Lavazza A Modo Mio: who the system suits

A Modo Mio, in full Lavazza A Modo Mio, is a home capsule system built around one single thing — Italian espresso. Not a one-button latte macchiato, not hot chocolate for the children. If you know what you want out of a coffee, it is the easiest decision on the market. If you are expecting a machine that does everything, you will be disappointed. This article tells you straight away which group you belong to, what a single cup will cost you, and what not to confuse A Modo Mio with, because more than one system carries that name on the box and the capsules do not cross between them.

How Lavazza A Modo Mio works

A Modo Mio is a closed system: the machine has a holder of one particular shape and it accepts only the capsule that belongs in it. The capsule is a standalone plastic cup with a filter of its own inside, a fraction larger than a Nespresso capsule. Inside sits ground coffee measured out for a single cup, so the dose matches one espresso pulled on a portafilter machine. The producer states the exact weight for each particular blend and you will find it in the product description — with the Lespresso Mio Classico capsules from Guglielmo, for instance.

Brewing is banal, and that is exactly its strength. Drop in the capsule, close the lever, press the button. The machine pierces the capsule, forces hot water through it under pressure, and the used capsule drops into the container. Nothing gets dosed, ground or tamped, so the result is the same in the morning as in the evening and anyone in the household can manage it.

One capsule = one drink

With A Modo Mio, one capsule makes one cup. That sounds obvious, and it is not — with Tassimo a single milk drink needs two capsules, one with coffee and one with milk, so a pack of “16 capsules” is a pack for eight drinks. That trap does not exist here, and the price per capsule is the price per drink. When you compare systems it is the only way to avoid ending up with a distorted number, and we take it apart in more detail in our guide to how to choose coffee capsules.

The machine does not check the capsule

An A Modo Mio capsule carries no barcode and no chip. The machine therefore has no way of telling whose capsule you have loaded — if the shape fits, it brews. The practical consequence: you are not tied to coffee from a single company. Capsules for this system are made by a whole string of Italian roasters, and in the range of A Modo Mio compatible capsules you choose between them whatever machine you have at home. You will not find the original Lavazza A Modo Mio line in our range, but that changes nothing about how the machine runs — what decides is the shape of the capsule, not the brand on the wrapper. With Tassimo, where the machine reads the code and will not start a drink without it, you do not have that freedom.

Who the system suits and who it does not

A Modo Mio takes a firm line. It does not try to do everything, and that is why you can say fairly precisely who it fits.

It suits you if

• You drink your coffee black. Espresso, ristretto, a longer lungo. This is where the system is at home, and the taste sits squarely in the Italian tradition — darker roast, full body, a pronounced crema.
• You want a low price per cup. Coffee capsules for this system are sold in packs of thirty as well, not only in tens, so the price per capsule comes out lower than with most Nespresso compatible pods.
• You do not want to look after a machine. No grinder, no grind size to set, no brew unit to clean. Just descaling and emptying the used-capsule container.
• You want to try different roasters. Into one machine you can buy capsules from several Italian roasters and swap between them as the mood takes you.
• Someone in the house does not drink coffee every day. Coffee in a capsule keeps its aroma for months, so nothing goes stale on you the way an opened bag of ground coffee does.

It does not suit you if

• You want a cappuccino or a latte macchiato at one press of a button. There is no milk capsule in the system. You have to heat and froth the milk yourself, or buy a machine with a milk attachment. More on that below.
• You want chocolate, tea and chai for the whole family. A Modo Mio has only a handful of non-coffee capsules and they are instant drinks, not what Dolce Gusto capsules can do.
• You want the widest possible choice. The range is decent, but the number of roasters making capsules for A Modo Mio is roughly half that of Nespresso compatible pods. Anyone who likes to keep trying new brands will hit the ceiling here sooner.
• Packaging recycling matters to you. The capsule is plastic and multi-material. For recycling to mean anything you have to empty it out, and even then it is the worse option next to aluminum or a paper pod.

If that list already looks like a decision to make before you buy the machine at all, you will find whole systems compared against each other in our article on which capsule machine to choose.

What not to confuse A Modo Mio with

This is the most common source of bad purchases across the whole system, because the boxes look much alike on the shelf and the names of the systems get muddled. Alongside Lavazza A Modo Mio there is also Lavazza Blue, Lavazza Espresso Point, and on top of those, capsules sold “for Nespresso” — and no two of them will take each other’s capsules.

So what decides is the line “for the Lavazza A Modo Mio system” on the packaging, not the brand on the front of the box. If you are not sure, compare the shape of the capsule in the photo in the product description with the one that drops out of your machine into the container.

