We love innovation. We love it even more when it's local. 4WKS pods are both innovative and local and so when our friends at Rosetta Roastery sent Lulu Larché of this new business our way, we were delighted!
Arriving in glass container with a beautiful wooden lid we were gifted a selection of some top notch Cape Town coffee houses in a capsule, the likes of which we have never seen before. Almost fabric-like, these little guys are made out of sugar cane pulp. This material is not quite airtight like the plastic and aluminium products available from the big brands, but that's actually their main selling point. These pods are not supposed to have a shelf life of many months (and more likely years!), they are meant to be used within 4 weeks. That's right, they're fresh! And the capsule is completely compostable, so the entire thing starts to break down in 4 weeks on the compost heap and in two months it's gone. That's pretty fantastic news, because a capsule machine is helluva convenient.
Opening the jar, I was met with the gorgeous aroma of fresh roasted coffee. The instructions are to just tap the back a little once the capsule is in the slot, so that it is slightly tilting and to use the short shot function. I had a smooth experience on my first try (and every try after that!). My personal recommendation would be to stop the short shot by pushing the button again when the shot starts to blonde (change to white in colour). All the different roasteries (Deluxe, Naked, Rosetta and Terbodore) had distinctive and wonderful flavours.
So the other thing that they mention in the instructions is to pop the pod out straight away after extracting and I learned why the morning after my experimenting. Excited to have a quick and easy morning coffee, I opened the hatch to a little surprise. The pod I had left in there the day before already started to break down! Which is pretty damn amazing! I mean, it was a messy mistake to make (haha!) but it also proved that the sugar cane material really will break down and that made me kinda happy to scoop the coffee grounds out my machine. And I learned my lesson, follow the instructions!
We wish this new business all the best and we highly recommend you try them out. Give them a follow on Instagram to see where you can get your hands on some!
