The One Country Where All Nespresso Coffee Is Made

Switzerland is a country that can boast with many bests — the best cheese, the best chocolate, even the best tap water. And if you ask Nespresso fans, they might say Switzerland also has the best coffee in the world. That's right, the land of fondue cheese and Lindt chocolate is also home to Nestlé's headquarters, the massive company behind Nespresso (and other recognizable brands with established household names). Every single Nespresso coffee pod is made in Switzerland, so it's perhaps not a surprise that the country's coffee export has surpassed its cheese and chocolate exports.

Nespresso pioneered the world of coffee capsules starting in 1986 when the company launched with two coffee machines, four coffee pods, and just five employees. Today, Nespresso owns three factories in Switzerland that together employ over 2,000 people. The biggest factory, located in Avenches, has more than 120 employees dedicated to tasting coffee in over 20 weekly tasting sessions. Over 200 cups of java per day get tasted at the center for quality control — a job surely coveted by many coffee lovers.

After the coffee passes all necessary quality checks and ends up inside the aluminum capsules, the pods are shipped from the Avenches factory (which also serves as a global distribution center) to 81 countries around the world.

While the coffee pods are all made in Switzerland, the actual beans are sourced from 15 different countries, mainly from tropical regions of South America, Africa, and Asia — areas known as the world's largest producers of coffee. The specific places Nespresso sources its beans from are ever-changing, as the company's coffee experts regularly travel the world looking for new possible places to source from.

Most of Nespresso's coffee pods are made of blends containing coffee beans of different origins mixed together. But the lineup does include some special single-origin pods that are exclusively sourced from one country only. The Master Origin line does this with the individual country highlighted in the name of the pod: Master Origin Brazil, Master Origin Ethiopia, Master Origin Indonesia, etc.

It's worth noting that Nespresso takes the sourcing of its coffee very seriously. The company states that over 93% of its coffee is sustainably sourced, and it aims to continue investing in the biodiversity of these source regions by planting trees, ensuring responsible water use, and promoting a good quality of life for coffee farmers. Another nod to Nespresso's commitment to sustainability is the fact that the coffee pods are recyclable, a practice that was implemented in Switzerland in 1991.