PODcast #45 : Espresso Pods News

Welcome to The PODcast, PodMerchant's newsletter of espresso pod tips, news, education, and deals. Back issues of The PODcast are available online.

Espresso Elucidations

Espresso Machines

Espresso machines.
Espresso machines optimized for pods.
Espresso machines optimized for pods that are affordable.
Espresso machines optimized for pods that are affordable and available in the U.S.

The last one is just about an empty set.

As The Merchant of Pods, it is in my interest that the coffee made from our pods is as good as possible. If people don't enjoy their espresso, who's going to buy more? This is especially true with regards to competition between pods and ground coffee. I want you to have a machine that makes great espresso from our pods.

Italian-made machines — Most of these are last century engineering, and frankly, closer to the century before that. The Italians make a lot of pod-only machines, most of which have no electronics, meaning there are absolutely no "smarts" as we have come to expect in appliances from washing machines to toothbrushes. The typical Italian home espresso machine (or commercial for that matter) is made with 1940s technology. Case in point: I just imported a Spinel Pinocchio machine (shown here). It makes good espresso because it is pod-only, is built well, and it uses a thermoblock. It also has a power light that is so dim that I accidentally left the machine on for an entire day — the light could only be seen in the dark. And like all non-electronic machines, the ready light goes OUT when the machine is ready. To top it off, most Italian machines have natural rubber feet which leave marks on your countertop. If the Japanese ever start making espresso machines, they'll cost 1/4 as much and make coffee twice as good.

You may say, "Well, who cares about those things? I just want good espresso." OK, as they do make good espresso, I'll stop running down these technological dinosaurs. But here's another problem — they are hardly even available in the U.S.

Machines with a design comparable to the Spinel include the Nemox units, the Grimac Terry, the Didiesse Frog, and the La Piccola. These machines undoubtedly make good coffee, but availability in the US — or price, if available — is poor.

Well, here's one Italian exception. The FrancisFrancis! X6. PodMerchant used to sell these, so I know the machine well, and this is the machine I use daily at home. It makes fabulous espresso. What's wrong with it? Well, usually the price. We used to sell these at $399. The construction is overall pretty cheap, but as I said, it makes great espresso. And unlike most of its Italian brethren, it is smart. It won't let you do some dumb things and it has safeguards to minimize damage to itself. AND it has a bright green light that comes on when it's ready to make coffee! (It's really sad that this is an exciting feature...)

Right now, WholeLatteLove is selling the X6 for $224 in white and $299 in black (+ free shipping). If you are looking for a home machine, I'd go for this. I'm not sure what's with the pricing as FrancisFrancis!, like most espresso machine companies, enforces a MAP (Minimal Acceptable Pricing) on retailers. Everyone else is selling it from $400 to $500.

WholeLatteLove's price is all the more impressive when I consider that my first machine was a Briel Chamonix that set me back $150 and it now sells for $200 on Amazon. The Chamonix is nowhere near the class of the X6. I'd jump on this if you want a good light-duty machine for the home or office.

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Wanting to know what machines our customers use, I mined our database of optional questions that customers submit during checkout. The results are as follows:

FrancisFrancis! is clearly the leader here — and not too surprising since they are owned by illy, the inventor of ESE espresso pods. Breville has a good showing. These are mostly the popular stainless steel 800ESXL (at right) machines sold numerous places including department stores.

The DeLonghi and Krups units vary a lot by model and are probably units purchased in places like Bed, Bath & Beyond (love those 20% off coupons!). There are a lot of Handpressos here considering their recent introduction into the market (see story below about our price reduction). The Miscellaneous Commercial units are machines designed without pods in mind. The ironic point is that these machines, though expensive and of high quality, probably make relatively poor espresso from pods.

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Lastly, we do get a bit of business from commercial establishments using pods. They need a heavy duty machine that is up to the task, and the machine should have multiple groupheads. I can only find two suitable units right now that are available in North America. First, the Technosystems Blitz Gemini, a unit that we represented for a short while. These machines may still be available from Impressive Coffee, but I have not confirmed this.

There is also the Spinel TreLux 3-grouphead commercial machine. I can only find it available from Canadian dealers. Costco.ca has a great price on this machine. Spinel specializes in pod-only machines. Despite the aforementioned 1040's technology, I'd certainly like to see greater availability of these machines in the U.S., and to be fair, their high-end machines are a bit more sophisticated.
 

PodMerchant News

Back in stock! Our shipment arrived from Italy last week. We have stock again on Lucaffe's Mama Lucia, Giamaica Blue Mountain, and Decaf. Also new stock on Compagnia dell'Arabica's Biologica.

Price reductions: We've lowered the price on Blucaffe. LUCA017 was $11.95 for 10; now $17.45 for 20 pods. The case of 150 was $153.12; now $125.31.

PodMerchant was the first company to sell HandPresso portable espresso machines in the U.S. But now you can get them everywhere for less than our margins should allow. So we are selling out our inventory at a reduced price. Handpresso Wild was $116; now $95. The Handpresso case was 20.99; now $15.

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For 10% off your next order — Enter code: XXXXXXX (note, that is "P-C-Zero") and please press the "Redeem Coupon" button or the coupon will not be entered.

That's all for this issue of the PODcast.


Kevin Garrett, The PodMerchant.