I love a good coffee
And even though I've sworn off coffee for a good part of a year not too long ago, thanks to a lot of migraines that kept popping up, I could not resist having a coffee machine in our home. One desire was we'd have a decent machine and not a Senseo or a coffee maker you put on the stove again, nope, this time we wanted some more luxury. We went down the rabbit hole of Nespresso machines and we decided that we wanted a L'or Barista as this machine has several advantages to us compared to the original "Nespresso" machine. First of all, we already tasted the coffee beans when we had a grinder in Budapest, and I was a true fan of their coffee! I didn't want any other brand once I tasted their beans. Expensive compared to the Senseo we had, yes, but so good!
Ordered, now we wait!
Or not? I was checking the L'or barista prices and the full price was shown on their website so when I found a nice offer for 49 euros at some other website, I didn't doubt very long and ordered the machine there. I believe 8 euros shipping costs were added but that was perfectly fine to me. I was hoping it would take just a few days but after 3 days, the order had still not changed after the immediate notification that the payment had been received. This was a bit annoying because you know, once you ordered something, you want to have it quickly!
Meanwhile, I was checking the cups on the website
Because I still had no clue which ones to buy and therefore I went to the original website to compare the different cups. Guess what? The machine was now only 59 euros there including 150 cups!!! My gosh, no!!! Why wasn't this the case three days earlier? We went back and forward discussing if we could cancel the order, I decided to just give it a try and notify them that I wanted to cancel the order, hoping for the best. I mean, 150 free cups that's a lot of coffee! I think they cost at least 4 euros per 10 so it was worth the try in my opinion. The L'or website also mentioned that they had free shipping and returns, that was when I decided to order one and worst case send the other one first ordered back, paying for the return shipment only. All ended well though, the order was canceled and refunded without any issues and the new machine arrived a day later!
Let the unpacking begin!
Two boxes were delivered, one contains the machine, and the other one has the 150 complimentary cups in it. I honestly think even the box looks fancy!
Really nothing to complain about if we look at the design, it's a nice model that doesn't take up much space in the kitchen, and even in our tiny kitchen, it's not an issue placing it there. Of course, we were curious which cups were delivered to us. I really enjoyed unpacking these as well!
They do look fancy, these cups! Ont op of the 150 free cups in this promotion, they also sent us this box with 9 selected cups to try, which is great, and added even more fun to open this order. By the time we saw all these different cups, we really wanted to start drinking coffee!
As you can see, we also had 3 packs of "El Corte Ingles" cups because we found these in the night store the evening before the arrival of the machine, and discovered that these cost a little less than 2 euros (50% less than the original cups from L'or). Worth the try!
I truly love the style of the packages as well as the cups. You can see in the third image above, that they really have class, let's hope they also taste classy! :) At least our glasses look a bit classy, we didn't find coffee glasses yet when the barista arrived. But I like how they look in the pictures, so it's all good!
Looking good, just how I like my coffee, with a nice layer of foam, yum!
It was a bit weird drinking coffee from these glasses for about 10 days, but it was all we had. I could not find a better option and the original glasses from L'or aren't available currently. These glasses were way too big though, I think there was not even 0.5 cm of coffee in there so it was a strange experience for as long as that lasted.
We tried several tastes of coffee
My personal favorite is currently Ristretto (intensity 11) or Sontuoso (intensity 8) combined with Completa coffee creamer (taken from Hungary!) and 1 teaspoon of sugar. These are the two coffee tastes I really fancy now, and totally enjoy to the max! Regarding the coffee creamer, we tried finding it here when this tiny bag we took from Budapest was finished, but without any luck, unless paying top dollar on Amazon (nope). I don't see anything similar here, not even from another brand. I probably yet have to discover it comes in another package/form/name lol.
It's all good though, after 3 days of drinking coffee with regular milk and another liquid milk (which included sugar and was ruining my coffee!) I managed to order 2 big pots of Completa coffee creamer in a store called "a taste of home". Of course, I paid top dollar, but for my perfect coffee, I don't mind! I rather have expensive perfect coffee, than shitty ruined coffee due to lack of perfect ingredients.
To maintain this perfect coffee cycle
I already know that once the second pot is opened, I shall ask a Dutch friend to make me a package and ship over a lot of Completa so that I will be settled for some months and can drink my coffee without stressing over the coffee creamer, lol. I totally forgot how picky I am exactly when it comes to coffee. I probably forgot because after our Senseo broke in Budapest, we only had the percolator coffee at home and I already switched to cheaper coffee creamer at some point when Completa was sold out constantly. I assumed that Lidl would sell their own brand here as well, but it's not available, sigh. So ordering in from Holland, it is. I know exactly how much milk to pour into the glass and I never measure that like I measure the sugar, so funny but it's always just perfect. My boyfriend always says I should start a coffee truck/restaurant one day haha.
Coffee glasses
For a few days, we drink our coffee from Nutella glasses, lol! Imagine that. We had an empty Nutella (small size) glass and I suddenly wondered if that would be a nice one as a coffee glass, I approved it immediately. So did my boyfriend but we only had one, meaning we'd be taking turns drinking coffee. Instead of continuing like this, we spent another 2,40 euros on Nutella, moved the Nutella to a bigger pot we had which was already opened, and cleaned the glass. Perfect! This was even cheaper than buying any random glass here in the area, they all started from 3 euros, even the shitty ones! Problem solved, and even for a cheap price. Great!
I can't wait to make some homemade cookies that taste great with a good coffee, or maybe I shall bake a cake one of these days, that's delicious to dip in the coffee! Do you have a L'or Barista machine? If so, which cups are your favorites? Please do share! :)
To be continued...
Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!