Which coffee to choose for your reusable coffee capsule?

Which coffee to choose for your reusable coffee capsule?

Choosing the right coffee for your reusable capsule is essential. Generally speaking, espresso-ground coffees work well with reusable capsules. But if you'd like more information on compatible coffees and what makes a good reusable capsule coffee, then this article is for you.
After testing over 200 different coffees and making around 10,000 reusable capsule coffees, here's our advice.

The only coffee designed for reusable capsules: 

We've developed our own bespoke coffee, available here. It's the fruit of many iterations on bean sourcing, roasting profiles and grind size. We are currently working on the development of 3 other coffees to give you even greater satisfaction. 

This coffee is designed to be as close as possible to that of a Nespresso® capsule: we've deconstructed what makes a disposable capsule coffee so as to achieve the same result in the cup: a grind size of 400 microns, meticulous sourcing of coffee beans and meticulous roasting.

Everything is now in place to satisfy you: no more "lavasse" coffee in yourrefillable nespresso® capsules.

Roasting for Nespresso® stainless steel capsules:

Roasting is the phase of cooking the beans before they are ground. When you open a disposable capsule, you'll notice that the color of the ground coffee is dark brown. This indicates a fairly thorough roasting process. 

For your culture, "industrial" coffee is heated very quickly to around 1000°C. Nespresso, for their part, roast their beans semi-industrially at around 400°C, whereas an artisan won't go above 250°C.
The bottom line is that, in the interests of speed and profitability, industrial coffees are burnt, and with them the coffee's aromas.  

If your coffee isn't roasted enough, it will swell during extraction. Small and medium-sized roasters often don't roast the coffee in their capsules sufficiently, which means that the coffees run poorly, or drip. 

So the trick is to roast enough so that the coffee doesn't swell too much in the capsule, but not too much either, so as not to lose the coffee's aromas.

In short, if you go to your local roaster, ask for a well-roasted coffee for your reusable capsules.

The grind : 

The grind of a ground coffee is the size of the coffee obtained after grinding in a mill. If it's too fine, your coffee won't flow; if it's too thick, the coffee won't extract properly and the result in the cup will be mixed. If you have to choose a supermarket coffee, choose an "espresso" grind. Filter or piston grinds will be too thick and your coffee will be watery. 

After investing in precision sieves, we determined the ideal grind sizes for disposable capsules. The median size obtained is 400µm, and this is the one we chose for our coffee.

In practice, if you go to your local roaster, just ask for an espresso grind of a well-roasted coffee, and that will be more than enough.

Coffees compatible with our refillable coffee capsules:  

If you'd like to choose a coffee other than that of our partner roaster, here's a list of coffees compatible with our capsules that we've tested ourselves, and that you'll easily find in supermarkets. Please note that we are not affiliated with any of these coffees.


    Decaffeinated :


    Conclusion:

    Not all coffees will give good results with reusable coffee capsules, and not all compatible coffees will satisfy your palate for reasons of personal taste.
    But between the list we've given you, our coffee, and the rest of the range to come, you'll find what you're looking for. If you want to try others, make sure you get an Espresso grind, and ask a roaster for a well-roasted coffee.