I’m a coffee aficionado and I enjoy having a great shot of espresso every morning before I leave to work or start my day. One of the things I quickly realized is that one can end up spending a significant amount of money not only on the coffee but also on either capsules or on the more expensive espresso machine that cost a fortune and require a lot of maintenance and care.
I fall under the first category simply because I am lazy, budget conscious and also don’t afford the time to spend more than 2 minutes to brew a coffee. Also, I like consistency, and the one thing a regular espresso machine (e.g Breville) requires skill which I don’t necessarily have at 6:00 in the morning.
So here are the things you will need for this trick
- an espresso machine that operates with capsules (for this tutorial I used Nespresso Vertuoline)
- at least one used espresso capsule that you have removed the cap from. The cap is usually a thin foil covering the capsule. It gets perforated during the brewing process. Cut that cap with a cutter very close to the edge and dispose the brewed coffee that is there from the previous brew.
Here’s how the capsule would look like once the cap is removed:
With the capsule clean and empty on the inside, fill it with your own coffee. I usually buy this 4 pack of Lavazza Espresso from Amazon but you can go with your own, as long as the grind is for espresso.
Now, the cherry on the cake: introducing, the MyCap kit
I discovered this ridiculously cheap kit, called MyCap (Amazon sells it for $10), which consists of a circular BPA-free plastic cap and a set of circular cut coffee filters. What you basically need to do is, once you have put the coffee inside the pod and level it up (90% of the actual height of the pod), cover the coffee with the circular coffee filter and then put on the plastic-cap. I personally choose not to put the aluminium foil they provide.
Next: brew the damn coffee and be done with it!
Your complete setup should look like this
Now, close the lid of your Espresso machine (I have Vertuoline) and start brewing (and saving money).
I did the math and a single cup of espresso brewed this way costs me around 10 cents, which is about 20 times cheaper than a pod, and even more if you consider going out and visiting a local coffee shop. The thing I love about MyCap is that the plastic cap is safe and reusable for hundreds of times with no apparent damage.
I even started cutting my own circular coffee filter caps so that I don’t need to purchase the MyCap pre-cut filters on a monthly basis. That basically lets me with only $10 investment for a super-tasty and affordable espresso for multiple months.
This not only saves us money in the long term, but also gives me much more variety when it comes to what type of coffee I want to brew.
So there you have it, folks! Don’t forget, be budget conscious, always think outside the box and, most importantly, keep reading our website!
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