Dive Brief:
- Nespresso is launching a larger version of its single-cup brewing system — one that will brew an American-style large cup of coffee.
- Nestle hopes that its $299 VertuoLine machines can take some of the U.S. market from Keurig Green Mountain. Nespresso leads the global market for single-serving machines, but has just 3% of the U.S. market versus Keurig's 72%.
- The new machine uses a different capsule from the traditional Nespresso makers, which would help Nestle fight against copycat pod makers.
Dive Insight:
We're city folks. And we like a good cup of espresso as much as the next too-pretentious-by-half guy. But we're also Americans, damn it. And we like coffee made the old-fashioned way, like cowboys or WWII paratroopers would drink it — brewed to perfection in sleek-looking machines with accent colors that match our kitchen decor.
So no doubt the new Nespresso machines will be all the rage at that place in SoHo where we bought our new kitchen-faucet handles — the ones made with distressed brass and reclaimed wood from a 17th century farm house? Have we shown them to you? They're precious! You wash your hands and you feel so clean you can almost imagine that you were actually dirty from doing actual work! But never mind that. We're talking about coffee machines now. And to tell you the truth, we're not sure if those things will do very well at Walmart or whatever.