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A month or so ago I was in the vida e at Canal Walk in Cape Town when I noticed they were selling capsule based coffee machines, as well as the capsules themselves. On enquiry they said that they were compatible with the Nespresso machines. Great, I picked up a box (a rectangular arrangement rather than the tubes we are used to).

Tried them out, they work fine and taste great.

Others have had some hassles getting them to work properly. Read the interesting post (with lots of pictures) over at Square Art (link) here, documenting some problems they had with the capsules, and how to solve the problem.

The capsules are the same plastic ones as the Caffelux which made me wonder if they weren’t just co-branded items produced by Caffelux. Google indeed confirmed this to be the case with a post on the Luxury Coffee website confirming they were producing them for vida e. More info here.

I forget exactly how much I paid for them, think was around R58 or so, and I see they are on the Luxury Coffee website for R59.90 a box.  So pick some up at your local vida e, or get them from Luxury Coffee but let us know what you think of them. Both the VIDA ESTRELLA REGULAR (10 CAPSULES) and VIDA ESTRELA DECAFFE (10 CAPSULES) are available.

P.S. Just to sweeten the deal the box came with a voucher included for a free cup of coffee at vida e. Nice touch.