Woolworths’ $99 coffee pod machine reviewed

Rather than adopt the Nespresso clone mentality taken by the machines produced by both K-Mart and Kogan, the Woolworths machine uses the Caffitaly system, which is shared in this country by Map, leaving you more beverage selections than just the Woolies home brand and Gloria Jean’s options, and even opens purchase options up to stores including Officeworks.

For this review, we purchased a Woolworths Medium Roast rated in the middle for strength and a Gloria Jean’s “Smooth Classic Blend” that airs closer to being a light taste than a heavy and bold coffee.

Running it through on both the double espresso and long black settings, we found both blends to be reasonably bitter. The crema looks nice, but elicits an almost burnt smell, rather than the welcome aroma of good beans.

The coffee on offer is better than filtered coffee, but not up to the quality that either the Nespresso or Nescafe Dolce Gusto machines put out, and we certainly didn’t think we were receiving cafe quality espressos from this machine, compared to the premium coffee we’ve experienced from other capsule-based machines.

For the $99 price, we’re not totally surprised, and after opening a capsule and seeing how it worked, we’re more inclined to say that from a design point of view, the Caffitaly competes more directly with the Nescafe system than the one from Nespresso, since the coffee “brewing” takes place in the pod in both systems with a series of small plastic filters.

That said, you will be able to find hot chocolate and tea-based capsules for the Caffitaly in the Map pods available at other retailers, something Nespresso machines just can’t do.

You may find that every so often the spout spits or drips in a large bubble, which is a little off-putting, but tends to go away quite quickly.

We’ve actually never seen this before, so when it happens, try to ignore it.

Caffitaly’s claim of “automatic ejection” for the pods isn’t quite spot on, either. It’s more of an ejection method based on “waiting for a bit, then nudging the machine, and then tilting it like you would a pinball machine so that the pods fall into the spent container.”

We certainly wouldn’t call that automatic, and while it’s not difficult, it’s something to be aware of, so don’t be alarmed when they’re stuck in your pod bay door.

Conclusion

At just under a hundred dollars (or $79 if you happen to be one of the Woolworths card holders), it’s a hard price to argue with, especially against the $229 and $299 machines we normally receive from Nespresso and Nescafe.

Certainly, this is an area few major appliance makers will touch: it’s cheap and attempts to lock you into a system, and since so many of us drink coffee, it could make an easy gift for someone with a love for the stuff and isn’t too picky about quality.