Most people when buying a coffee machine for home, look at two main factors:
1. How much does it cost?
2. How easy is it to operate?
There are many people who just want a great tasting coffee in the morning that is easy to make and not too fiddly or time consuming. We have seen the coffee capsule market pretty much dominated by Nespresso over the past decade, however as specialty coffee has become more prominent even in ordinary households, there has been a demand for specialty capsules, hence the emergence of companies like 4WKS who do a great job for the environment and for the flavour, but until we saw the Morning Pro capsule machine, there was only the Nespresso-style machines to brew these capsules and the Morning is certainly an investment. Enter the Blume 2-step Pro.
Let’s unpack the two critical factors, cost and ease of brewing.
Cost:
A Nespresso machine is pretty affordable. Nespresso did this on purpose to make sure entry into the market was very affordable, on the premise that consumers would spend a fortune on the capsules, which they’ve done very successfully. So a Nespresso machine can cost as little as R2500 and for those who want specialty coffee brewed the right way, a Morning Pro capsule machine costs around R11 500.
Which brings us to the first big pro of the Blume 2-Step Pro Capsule Machine - it retails for R2500!
Brewing:
But how easy is it top operate, and what’s the big difference between this and a Nespresso machine? Great question!
If you’re a discerning coffee drinker, and you want to drink specialty coffee (or just a great coffee even if it’s not specialty) from a capsule - then the brewing process is very important…and yet, you won’t have to know anything about this part or do anything differently to ensure a specialty coffee is brewed in the “right way” … so what exactly is the right way?
Firstly, when a skilled barista makes your coffee in a cafe, the espresso machine will pre-infuse the coffee, which gently soaks the grounds in the machine before subjecting the coffee to high pressure. And therein lies the major difference between the Nespresso style machines and the Blume 2. The Blume 2, is named specifically after this process - in other words it’s a 2 step process - Firstly the pre-infusion or “Blooming” and then the brewing or the pressure stage which is extracting all those delicious flavours out of the coffee grounds.
Now, let’s get into some testing!
We sourced some delicious medium roast Seasonal Blend specialty coffee capsules from Bluebird Coffee Roastery and we brewed them alongside some single origin Ethiopian Nespresso capsules in both a Blume 2 AND a Nespresso machine. The results were very interesting!
We found the following results from the Blume 2 extraction:
The pre-infusion time and the gentler extraction from the Blume 2 resulted in a better balanced shot with no blonding*, where the shorter shot from the Nespresso machine blonded quicker in comparison and had more acidic notes. Remember, as a user - you just push the button on both and viola, espresso! The results above are a result of clever coffee professionals getting the very best out of coffee, so you don’t have to!
The difference is that Blume gives you the option to experiment.
The features we loved on the Blume 2 is the ability to adjust parameters - like changing the Pre-infusion setting between 1,5s to 3s and the additional Americano and Americano XL functions to save time.
The Blume also allows variable temperature settings up to 8 degrees lower than the factory settings, and also variable volume settings to give you a bit more freedom to get the exact coffee you desire from different capsules you might buy.
*Blonding is the stage at when the coffee extraction starts to change colour from a rich, dark caramel colour to a pale yellow/white colour
