Make A Stronger Cup Of Coffee With This Nespresso Vertuo Trick

With Nespresso coffee machines, you're just a button push away from a cup of coffee in the morning. Understandably, some people need an extra-strong cup to get their day going, and those people are just two button pushes away. A trick Nespresso built into the Expert Mode of their Vertuo machines is the ability to make a more concentrated brew by pressing the coffee button twice. The button will flash teal before it starts making coffee, a sign that it worked.

This trick concentrates your coffee for use in milk-based drinks. Otherwise, you'd end up with a weak, watery latte. People also use this mode to make iced coffees. You can use this on any pod, from dark roast to light roast. This is what the numbers on the pod mean. The higher the number, the darker the roast.

Nespresso doesn't make espresso because it doesn't provide the requisite 9 bars or so of pressure needed to make the Italian-style coffee. It makes drip coffee. This means the trick is essentially a preprogrammed way to stop the brew early. Each pod has a barcode that tells the machine how to brew it. For example, as a ristretto, double espresso, or regular coffee. This mode turns them all into smaller cups. Less water doesn't necessarily mean under-extracted coffee. It makes a stronger cup. It's similar to the unique process of making Japanese iced coffee, where you stop pouring hot water and dilute the concentrated brew with ice. It's really just affecting the ratio of grounds to water, which you can do at home with a pourover, but then you wouldn't have the convenience of a coffee pod vs. coffee beans.

You can also set your machine to remember the size of coffee you want to make. If, instead of pushing the button and letting go, you hold the button down through the process and release it when you are done, the machine will save this timing for that specific capsule. Then, you're set anytime you brew a cup.