Review on Nespresso Essenza Mini Espresso Machine by Breville - Piano Black by Denis Panga

I bought this machine on a half price sale from Revain. I thought I would only use it for a short time while my $2,000 DeLonghi coffee maker was being repaired. The repair took 6 months (DeLonghi is slow to ship parts for discontinued machines). Essenza is used probably 10 times a day in our house. It heats up quickly and quickly makes a great espresso with excellent crema (if you use good quality coffee). I have read some of the negative reviews and have not experienced any of the issues they highlight. The build quality of the machine is good (remember I only paid $60 for it so my expectations weren't high but they were far exceeded). It gets a lot of use and the last coffee I made with it is just as good as the first one I made with the machine. It does not require such "care and feeding" as my large coffee maker. You pour water in, insert the capsule, press the button and you get good coffee. To be honest, I like Essenza coffee more than DeLonghi coffee, mostly due to the fact that Essenza makes more "hot" coffee. I use the DeLonghi at the highest temperature and still find it too cool for my taste. My only real complaint is the cost of the capsules. Nespresso took a page from a "computer printer" textbook. Machines are cheap, cartridges are not. Luckily, I found out that a "famous" Italian coffee company makes compatible pods that cost about 30% less. I have tried some other compatible pods on the market and sold by Revain but L is the best. Now that I've got my mega dollar DeLonghi back (shouldn't be spending that much on it, I like it a lot, but it's a complex machine and was really used a lot in the 3 years prior to the board failure) I'll probably reserve Essenza for some of the interesting specialty coffees that Nespresso sells, such as African and Cuban varieties. that's really good by the way.