. Coffee.

Oddly, for all its size, the Senseo’s reservoir holds very little water. One large, attractive button on the front switches the unit on and off, while two other buttons tell the unit to make a single- or double-sized serving.

The Senseo coffeemaker came with a couple different screens that I can use to make coffee of varying quantities and strength, including one that holds a single pod and one that holds two pods. Everything is easy to access, since the Senseo’s lid flips up easily to reveal the screen. It’s also easy to add new pods and remove the old ones, as the plastic tab on the screen assembly keeps the heat from my fingers. All in all, Mr. Coffee, it is a very interesting design for a coffeemaker, reminding me a little of the first time that I saw an Apple G3 Macintosh computer with its unique style.

I have nothing against tall, cute appliances and still was eager to try it out. I followed the instructions to run some clean water through it to prepare it for its first cup of coffee. Filling the easily removed reservoir was a snap and the Senseo hummed noticeably as the water chugged through. After the initial preparation, I popped in a decaf pod (it was the evening, after all) and brewed my first cup of Senseo coffee. Just like during the preparation stage, the Senseo hummed — two streams of foamy liquid issued into the tiny little cup that was supplied with the coffeemaker.

I admit to being suspicious when I first saw this tiny cup, as it was a little girlie thing compared to the man-sized mug that I usually use. The manual for the Senseo said something about a single serving being a miniscule four ounces (I’m sure it’s an equally small number of milliliters in the European country in which the Senseo is manufactured) but I wanted to try the complete Senseo experience, so I used the dainty little white cup.

Mr. Coffee, I’m sure you can imagine my response… it was like I was transported to a Starbucks and ordered one of those burnt-tasting “dark roast” coffees. In this case, the top of the liquid was covered with foam that neatly obscured the effect when I added milk, so that I had no way of knowing when I had added enough. Even with milk, the taste was… well, “Yuck!” is the most polite way I can put it.

You’ll be happy to know that my wife shares my taste in coffee and she is equally unimpressed with the various Senseo flavors; even the “mild roast” produces a coffee that is too bitter and burnt-tasting for our taste buds, which have been long-accustomed to a mild American-style coffee. And I simply don’t get the point of the foam; it has no particular flavor to me and it just seems to be there.

I tried the Senseo several times using variations on the pod-and-button theme, trying to make a light coffee that didn’t insult my palate. The good news (well, maybe not to you, Mr. Coffee) is that the Senseo is really easy and fast to use, if you don’t mind frequent reservoir filling. Assuming for the moment that you are a person who actually likes the stuff the Senseo creates, you can quickly make a weensy little cup from any of the various pods and switch to a different pod for a somewhat different burnt offering.

I must be honest, Mr. Coffee: I am a very picky eater and seldom deviate from my old favorites. I’m aware of this and thought that it would be fair to see what some other people thought of the Senseo, people who might actually enjoy the version of coffee that it makes.

Therefore, I tried it with some neighbors. They thought the Senseo was just as cute as I did, but they liked the coffee much more than I did. In fact, they liked it a lot, and enjoyed the fact that she could use the super dark roast while he could enjoy the medium blend. (You’ll just have to trust me when I say that they all tasted equally awful to me.) They even liked the foam, the significance of which I still can’t fathom. They also pointed out that the Senseo makes a really HOT cup of coffee, something they appreciated. Our little coffee party showed that the Senseo is best for making a limited number of small cups of coffee; you simply can’t set it to make a carafe that will serve eight people. It just isn’t built that way.

I also did a bit of Internet searching and found that pods for the Senseo can be bought at a cost that works out to 24 cents per pod. This may change if other companies besides Douwe Egberts (Philips’ pod partner) makes pods but for now, Douwe Egberts is the only source. Although the Senseo’s manual cautioned strongly against it, I folded up some supermarket coffee in a filter and brewed a cup with it. I tried it just once and didn’t get the mix right — it was too bland — but some more experimentation just might produce a cup I like.

You may have gotten to this point, Mr. Coffee, and wondered why I wrote this letter. I just wanted to let you know that the Senseo will not get me to abandon your coffeemaker, Mr. Coffee. If I have any say in the matter, you and Mrs. Coffee will be able to start your retirement confident in the steady sales of your favorite creation and unconcerned about upstarts such as the Senseo. I’m sure there will be enough money to send all the little Coffees to good colleges and that they will eventually find productive employment in your fine organization.

So, although I may have tried a Senseo, Mr. Coffee, this was a case of trying but not believing. I am not a Senseo believer and gladly return to the Mr. Coffee fold. I look forward to many years of mild, pleasant and unburned coffee from your coffeemakers — I am not to be a Senseo pod person.

Sincerely,

Bob

PS: (Written May 3, 2004) I tried my Senseo with Folgers Classic Roast pods bought at Wal-Mart and had the same disappointing result. My wife and I each used a Folgers pod and set the Senseo for a double-size cup, but it was just too overly roasted and bitter for my taste. (My wife didn’t like it, either.) The price was a bit better than the Douwe Egberts’ pods: $3.77 for 18 Folders pods, which works out to 21 cents per pod.

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