Great Starter Kit For Making Tealights w/Video – Highly Recommended!, January 17, 2009

By 

C. F. Hill “CFH” (Blue Ridge Summit, PA USA) – See all my reviews

  

  

  

The Candles and Supplies “Tealight Kit” is a great way to learn how to make tealight candles. My wife and I got the chance to work with the kit last year and we were very impressed with how easy the kit made to make great Tealight candles. We are experienced candle makers, but wish this kit was available when we were getting started.

The kit includes tealight cups, wax, wicks, scent, dye, instruction sheet, and instructional DVD. You will need your own pouring pot and miscellaneous equipment (thermometer, etc), which is detailed in the instructions and on the DVD. The instructional DVD also shows you exactly how to use the kit to get the best results.

This kit is a great way to get started making candles as a hobby or side business as the skills you learn can be used to make other types of candles.

Highly recommended! You might also be interested in some of their other kits and videos as well: Soy Candle Making Kit: Learn how easy and fun it is to make soy container candles., Complete Pillar Candle Making Kit: Learn how fast, easy & fun it is to make your own pillar candles. Perfect for beginners!, and Introduction to Candle Making DVD

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Best value for the money – Awesome coffee, May 15, 2008

I was initially reluctant to buy this based on the fact that they use proprietary pods. Had that reluctance stuck with me, I probably would’ve spent a few hundred more on a high-quality manual espresso machine, or over a thousand on an automatic machine. $ .52 a cup is reasonable when you consider that grinding your own works out to about $ .30 a cup, but yields a greater mess and requires more soap and water for cleanup each time. With two little kids at home – who has time to clean? I was absolutely giddy the first time I used both the machine and the frother. Separately and together, both machines match or rival what all too many of us pay -5 for from the local coffee shop. I’m convinced that our friends will like us more if we decide to share some of this with them. I bought this at Williams-Sonoma based on loyalty as I had sampled it 3 times over a two week period and finally couldn’t take it anymore. I had to have one! Consumer reports also ranks this machine highest in its class. The only machine that offered comparable taste was larger, cost about a grand, and requires more cleaning.

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Excellent taste and easy to make and clean-up – worth the cost!, December 30, 2009

After a lot of research and knowing how tasty the Nespresso espressos are (free sample at a store a year ago that I fondly remembered), I bought the Nespresso C100 on Amazon in September 2009 for an anniversary present to ourselves. In four months, we have made about 180 cups of cappuccino or espresso for my husband and I and an occasional guest. We make about 2-3 cups during the weekday and more on the weekends.

- Very fast and easy to make, with no mess. Fill up the water dispenser, turn the machine on, pop a colored pod in the maker and close lever. Wait for buttons to stop blinking to show it is heated, then push the button. Enjoy the smell! Very easy to clean – run water through by pressing the button and dump out/wash the tray where the overflow grill is and the basket that catches the many pods.

- Aeroccino froth maker is soooo much easier than trying to use the steam nozzles that most cappuccino maker’s have (no splattering and nice, consistent froth. My friends are impressed how easy it is!). Just pour the milk in (regular, 2%, or soy) up to the bottom line, put on the plastic lid, and press the button. It makes enough for two cappuccinos. I make the espresso on the lungo or larger setting (7 oz), so the frothed milk is fine for me; however, my husband likes the cappuccino hotter since the milk is warm but not hot, and he puts his cappuccino in microwave to make it hotter. If you pour the milk into the espresso, made on the espresso setting (5 oz), since it is a smaller amount of coffee, the milk tends to make it too cold. If you pour the milk a little above the upper line in the Aeroccino, it can froth over the container. The container is easy to clean up, although it seems best to clean up after each iteration; otherwise, the milk can be stuck on the bottom in brown stains and harder to get off if you heat it up the 2nd time. After cleaning the Aeroccino, make sure you dry it and put the wire whisk back on its magnetic base. A few times, I have just put it inside and later tried to froth my coffee. When it doesn’t froth, it means, the wire whisk wasn’t put on the magnetic base. You can push the button again to stop the machine and put the whisk in place.

