Today the sky is a little cloudy, and the cold days are still continuing. The forecast says the temperature will go up next week, but the mornings and nights will still be cold. Yesterday morning was very cold, and there was frost on the riverbank in front of my workshop. Just looking at it made me feel even colder 🥶 This afternoon I will go to my workshop and do a little work again. December has already been almost one week. At the end of the year my stock often becomes low, so I want to make more items and build up my stock as much as I can.
Last winter, in January, I changed the water server in my house. This server is provided by my gas company, and until then I had a type that only gave hot and cold water. I decided to switch to a model that has a “Nescafé Barista” coffee machine attached to it. With this one, I can make coffee using the hot water from the server, so I don’t need to boil water myself. I just press a button and the coffee comes out. It uses instant coffee, not ground beans, but because of the machine, the coffee comes out with foam and feels like a freshly made cup. I can also enjoy café latte and other drinks.
This summer was very hot, so I didn’t use it very much, but now that it’s winter again, I think I will use it more often. The coffee for this machine is a special type sold in paper packs, and you need to put this pack into the machine. Because of that, you cannot use regular coffee from stores. Nestlé makes money from selling this refill coffee, so sometimes they even offer the machine itself for free. This kind of business model was originally created by the razor company Gillette, so it is called the Gillette model. It is the same idea as selling the main razor cheaply and making profit from the replacement blades.
This time I ran out of coffee, so I ordered more, and it arrived today. I bought three kinds: “Caffeine Half,” “Koumi Baisen,” which has a strong aroma of the beans, and “Kaori Hanayagu,” which is a light roast with a fruity taste. I also ordered the powder milk for making lattes. These products are usually sold in stores too, but when I make them with this machine, the taste becomes completely different. I first put the strong-aroma type into the machine. The paper pack is designed to fit into this machine, but you can also pour it into another coffee container and drink it as regular instant coffee. I do that in my workshop. When I make coffee, the smell fills the whole room, which is really nice, but the machine makes a pretty loud noise while it’s brewing. That might be the only downside 😅 Well, I guess most coffee machines are noisy anyway…🤣
By the way, the contract period for this machine (the contract with the gas company) is two years, and if I cancel it before the end, I have to pay a penalty fee, probably around 10,000 to 20,000 yen. I still have one year left, so next year I will think about whether I want to continue the contract or go back to a normal water server. https://shop.nestle.jp/
