There was one culinary trend that stayed with us from our vacation this summer in South Africa – coffee. It’s hard to find a regular American style cup of coffee anywhere. Your choices are instant coffee, French Press coffee or cappuccino/espresso. We found the French Press coffee very strong and instant wasn’t an option, but the cappuccino was fantastic! Alan’s brother had us over to his place for a cappuccino from his new Nespresso machine. It was so good that one of the first things we did when we got back to the States was order a machine for ourselves. Seriously… I think we ordered it the same day we got home. We purchased our machine in red from Bed Bath & Beyond online. It’s not available now through BBB, but they do still have a number of other Nespresso machines to choose from. You can order the Citiz w/Milk from Nespresso directly.
South African Cappuccino
Nespresso offers a number of machines. Some don’t have a milk frother integrated in the machine, which Nespresso calls an Aeroccino. You’d need to buy a separate Aeroccino to froth/steam your milk for those machines. If you prefer espresso, you won’t even need this. We selected the Citiz w/ Milk machine because we wanted to make cappuccino and I didn’t want to purchase two separate appliances.
This Nespresso Citiz machine is super easy to use and easy to clean. The integrated Aeroccino can be used to both steam and froth milk and it cleans up easily. The machine’s high bars of pressure produce that perfect crema on top of every cup – just like the professionals. You have to use the Nespresso capsules, called Grand Crus, which can only be purchased from the Nespresso website or from one of their store locations. Not a big deal, but you do have to pay for shipping when ordering online. The machine comes with a sleeve of 16 assorted capsules to get you started. We tried a few until we found the coffee we liked best. On an intensity scale of 1-10, we like our espresso somewhere between an 8 and 10.
I should add, the machine looks great on our counter! At .60 per capsule, if you’re a Starbucks junkie, a home espresso machine might actually save you some money in the long run.
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