Caffitaly is a brand and a system at once, and that confuses people

The second trap is called Caffitaly. Caffitaly is at the same time the name of a system in its own right (identical in shape to Tchibo Cafissimo) and the name of a producer that makes capsules for several different systems — A Modo Mio among them. The word “Caffitaly” on a pack therefore says nothing by itself; look for which system the capsule is meant for. How that whole ambiguity came about we explain in our article on how Tchibo Cafissimo and Caffitaly are related.

No original capsules, but compatible ones fit

Let us say it plainly and right away: we do not carry the original capsule line from the company behind the system. So you are choosing between the capsules of other roasters who make them for A Modo Mio. It is not a stopgap and there is nothing fake about it — the patents on the capsule shape have expired, compatible capsules are ordinary and legal, and the machine does not verify the capsule in any way, so functionally it comes to the same thing.

What really does differ between the capsules of one roaster and the next:

• Price. What decides it is the pack size and whether the capsule holds ground coffee or an instant drink. Per cup the differences between individual capsules come down to small change, and you have the specific figures in the table below.
• Flavor profile. Smaller southern Italian roasters often go for a darker roast and a higher share of robusta, so the coffee comes out more bitter and denser. Arabica blends hold a balanced, rather gentler espresso with more acidity. It is neither better nor worse, it is a different school.
• Choice of roasters. Compatible capsules get you to coffee from roasters that have no system of their own — you will find Lollo Caffé, Kimbo, Segafredo, Caffè Borbone, Gimoka, Musetti or Passalacqua here.
• Precision of the shape. With very cheap unbranded capsules it happens that they sit a fraction of a millimeter out in the holder and the machine leaks around them. With capsules from established roasters that is not an issue.

A practical recommendation: take one large pack of the blend you think you will like, and one small pack from the other end of the scale to go with it — an arabica alongside a dark southern Italian coffee, or the other way round. After two weeks you know which profile you want to stay with.

What a single cup costs

The price of a pack tells you nothing with capsules, because packs hold different numbers. With Lavazza A Modo Mio pods you commonly meet packs of 16 and of 30, so the only thing to compare is the price per capsule — and because one capsule makes one drink, that is the price per cup at the same time.

Two things come out of the table that are worth acting on. The first: a coffee capsule from a large pack works out per cup below most Nespresso compatible pods, and the bigger the pack of one blend you buy, the further that figure falls. The second is a trap — the flavored capsules look like the cheapest line in the table, but there is no espresso in them, only an instant drink, so they do not compare with coffee however tempting the numbers are. Anyone who wants to try a coffee blend without committing to a large pack reaches for a sixteen such as Lespresso Mio 100% Arabica; you pay more per capsule than in the thirty-pack, but you are not left with a stock at home you did not want.

How A Modo Mio stands against the other systems

For a comparison of systems to mean anything, it has to be counted per drink, not per capsule. Tassimo shows it best: its milk drink needs two capsules, so a pack of “16 capsules” is a pack for eight drinks and the price per drink is double the price of a capsule. The table below therefore shows what has to be worked out for each system before you set the numbers side by side.

On black coffee, A Modo Mio sits among the cheapest home systems — only a professional capsule in a large pack or a paper pod tends to come out lower. On milk drinks there is no comparison to be had at all, because the system cannot make them from a capsule. How the individual systems differ on that front we take apart in our article on what sets Tassimo apart from the rest.

What to buy for A Modo Mio by taste

Inside the system you decide exactly as you would with any other coffee: by the roast, by the split between arabica and robusta, and by how strong you want the coffee.

A balanced espresso for every day

The safest start is a classic Italian espresso without pronounced bitterness. Lespresso Mio Classico from the Italian roaster Guglielmo belongs in this category — a blend for an everyday espresso in a pack of sixteen, so a mistake will not hurt you if you make one. If you do not know what will suit whom at home, start here, because few people turn this profile down.

One hundred per cent arabica

Anyone who wants a gentler coffee with more acidity and none of the robusta bitterness reaches for arabica. Lespresso Mio 100% Arabica is exactly that case: no robusta, so the espresso comes out less bitter and the density gives way to acidity. It is a good counterweight to the dark southern Italian blends.

Cheaper Italian roasters

When you want to push the price per cup down and are not afraid of a darker roast, capsules from the southern Italian roasters are what you want. Lollo Caffé Oro is the typical example: an espresso with a smooth, velvety taste, a pack of thirty and the lowest price per capsule among the coffees in our table. You can choose along the same lines between Segafredo, Kimbo and Gimoka.

Decaf

The system does have a decaffeinated version, and it differs from the regular one in taste less than people expect — modern decaffeination keeps most of the aroma. You have the selection together among the decaf A Modo Mio capsules. It is practical to keep one such pack in the house as a spare, for when somebody in the household does not want caffeine in the evening.