- I bought two Nespresso Lungo (5 oz) glass cups when I bought my machine for about . When I received the machine, there was a one time special card offering two Lungo (5 oz) and two Espresso (2 oz) cups and the associated black, plastic saucers for instead of . It worth to have at least two Lungo cups. We only use them to make the espresso, then pour the coffee into bigger coffee mugs to have room to add the milk froth. Since I am not a coffee purist and I like to get the most for my money, I push the Lungo button to get a Lungo size cup, pour it in a coffee mug, then press the espresso button to get a smaller amount and also pour that in the coffee mug, so I can get more coffee for the price.

After making all your espressos, Nespresso recommends running hot water through by pushing to button to flush out any espresso grounds, so it nice to have an extra cup to hold that water.

- When you get the machine, they very nicely give you a one of each of the Nespresso espresso flavors (12 or 14). Before I got my machine, I had ordered additional flavors from the Nespresso website based on other Amazon reviewer favorites (thanks for your thoughts!), and they arrived before my machine did. Instead of .55 each, they cost about .64 each when shipped to Maryland. They normally have 2 business day shipping, so they arrived pretty fast.

- I use a large round empty fish bowl to store my colorful Nespresso pods. It looks nice on the counter.

- I made myself a spreadsheet, copying and pasting the information from the Nespresso website to show:

Name: such as Apreggio

Type: Espresso or Lungo. I found I could use either espresso or lungo to make a lungo size cup, since I don’t like my cappuccino too strong.

Intensity: 1-10

Description: From website

Pod Color: This is subjective and helpful when you want to buy more or even find which pod you want more quickly. Looking for a teal or blue? Copper or gold?

My and my husband’s ratings (1-3 stars) with comments so I knew which ones to re-order.

I added in the specialty flavors which are not listed in the Nespresso book.

Here are our favorites that we re-ordered. Note that the colors are my subjective view of what the pods looked like to me:

Apreggio Espresso; intensity 9; purple – we probably have had 70 pods of this!

Fortissio Lungo; intensity 7; teal

Indriya from India Pure Origin; intensity 10; olive-grey (.62 instead of .55)

Livanto Espresso; intensity 6; copper

Ristretto Espresso; intensity 10; black

Vivalo Lungo; intensity 4; blue – mild flavor

Cosi Espresso, intensity 3; cocoa – nice, light…

Read more

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Use them every.single.day… sometimes twice., October 14, 2008

I never thought I would go for this machine, I am a little purist and cranky about my morning cup of wonderful – however, I indulged the Nespresso rep at a local Sur La Table – and, wow.

This little combo worked better than The Cube in my opinion, and I love that frother!

Yes, you need the little capsules, but the darker roasts and the “Special Club” are pretty good, and I have many more to try. it helped that the rep tossed in like 5 extra packs of them for me. I found them online here at Amazon for about a sleeve and with my Prime membership it was free shipping. And the rep told me next time I see her she will let me “try” a couple other flavors as well – bonus.

I have made chocolate milks, coffee blends with liqueurs for desserts, decaf cap’s at night as well as my new fancy morning beverages.

I have had it for a month and adore it. Sure, a little pricey, but I think I have saved about already in morning coffee shop trips. So that pays for itself pretty fast.

The coffee button has to be programmed for the small and large size you prefer on the “pull” time. Hold it down for the length of the “pull” you want then release. It will “remember” it for the next time you tap that button.

I am going to order a set of replacement frother spinners, not because they don’t stick to the top of the frother well (they are pretty magnetic) but because I am afraid they will get washed away by a less careful user (ahem. no pointing fingers… HONEY.)

If you would like a treat for yourself, do it. It wont be comparable to your most fave coffee house or a replacement for a chatty, fun, pierced, “I really want to be an actress/singer/massage therapist.” type barista, but it will save on trips to the coffee shop and maybe keep you from being ten minutes late to your morning meeting because you just HAD to stop on the way in to the office.

So anyway – Froth away! Invest in some pretty cups and some chocolate syrup too! =)

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