One of the great benefits of working in Luxembourg was my client’s coffee machine.

 

Any food fan based in the UK will know that work supplied coffee is crap. It’s runny and tasteless, and that’s if you’re lucky not to suffer instant. More often, it’s harsh and chemical, and that’s good quality instant. In the worst cases, with cheap instant, well, no wonder so many Brits drink tea.

 

Flemish work coffee is better, but not nearly good enough to be worth remembering. Mind you, I’m judging that on two examples; I could be unlucky.

 

But my Luxembourg client, they had good coffee. It was the first time I’d been introduced to one of the new generation espresso machines, with individual containers for each drink.

 

The separate packaging of coffee per espresso initially struck me as wasteful, until I tasted my first cup. Then I realised that the packaging meant the coffee itself would always be in the best condition. Remember, much “fresh” coffee is actually stale coffee. Anyway, the result is very very good coffee indeed.

 

Now, it’s true that most products sold with individual packaging per portion do so to keep their product fresh, but more often than not the product being kept fresh isn’t worth the bother. I suspect most companies use such packaging because it’s cheaper than making a better product. Fresh tasteless biscuits are still tasteless biscuits. Fresh British chocolate is still British chocolate. This coffee is a major exception; it is high quality stuff.

 

 

The one disadvantage is the coffee itself is supplied by one company. At the moment, they’re supplying high quality product. If, however, they reduce that quality of coffee, there’s nothing I’ll be able to do about it; there’s no alternative supplier. The kit was worth buying for what I’m getting at the moment, but I’m not daft enough to presume things will stay that way.