A pot a day. A pot a day is what I would drink. Some days I was so sleep deprived that the pot of coffee was all that kept me awake.
Think sleep deprived with a newborn, a preschooler, and a kid in elementary school schedule. After late nights and early mornings with the new baby, I needed to be somewhat alert during the day. My preschooler would have gladly watched gavel-to-gavel TV while I napped with the baby, but I resorted to the TV-as-babysitter in only the most dire circumstances.
With no naps on the schedule, I brought out the coffee pot as my way to conquer the early morning…lunchtime…late afternoon sleepiness. But, I wasted A LOT of coffee back then. I wish I had known about single serving coffee makers.
NESCAFÉ recently launched the Dolce Gusto line of sleek single serve coffee makers. Nescafe Dolce Gusto offers a great solution for busy mornings. With playful names like the Piccolo, Creativa, Melody 2 and Circolo, 
NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto coffee makers easily become a beautiful part of your kitchen décor with their modern design. Each compact machine provides fifteen bars of pressure, while most competitors offer zero to two bars, creating a “down-to-business” coffee house experience in your kitchen every morning.
The Nescafe Dolce Gusto offers compact, no-mess capsules. Just pop one into the machine, and with the press of a button, out comes a great cup of coffee in just a minute.
I did find that using the coffeemaker was harder than I thought it would be. I figured it out by trial and error. The instruction booklet that came with the Nescafe Dolce Gusto was hard to decipher — the combo of pictures and words led me to scratch my head at points. Why so many instructions? On the easy-to-use instruction sheet insert there were simply too many diagrams to illustrate the different drinks.
You have to wait for the red light to turn green before the pot will start. Once the green light is on, you can push down on the plunger to puncture the capsule. After the capsule is punctured you turn the lever to the desired temperature — hot or cold. This sounds self-explanatory, but I had a few hiccups along the way. Oh and the reservoir for water on the back of the coffee machine does not have a gauge for showing how much water you need. I used one cup of water for the coffee and about a half-cup of water for the creamer. I used a separate cup to catch the creamer since I like my coffee weak.
Basically here’s how it boils down (pun intended!)…for each drink there are two capsules…one with a dark bottom which is the coffee or tea or hot chocolate and one with a light bottom which is the creamer. You place a dark capsule in the coffee maker first
In-store demos by state — Maryland dates are here. Go here for more demos by state.
Want to know more about the Nescafe Dolce Gusto machines, capsules, and beans? Go here.
So many flavors of coffee, coffee drinks, tea, and hot chocolate. For a complete list, go here.
The Nescafe Dolce Gusto is not just a coffee machine. You can brew hot chocolate and peach iced tea so the non-coffee drinkers in your house can enjoy a special drink too. My teen devoured the caramel machiatto and the chococinno.
I wrote this review while participating in a test drive campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto and received a coffee machine to facilitate my review.
