Coffee anyone?

I'm super excited!  We have just ordered a Dolce Gusto Genio (that's a lovely, cute coffee machine from Nescafe, you knew that right?)   Here's a link

We used to have a brill coffee machine, it was huge though.  But it made amazing coffee, you could have espresso, filter and it also had a milk frother.  It sat perfectly in our kitchen in our previous house as we had one corner worktop at the other side of the room, you'd have thought it was made for the coffee machine (I can't even remember the brand but it wouldn't look out of place in a small cafe!).  When we moved house, jeezo, nearly 3 years ago it was damaged in the move and we've not replaced it yet.  We don't have a huge amount of work tops in our kitchen as half of the kitchen is a breakfasting area, so we never really saw a coffee machine that was neat and compact...

On Monday, Hubber, baby and I where staying overnight at a lovely hotel in Edinburgh (which was a covert job) and in our room there was a Nespresso machine... now I'm not a fan of espresso but there were a few different pods for us to try, I opted for the Vivalto Lungo which was amazing!!  It really put me in the mood for some good coffee when I got home.  So the hunt was on, which machine?!

I posted, on my own FB page a status asking for my friends opinions on coffee machines and why they liked them.  I must say the biggest majority said the Tassimo, and we were seriously considering it.  I thought it was too big and when I looked at the choice of pods, there was so many... but after cutting out all the things I wouldn't drink then the options for black coffee was really one Kenco pod?!  That's no good to man nor beast (or houseplant)...  So I was instantly put off.  No-one mentioned the Nespresso, I really liked this although the cup holder that folded up and down seemed a bit flimsy and was made of plastic.  When you're paying over £100 for a coffee machine, I'd like it to be robust...  A few friends mentioned the Dolce Gusto, they did say the spout the drink comes out got blocked a lot but they live in a very hard water area and this will be the problem.  Our water in Scotland is very soft, we have no problem with limescale.  Even if we did though I saw that on the Dolce Gusto website they sell liquid water descaler, which they advise to use every 6months.

I was coming round to the Dolce Gusto Genio... it looks compact and the colour is named Piano Black.. and you all know we are huge piano fans here!!  When I was looking through the pod varieties there was so much more choice, I can't wait to try most of them!!  I've also got my eye on the black bubble pod and also have you seen the new Cappuccino Cups - Barista Edition in Green?!  Yeah, I'd love these!

Look out for photos of our new machine coming soon!!