The Nespresso Master Origins Pod With The Most Intense Flavor

Nespresso is known for its stable of high-end coffee collections, including quasi-permanent selections and evolving limited-time curations. They range from barista creations to Italian-inspired roasts, and world explorations highlighting coffee profiles from Sweden, Brazil, Turkey, Argentina, and many more. Then there's the exclusive aura of Reviving Origins, available in the Vertuo line, and the Master Crafted Single Origins collection of capsules in Nespresso's Original coffee system. It's those Master Origins coffees that hold multi-layered pockets of intrigue, including one that stands out for harboring deeply intense flavor: the India capsules. 

The Master Crafted Single Origins series features coffee from five different countries, but that's not the only distinction. The Nespresso tagline for this collection is "mastered by craftsmen, inspired by the land," with each coffee evolving from distinct processing methods or unique growing regions. Each carries its own intensity rating, as is the practice with all Nespresso capsules and pods. Within this series, the lightly colored spring-green capsule holding the most intense flavor is the Master Origins India coffee, landing at 11 on Nespresso's designated intensity scale. That compares to its Master collection cohorts with intensity levels ranging from five to six, and one at a level eight. 

The India coffee is a mix of robusta and arabica beans bearing earthy, woody, and spicy flavor notes. What makes them really stand out is a highly specialized custom known as "monsooning." To receive a designation of monsoon coffee, the beans are exposed to moisture, but not in the typical wet-processed way.       

Though Nespresso doesn't reveal its specific procedure, monsoon coffees are typically the result of exposing harvested coffee beans to humid winds generated during India's monsoon season, running from June through September. There's plenty of moisture involved, but not directly. The beans have usually been dry-processed already, but then rest in well-ventilated covered spaces, typically a warehouse with open walls, offering protecting from the heavy rains while still exposing the beans to moisture in the air. The process can take up to four months, with routine raking of the beans, to reach the desired effect: a full-bodied, earthy, intensely flavored coffee with low-acidity. 

Coffee monsooning, popular with discerning coffee enthusiasts, is said to have evolved naturally with wooden ships carrying coffee beans from India to Europe. On months-long journeys from coffee-growing regions, the beans naturally absorbed humidity from seawater, transforming them into golden-hued beauties with deeply enhanced flavors. Nespresso offers its deepest-intensity India Monsoon coffee in homage to that tradition as well as to its modern adaptation. 

As heavenly as that sounds, India Monsoon isn't the only uniquely significant coffee in the Master Crafted Single Origins collection. Though none get anywhere near the India intensity, the other four carry their own stories. The Original line capsules, separate from Vertuo pods with their own Master coffees, include Peru Organic beans from small coffee farmers in the Andes mountains; wet-hulled Indonesian arabicas; high-grown, late-harvested Columbian beans; and a sweet Nicaraguan blend of black-honey processed arabicas.