Nespresso Vertuo Pop Solo

I bought the DeLonghi Nespresso Vertuo Pop Solo coffee machine during Black Friday sales, but didn’t unbox it until a few weeks later. I had to use the guides on the Nespresso website to learn how to use it, because there are no instructions on its use included – just a safety first guide, warranty paperwork, and the cardboard with instructions to scan the QR code to learn how to use the machine. We’ve never owned a coffee machine before. Once you choose the type of machine you own on the website, it takes you through things in logical order – unboxing the machine, priming the machine, coffee selection, how to make your first coffee. It conveniently comes with a range of different types of coffees for you to try. There’s a quiz you can do to figure out which coffee will work for you based on your preferences. I was very confused however, as the video for the Vertuo Pop machine very clearly says that there is a thing called an Aeroccino at around the 1minute 5 second mark – describing it as “your best friend for making café quality coffee at home”. There wasn’t one of these in the box. I know this because I literally unboxed the machine as I watched the video!

So I rang the Nespresso help line. They advised the Aeroccino is not included with the Vertuo Pop Solo machine, it needs to be purchased separately (at $109 RRP). Do I feel gaslighted by a multinational company? Yep, sure do. Perhaps they should shoot another video that is just for the Vertuo Pop Solo.

There is also nothing that I’ve found on the website that explains what different things on the machine mean, like when the button on top is blinking red. Being gentle with the machine is also not required – if you’re gentle you won’t be able to turn it from lock/unlock.

I would have preferred to have an actual instruction manual that I can read and refer to rather than having to rewatch a video multiple times/read the video transcript. Anyway, after about 4 coffees I have finally figured out how to make a coffee properly without it being a) cold when it was supposed to be hot and b) not overflowing the mug. Even the largest mugs we own are only just big enough to hold the amount of coffee that the larger coffee pods produce – we have to tip some of the coffee out in order to fit in milk. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can’t make a latte because you don’t have the Aeroccino! There is a Swedish multinational with more vowels than consonants in its four letter name, that sells a milk frother for less that $2. Yep, $1.75 gets you a milk frother. Just chuck your milk in the microwave for 40 seconds, froth away and pour into your coffee.

It’s also not until you watch the care and maintenance video on the website that you learn about when your machine needs descaling – it will blink 3 times orange before steady white. Apparently this will need doing around the 6 to 12 month mark.

As usual, with everything these days, you can get it to be a 'smart' machine; I'm not into technology so haven't set it up to do that.