We received the following product from Cafe Joe USA but are in no way compensated for our review. It’s 100% honest and unbiased.

Nespresso drinkers rejoice!

There’s a new lower-cost alternative to those pricey Nespresso brand OriginalLine capsules.

Cafe Joe Usa.

For the past 20 years Cafe Joe has been a leader in Israel’s coffee scene, cultivating coffee beans from the best coffee growing regions in the world and combining them into their own unique blends with the goal of giving you a high-quality coffee at a good price.

On their About page, Cafe Joe USA makes the following claim:

Joe’s new, innovative, air tight “EVO” coffee capsules ensure maximum coffee freshness…The combination of this oxygen barrier with our unique tamp dome “EXTRA CREAM” technology generates an especially robust crema…

I added the bold underline above for effect.

A robust crema, you say?

I really like a nice crema on my espresso, so I was especially curious to see if Cafe Joe USA would be able to deliver on this claim.

Here at The Coffee Maven, I love trying new products. So when Cafe Joe USA reached out asking whether I’d like to give their selection a try, well, yeah I did!

Keep reading to see how we arrived at that conclusion.

So, What Are We Reviewing Today?

Cafe Joe USA sent me their 10 Variety Sampler Pack, which at the time of this writing you can find on their website for just $42.50. That works out to $0.43 per capsule.

For comparison, Nespresso brand OriginalLine capsules tend to cost around $0.75 per capsule.

If you drink one espresso beverage per day, that’s a savings of $118 per year.

Here’s the whole Cafe Joe USA lineup.

I bucketed those 10 blends into 4 categories:

• Regular Joe and Decaf
• Strong Blends
• Lighter Blends
• Specialty Blends

Let’s take a look at each.

Cafe Joe USA Regular Joe and Decaf Capsules

Joe and Decaf are Cafe Joe USA’s house blends.

Joe

• Intensity: 9
• Beans: 100% Arabica
• Description: Fruity acidity with honey aftertaste

Decaf

• Intensity: 7
• Beans: 100% Arabica
• Description: Fruity acidity with honey aftertaste

Cafe Joe USA Standard Strong Capsules

The above two blends are designed for the bold at heart. They’re rich, deep, and are blends including robusta beans for a stronger profile and a bigger caffeine hit.

Ultra Strong

• Intensity: 12
• Beans: Arabica/robusta from South America
• Description: Bittersweet chocolate with light cherry undertones

Extra Strong

• Intensity: 11
• Beans: Arabica/robusta blend from Central America, South America, Asia, Africa
• Description: Dark chocolate with light cherry undertones

Cafe Joe USA Lighter Blend Capsules

Next are Cafe Joe USA’s 3 lighter blends. Each of these capsules has an intensity level of 7 or lower, which makes them great for lighter, smoother espresso to be savored.

Trieste

• Intensity: 7
• Beans: 100% arabica beans
• Description: Hazelnut with slightly bitter finish

Lucca

• Intensity: 5
• Beans: 100% arabica from Central America, South America, and Africa
• Description: Slightly nutty with a subtle honey sweetness

Chirari

• Intensity: 6
• Beans: Arabica/robusta blend
• Description: Soft and smooth, though the robusta beans give it some balanced depth

Cafe Joe USA Specialty Blend Capsules

Lastly are Cafe Joe USA’s specialty roasts blended to replicate the specific flavors of three prominent regions.

Cuba

• Intensity: 9
• Beans: Blend of high-mountain grown Cuban coffee with Central American arabica and African robusta
• Description: Strong and spicy with notes of chocolate designed to hold its own with milk-based drinks

Costa Rica

• Intensity: 10
• Beans: 100% Costa Rican coffee beans
• Description: An intense roast with some balanced sweetness and subtly vibrant fuitiness

Colombia

• Intensity: 8
• Beans: 100% Colombian beans
• Description: Robust with balanced bitterness, some spicy notes, and a touch of fruit

Cafe Joe USA Capsule Descriptions

Just so you know exactly what you’re getting with Cafe Joe USA, I put together the following image of their 10 Nespresso compatible capsules with Cafe Joe’s own descriptions.

Finally! Let’s Review

With Cafe Joe USA’s capsule selection out of the way, let’s take a look at how these capsules stack up with Nespresso brand capsules.

First, a side-by-side comparison.

Though roughly the same shape, Cafe Joe USA capsules are a touch bulkier than Nespresso brand capsules and are designed for use in OriginalLine machines only — not VertuoLine machines.

Related: Nespresso OriginalLine vs VertuoLine

Likely due to the slightly bulkier design, Cafe Joe USA’s capsules fit a little snugly into my Nespresso Essenza Mini machine.

