Coffee pods · 4 min readNESCAFE Dolce Gusto Americano Intenso review
One capsule, one large mug, 24p. That single-pod arithmetic is the reason this is the sensible thing to drink on a Dolce Gusto machine.
Check the pod count against the drink count before you buy anything for a Dolce Gusto, and then notice that this product passes. NESCAFE state that one Americano Intenso capsule makes one 230ml mug, so a 48-capsule pack really is 48 drinks and 24p really is the cost of a cup. Half the range does not work that way: the milk drinks use two capsules per serving, which quietly doubles the price of a coffee that looked cheap on the shelf. Americano Intenso is a dark, full-bodied mug of black coffee at a price the rest of the system struggles to match.
The Dolce Gusto capsule where one pod genuinely means one drink: a 230ml dark roast Americano at 24p a mug.
- Tastes
- Dark roast, full bodied, black cherry and wood
- Strength
- Strong
- Best for
- Big mugs of black coffee
- Valuecup price vs the format median
- 4/5
- Easy to likefrom the roast profile
- 4/5
- Good for beginnersblend, roast and pack size
- 5/5
Buy it ifYou own a Dolce Gusto and drink long black coffee rather than milk drinks.
Skip it ifYou do not own a Dolce Gusto machine. This capsule fits nothing else, and nothing else fits it.
Live prices, sizes and retailers for this coffee sit on its product page. This review is the analysis alongside it. See prices →
One capsule, one mug: the arithmetic checks out
NESCAFE state that one Americano Intenso capsule brews one 230ml mug, and every listing that sells it counts the pods and the drinks identically: 16 pods, 16 mugs. So the 48-capsule pack is 48 drinks, and the 24p a cup we publish is a real per-drink figure rather than a per-component one.
That deserves stating because it is not how the whole system works, and the difference is the single most common way a pod price comparison goes wrong. Establish the drink count first, then divide. On this product the two numbers are the same, which is exactly why it is the value pick in the range.
| Detail | What is published |
|---|---|
| System | NESCAFE Dolce Gusto only |
| Capsules per drink | One |
| Cup size | 230ml, per NESCAFE's own recipe |
| Roast | Dark (5 of 5); the darkest roast in the range |
| Intensity | Published between 8 and 9, on an 11-point scale |
| Pack | 48 capsules, sold as three boxes of 16 |
| Recycling | Podback, which NESCAFE Dolce Gusto co-founded |
| Cost | £0.24 per drink |
The two-pod trap, and where it actually bites
Dolce Gusto's milk drinks are built from two capsules: one of coffee and one of milk. A latte macchiato box with 16 capsules in it is 8 drinks, not 16, and a shelf price that looked competitive per capsule is twice that per cup. Nothing about the box shouts this at you.
Americano Intenso is not one of those. It is a black coffee brewed from a single capsule, which is why it sits at 24p while the milk drinks in the same range land somewhere north of 50p a serving once you count properly. If you own the machine and you are trying to bring the cost down, moving from milk drinks to a single-capsule coffee is a bigger lever than changing brand.
The rule for this system: read the drinks-per-pack figure, not the capsules-per-pack figure. Where a listing only gives you capsules, assume a milk drink is two. Every Dolce Gusto pod we track, priced per cup
A closed system, and what that costs you
Dolce Gusto capsules are a large flat plastic pod of a shape nobody else's machine takes, and the machine takes nothing else. Third-party Dolce Gusto compatible capsules do exist, which makes it less locked down than Tassimo, but the range is modest and the savings are nothing like the Nespresso Original market where an own-label capsule undercuts the branded one by a third.
The practical consequence is that your choices on a Dolce Gusto are mostly about which NESCAFE drink you buy rather than which brand you buy it from. That is worth knowing before you buy a machine and not after.
| Drink | System | Per drink | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolce Gusto Americano Intenso | Dolce Gusto | £0.24 | £175 |
| Tassimo Kenco Colombian | Tassimo | £0.30 | £219 |
| by Amazon Colombian | Nespresso Original compatible | £0.19 | £139 |
What NESCAFE publish about the coffee
This is sold as the darkest roast in the Dolce Gusto range, described as a full-bodied cup with a roasted aroma and notes of spice, wood, liquorice and black cherry. NESCAFE's own UK listing calls it 100% arabica, although listings in other markets describe an arabica and robusta blend, and the intensity number has been published as both 8 and 9 depending on which generation of the box you are looking at.
That inconsistency is not us hedging; the packaging genuinely changed, from a brown intensity 9 pod to an orange intensity 8 one. Buyers noticed, and it is the origin of most of the negative reporting on this product.
What buyers consistently report
- The dominant positive is body: this reads as a proper strong mug rather than a diluted espresso, which is what people buy an Americano capsule for.
- Crema is the most common technical complaint. Several buyers note it produces noticeably less foam than the Lungo capsule in the same range.
- A cluster of buyers say the recipe changed and became more bitter, which lines up with the intensity renumbering rather than being independent of it.
- A minority find it too strong at the standard 230ml and simply pull it longer, which is the obvious fix and costs nothing.
Take the reformulation complaints seriously without treating them as settled. The pod number and the packaging did change, NESCAFE have not published a recipe change, and long-standing buyers of any grocery brand report that it is not what it was. Both things can be true.
Who should skip it
Anyone who does not own a Dolce Gusto machine, which is not a joke: this is the review's whole point. A capsule you cannot brew is a coaster, and Dolce Gusto pods fit nothing but Dolce Gusto machines. Skip it too if what you actually want is espresso. This is a 230ml mug of black coffee by design, and buyers who came for a short shot with a thick crema are the ones who report disappointment.
And skip it if you drink your coffee pale. The entire proposition here is a dark roast built to survive a large volume of water, and a mugful of milk undoes that at no saving.
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