The Sweet Taste of Dolce Gusto

One would think that one of the perks of being married to a chef would be cool kitchen gadgetry.  Not in my case.  I have recently discovered after staying at a certain Iron Chef’s house for a week that my kitchen is severely lacking.  Part is due to the fact that the Chef thinks I ruin stuff.  I guess rust is a no no on knives and cast iron pans aren’t made for the dishwasher.  Who knew?

Early on in our relationship he began limiting my access to certain kitchen items, mainly knives, pots & pans, and gadgets.  Over the course of our move I discovered the sad truth.  I have one knife (that’s right kids ONE) , 3 pots, 1 saute pan, and 1 mixer.  I don’t even have a blender!

The Chef has always been weird about our home kitchen.  He has some crazy organizational issues and in our previous kitchen we had no space.  No space=no stuff.  This kitchen, small in size, but huge in storage space allows me some extra room for some cool stuff.  So when I was asked to review NesCafe’s Dolce Gusto I knew this was my chance to add to my kitchen collection. The bright red coffee machine came to my house 2 weeks before our move. I thought it would be a perfect time to try out a simpler way to make coffee. The Chef & I are hardcore french press drinkers. We are serious about espresso and we hardly ever partake in fou fou coffee drinks.

Win this machine below!

The Dolce Gusto machine has something for everyone. First thing I noticed when I opened the box was the mamma chick like shape of the machine:

Mamma chick brews us some much needed caffeinated cocktails

The Chef and I have never had a machine like Dolce Gusto.  We are hardcore french press fans and have never even thought of owning anything that actually plugs in.  Apparently we think we live in Italy and it’s 1935. I set the machine up and we immediatley began our journey into the sweet taste (or dolce gusto if you are of Italiano descent) of Cappuccino and Mocha Late.  We tried every flavor they sent us over the course of 2 weeks.  My highly caffeinated experience allowed me to come to the following conclusions about the Dolce Gusto:

What I didn’t love:

Throwing out the capsules.  It is very very hard for me to throw out plastic and I had to do precisely that everytime I made a cup of coffee.  The capsules should be compostable! Coffee obviously is a great for compost and I would feel so much better if I could toss them in my compost bin.   You listening Dolce Gusto?

The lack of nutrional information regarding the capsules.  Everytime I had a mocha I felt the pounds piling on.

What I absolutely loved:

Many Many Flavors including Cafe Lungo, Cappuccino Ice, Cappuccino, Espresso, Latte Macchiato, & Mocha,.  There are also decaffeinated options.  My favorite is the Cafe Lungo. Chef’s fave was the cappuccino plus an extra shot of espresso.

The ability to mix and match the flavors.  As I said above the Chef liked 2 coffees combined.  I too liked to play around with this.  Sometimes I would do a macchiato mixed with a mocha which made a very delicious fou fou coffee drink that I tend to shy away from.

The Dolce Gusto machine is very easy to use.  You pop in a coffee capsule switch the stick and you have a cup of freshly brewed coffee in under 1 minute.

One of my favorite features of the machine is the cold/hot trigger.  You can make hot coffee or you can brew cold coffee.  It was perfect for us since the week we chose to move was the hottest week of the summer and iced cappuccino’s were a must.

One of my favorite things about this machine doesn’t have anything to do with the machine.  It has to do with NesCafe and Dolce Gusto’s presence in social media.  They are on Twitter and Facebook giving stuff away almost everyday. They interact with their customers as well as people who don’t know the product.  They go the extra mile.  I love that.

The machine itself is very cool looking and I like that it comes in a multitude of colors.  I chose red because I’m a harlet.  Obviously.

Did I mention that this machine is extremely easy to use?  Potato makes 2 cups every morning for us and he’s a pitbull!

I dig this addition to my kitchen and now I actually have room for it.  One of you lucky readers needs to make some room as well.  NesCafe has been so kind to offer one brand new Dolce Gusto machine to a widow reader.  Leave a comment here telling me your favorite thing about coffee: it could be something you eat with it, a coffee brand, a drink, a cellulite lotion made with coffee beans (that’s mine:).  Anything as long as it’s coffee related.  You have until next Wednesday September 23rd.  A winner will be announce at noon.

Now if I could only get someone to ask me to review some knives. My kitchen would be set.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 10:58 am and is filed under Widow Digs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.