On a couple occasions I wasn’t sure the capsule was positioned properly and I was hesitant to pull the lever to lock it in for fear of piercing the aluminum foil improperly and wasting the capsule. After a small “learning curve” — like 4 or 5 tries — I got a feel for how Cafe Joe USA’s capsules were sitting in my machine and didn’t have any worries or concerns.

Only like 1-of-20 times inserting a capsule did I decide to fish it out and re-insert it. A little annoying, but it only cost me like 15 seconds every 20 times, so it adds like 1 second per coffee. Given the savings with Cafe Joe USA capsules over Nespresso brand capsules, I’m totally OK with the extra second.

I also found the aluminum seal on Cafe Joe USA’s capsules to be a little thinner than the Nespresso brand capsules, which led to me accidentally tearing one trying to open the cardboard sleeve. This was just due to me being an idiot. I mean, maybe you lose a capsule every once in a while, but ready for some math?

You could throw away 4-of-10 capsules from every sleeve and still be saving money over Nespresso brand capsules. It’s definitely annoying to have to throw one away like I did, but in terms of saving money it isn’t that big of a deal.

And from my experience with Nespresso compatible capsules, this is something every competitor faces. The goal is to provide you, the consumer, with high quality coffee capsules at a fraction of the cost. These competitors, like Cafe Joe USA, need to save money on their packaging so they can provide you superior coffee.

I think Cafe Joe USA has succeeded.

Cafe Joe USA vs Nespresso Grind Size

Once the capsule is locked in the machine, what matters is what’s on the inside.

I cracked a couple open. This is what I saw.

Both Nespresso and Cafe Joe USA have comparable grind sizes. My moderately trained eye couldn’t tell any differences.

Next up was to brew a capsule of each!

Brewing a Capsule

I’m a lungo drinker — a standard 1.5 oz espresso is just too tiny for me — and I always brew them into my retro Honolulu Marathon mug.

(I live on Oahu, HI and am training for the 2018 Honolulu Marathon — my first ever marathon — so wish me luck!)

It’s a small mug and only holds about 6 oz of coffee, so it’s perfect for lungo sized beverages.

Then I brewed one Nespresso capsule and one Cafe Joe USA capsule:

• Nespresso: Volluto capsule
• Cafe Joe USA: Lucca capsule

These were the results.

I mean, those shots are almost identical. The crema is about the same thickness, as you see from the pictures on the bottom.

Honestly, when I was cropping photos and putting this collage together I had to triple check to make sure I wasn’t using the same top image twice. That’s how close these two were.

That “robust crema” claim I mentioned in the intro? Yeah, Cafe Joe USA delivered as promised!

The Taste Test

No qualms here from me.

I tested every Cafe Joe USA capsule at least two times, and I felt each blend was accurately described by the Cafe Joe USA team.

They all had significant body and depth, and the lighter notes were definitely present when they were supposed to be.

• The Chiari blend had a nice fruitiness to it as described.
• The Lucca blend had caramelized notes as advertised (my fiance’s favorite).
• The Cuba blend was boastful and strong as expected.

Comparing Cafe Joe USA’s capsule flavors to Nespresso’s, I’d note two differences:

1. Nespresso offers more varieties, especially at lower intensities.
2. Cafe Joe USA’s capsules were, on the whole, a touch more bitter.

Please note that more bitterness isn’t a bad thing, it’s just preference. I actually like my coffee slightly on the bitter side, and I think that bitterness holds up well in cappuccinos and lattes.

The Conclusion

In a vacuum it’s hard to say any capsule competitor is straight up better than Nespresso. I mean, it’s Nespresso’s system and they have a huge variety of available capsules.

But those capsules come with one major downside: cost.

When I’m evaluating Nespresso compatible capsules, I’m always trying to decide whether the coffee comes close enough to Nespresso’s, because I know I’m going to enjoy saving 25-40% on Nespresso’s pricier selection.

Enter Cafe Joe USA.

I was very impressed with the quality of their coffee for the price. The selection wasn’t expansive, but there’s a little something for everyone:

• Standard blends
• Extra and ultra strong blends
• Lighter, fruitier, sweeter blends
• Robust specialty blends
• Decaf

And within each of those categories, I was happily surprised with the quality of the coffee. The capsules were complex and had great mouthfeel, and you can see from the images above that the crema was almost a clone of what you can achieve with Nespresso brand capsules.

Plus, an espresso-per-day drinker will save over $100 each year while still enjoying the “brewed in 30 seconds” convenience that the Nespresso system affords.

What else could you want?

The post Cafe Joe USA: Are Their Affordable Nespresso Capsules Worth Your Time? appeared first on The Coffee Maven.