If you haven’t already, check out our informative and detailed guide to Nespresso coffee capsules here. Note these are called by several different names including coffee canisters and containers, but they all refer to the same thing.
Nespresso obviously produce these different types of capsules because they believe they’re great tasting and that we’d love them – but while they taste good, not every one is appropriate or indeed the best for each type of coffee you have. After reading through our guide to choosing Nespresso capsules, here’s a summary table below that we’ll be basing our recommendations on.
| Capsule Name | Strength | Best for? (our recommendation) |
|---|---|---|
| Ristretto | Espresso, Latte, Cappuccino | |
| Indriya | Espresso, Latte, Cappuccino | |
| Arpeggio | Espresso, Latte, Cappuccino | |
| Roma | Espresso | |
| Fortissio Lungo | Lungo | |
| Decaffeinato Inteso | Espresso | |
| Livanto | Espresso | |
| Rosabaya | Espresso | |
| Capriccio | Espresso | |
| Dulsão | Espresso | |
| Volluto | Espresso | |
| Vivalto Lungo | Lungo | |
| Cosi | Espresso | |
| Linizio Lungo | Lungo | |
| Decaffeinato Lungo | Lungo | |
| Decaffeinato | Espresso |
It is important to remember that water does not add flavour of its own to coffee – rather it allows the coffee to brew and aromas to develop, so it is still very much focused on the flavour of the coffee itself.
This is different in milk-based coffees such as lattes or cappuccinos. The milk does change the flavour of the drink as a whole, and preparing your milk properly to get a lovely, smooth texture (one way to do this is using one of Nespresso’s own Aeroccino machines). This is why we prefer the strongest espresso coffees to be used with milk-based coffees like lattes and cappuccino’s – so that we can use excellently textured, smooth milk but also contrast it to the rich taste of espresso, ensuring that the coffee itself does not get drowned out.
As such, we recommend the Ristretto, Indriya and Arpeggio Nespresso capsules for lattes and cappuccinos.
We hope you’ve found this guide useful! If you now have a better idea of what you’d like to buy, you can buy your own Nespresso capsules below.
