These are the two coffee machines Sheri has at work.

So far she has had better results with the Nespresso D300.



It uses little capsules of pre-ground coffee that you can only get from Nestle.





She said it makes a pretty good espresso on par with what you get at Starbucks.

You can get this machine at Amazon.com for about $400, and from what I can gather the capsules cost about $0.45 each.

The other machine is the Keurig B2003.



It uses a similar looking pod. The ones they have at her office are from Gloria Jean's Coffee.



She said the coffee tasted weak and crappy, but I looked on the web and there is a way to brew the coffee to the strength you want it. The way she was doing it gave her the weakest cup of coffee possible. If you push the "Start Brew" button a second time before it is done brewing it will stop the brewing process resulting in a stronger cup of coffee. She will give that a try today and see how it goes.

However I don't think the Keurig machine is an espresso machine, so I would imagine even if she gets it to make a decent cup of coffee, the Nespresso machine will still make a better cup. She has the flexibility of pouring straight espresso over ice and adding milk for an iced espresso, or if she is cold she can use the hot water dispenser to dilute the straight espresso to Americano strength.

From what I can find on the web both the Nespresso machine and coffee capsules are cheaper than the Keurig's. $400 versus $800, and $0.45 per capsule versus $0.55.

They sell cheaper Nespresso machines that start out around $180. At about $2.25 for my normal triple Americano at Starbucks it is possible the Nespresso system might not be out of the question at home.

Three shots of espresso from the Nespresso machine would cost about $1.35, which is $0.90 less than a triple shot at Starbucks. If these numbers are correct it would only take 200 drinks to break even from the cost of the machine at home rather than going to a coffee shop.