Deus Ex Coffee Machina
I just got home and found an unexpected package at my door. It is a Philips Senseo pod coffee maker. Despite living in Seattle and working within two blocks of no less than a half-dozen fantastic coffee makers, I’m not much of a java drinker. Honestly, I’m more of a tea man, but who am I to say no to a free coffee maker?
Rinse out machine, plug it all in, First thing after rinsing it all out and plugging it in, I put in a pod, plunked down my biggest mug, and pressed the big/two cup button.
The folks who designed these coffee pods must have done quite a bit of testing to come up with a coffee grind that can be so completely exhausted so quickly. I watched with great interest as the cup filled halfway and then the coffee coming out turned light tan and then clear in under ten seconds. After inspecting the hieroglyphs on the coffee pod holders (2), I discerned that I should have used the other pod holder and inserted two pods.
One cup down the drain.
I put my cup back under the machine, lowered the head, and pressed the one cup button. After a bit of chatter, the machine starts pumping water all over my counter. Apparently the coffee maker will still run even if the head isn’t locked in place. It may appear that you’ve shut it if the latch is down and the head is lowered, but you can’t latch it until after it’s shut. I imagine it will also spew hot water if you don’t put in the pod holder, so don’t do either of those things.
Third time’s the charm. I put a single pod into the holder, filled my cup 1/4 with milk and let ‘er rip on one cup of fancy Irish cream coffee.
I’ve never had such tasty drip coffee.
My first thought upon seeing the machine was that I’d have to spend the rest of my days buying proprietary teabags full of coffee grounds so Philips can earn a return on this loss leader machine. As it turns out, the pods are simply round mesh pouches and the two pod holder has enough space to fit even the largest of teabags.
I’m currently drinking the most convenient cup of tea I’ve ever made. I do believe this machine will find quite a bit of use in my home through the cool winter ahead.
A tip for those who might make tea in their Senseo: One typical teabag equals two coffee pods. Your results may vary, but my tea came out very potent for the first half of the process and the second half lightened out and eventually ran clear. The end result was a perfectly steeped cup made in less than a minute.
October 10th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Your 911 map isn’t working and I LOVE that thing!
Thanks,
M
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:13 pm
I have a senseo, but I was never adventurous to try another type of drink in it. Good thinking!
November 8th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
The trick with Senseos is that they have a crappy boiler and they won’t do very well with nice beans– better than half the drip machines out there, but it’ll still come out more sour and bitter than it should. A coffee geek came up with a way to hack Senseos to get them to make a truly great cup, but it will melt down the pump in the long-term. Not that that’s likely to be a problem for a usually-tea drinker.
http://coffeeaspirations.blogspot.com/2006/09/senseo-drinkable-coffee.html
The Senseo’s lower temperature would probably do green and white teas some good, but if someone gives you a great black tea, try that Senseo hack!
December 11th, 2006 at 11:26 am
http://www.pickwicktea.com/nl/tpads/TpadsLineExtension.aspx?flashpage=homepage
I’m from holland, and because 90% of the Senseo owners use the Senseo to make a cup of thea, they - Philips and Pickwick - decided to marked there own ” official” thea holder ” t-pad”
One of the first ” tips” on the manual is to push the 1 cup option without any pads in the holder to get a better taste/warmer cup of thea/coffee.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:08 am
I never have thought to try using it for tea. I wonder if loose leaf tea used in a home-made pod would work better.
Still, though, I’m inclined to think that the brew temperature decline will have a significant effect on the extraction.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Personally I never liked this machine. I prefer the Keurig one-cup at a time machine. Besides, since they have the Keurig machine at my office, that means I can steal coffee for home
Chris
August 3rd, 2007 at 2:30 am
I’m always failing to shut the lid on our office Senseo. It goes on pouring water unitl you say, ’stop, stop, little pot, no more coffee, that’s the lot.’ And it makes a helluva racket. Still, the coffee tastes great, and you can get a much broader variety of coffee bean in those little bags now.
Cheers