read the label

Our current view in Portugal this week.

I’ve written before about our misadventures with small and large appliances around the world — usually coffee makers and washing machines.

We’re at the tail end of our current trip and spending it in our favorite place in Portugal. We adore the apartment we’ve rented: it’s comfortable, in a convenient location, and has terrific views.

When we first started renting apartments a decade ago, we never knew what kind of coffee maker we’d find. French presses and moka pots were quite popular and, oh boy, do we dislike making coffee with those. So much careful measuring and fiddling around, with uncertain results — at least for us. We admit to not knowing much about the ins and outs of those types of coffee makers.

In recent years, however, almost every place we’ve rented has had some type of pod machine, with Nespressos being the most common. Usually, the apartment will also have a small supply of pods to go with the machine, then we buy more as needed.

The place we’re in this week has a Delta Q coffee maker and there were six pods when we arrived. After a couple of days, we bought more pods to keep the supply going. We noticed that compatible pods made by different brands were half the price of the Delta Q, so we bought a couple of packs of those and saved a few Euros.

Yesterday, we started making coffee and quickly realized that not only was the machine not pouring liquid gold into the mug, but it was also pouring water all over the counter. We stopped the machine, removed the pod, and noticed that it had not been punctured during the unsuccessful brew cycle. We cleaned up the water and tried again.

Same problem.

Stop the machine, clean up the water, notice the pod has not been punctured, and try again.

Same problem.

Repeat several times, with us both becoming increasingly frustrated.

We decided that the no-name brand of pods was to blame, so my husband went out and bought Delta Q brand pods. He came home and we tried once more. Success!

We ate lunch with friends yesterday and offhandedly mentioned the coffee situation from earlier. Our friends suggested one idea we had not considered. When we got back to the apartment, we investigated.

Here’s one of the pods that did not work for us:

You might be wondering, what does that label say?

Here’s the translation:

That’s right, folks, you’re supposed to peel off the plastic cover before using, which explains why the pods weren’t being punctured. The Delta Q pods don’t have that extra layer, but the comparable other pods do.

This morning, brewing coffee was once again easy peasy.

Learn from our mistakes friends: Always translate the labels.