Flavored drinks: read what you are buying

A Modo Mio also has flavored capsules such as Dolce Vita Irish Coffee, Dolce Vita White Chocolate or Dolce Vita Pistacchio. They are cheap, because a pack holds 16, and they are pleasant sweet drinks. But it is fair to say what they are: instant drinks, not espresso with milk. The base is sugar, milk powder and vegetable fat, instant coffee makes up only a few per cent of them and in some there is none at all. So do not take them as an alternative to coffee, but as a dessert — and watch out for milk allergens, which are always in there. The whole line sits in the Dolce Vita for A Modo Mio category.

When you do not know where to start

The most expensive way of choosing is to buy three large packs blind and then finish two of them out of duty. It is cheaper to start with the small packs of sixteen — you take two or three different blends, get through them in a few weeks and know what to do next. Per capsule it costs more than a large pack of a single blend, but you find out which profile suits you in one purchase instead of three. And because these are capsules from different roasters for the same system, you see straight away just how big the difference between them really is. You have the overview in the range of A Modo Mio capsules.

Milk drinks: the system’s biggest weakness

Here it pays to be specific, because this is the point at which people either buy the system or write it off. A Modo Mio has no milk capsule. You will not get a latte macchiato or a cappuccino by dropping in a capsule and pressing a button, the way you can with Dolce Gusto and with Tassimo.

There are three ways round it and each one has its price:

• A machine with a milk attachment. Some machines in the system have a frother or a milk jug built in. You buy the milk separately and rinse the container out after every use, but the result is a class above instant milk from a capsule.
• A standalone milk frother. The cheapest route. Espresso from the capsule, milk from a hand or electric frother. It costs you an extra minute.
• A different system. If milk drinks are eighty per cent of what you drink, do not buy A Modo Mio and take a system that has the milk inside the capsule. It works out dearer per drink, but it saves you the daily business with milk.

If, on the other hand, you drink espresso and only have a milky coffee now and then, this “weakness” will not touch you — and you will pay less for your black coffee than with the systems that can do milk from a capsule.

The machine, running it and used capsules

Machines in this system are deliberately simple. A water tank, a lever, one or two buttons for a short and a longer coffee, a container for used capsules. Models differ in size, in tank capacity and in whether they have a milk attachment. The whole line is in the A Modo Mio machines category, and in the wider context among capsule machines.

Maintenance

There are two chores and both are banal: descale regularly according to how hard your water is, and empty the capsule container. No brew unit to clean, no grinder to take apart.

Used capsules

The capsule is plastic and holds coffee grounds. If you throw the whole thing into plastics, the sorting line will not split it and it ends up in landfill. The right procedure is to empty the capsule, put the grounds into food waste or onto the garden, and the plastic into plastics. It is an unpleasant job, and it is fair to admit that an aluminum capsule or a paper pod is the cleaner choice on this front.

Storage

A stock of capsules needs nothing special, a dry place out of direct sunlight is enough. Once there are several kinds in the house it is mainly a question of keeping track — that is what capsule holders are for, and they tidy up the kitchen counter at the same time.

Frequently asked questions

Which capsules fit Lavazza A Modo Mio?

Only capsules whose packaging states “for the Lavazza A Modo Mio system”. They are made by a string of Italian roasters and all of them go into the same holder. You have the whole selection in the category of A Modo Mio capsules.

Do Nespresso capsules fit A Modo Mio?

They do not. An A Modo Mio capsule is shaped differently and is somewhat larger, so it will not go into a Nespresso holder, or the other way round. Nor is there any adapter that reliably solves it.

Are Lavazza Blue and A Modo Mio capsules interchangeable?

They are not. Lavazza Blue is a professional system for business machines and has a capsule shape of its own. A Modo Mio is the home system. Lavazza Espresso Point is likewise a separate system with a capsule of its own, even though the brand on the box is the same.

Can A Modo Mio make a cappuccino?

Not from a capsule, there is no milk capsule in the system. You make a cappuccino either on a machine with a milk attachment, or by frothing the milk separately and pouring the espresso from the capsule over it.

Do you have original Lavazza A Modo Mio capsules?

We do not carry the original line; for A Modo Mio you will find capsules from other Italian roasters with us. That has no effect on how it works — the machine does not verify the capsule in any way, so all that decides is the shape and the taste. So you will be choosing by the roast and by the price per capsule, not by the brand on the machine.

How much coffee is in one capsule?

The dose matches one espresso pulled on a portafilter machine, which is why one capsule makes one cup. The exact figure moves by tenths of a gram between blends and the producer states it in the product description — with Lespresso Mio Classico and with the other blends you will find it there.

Which A Modo Mio capsules are cheapest per cup?

Large packs. In our table the cheapest of the coffees works out to be Lollo Caffé Oro at $0.50 per capsule, which is per espresso. The flavored instant drinks are cheaper per capsule, but they are not coffees.

Do capsules keep for a long time?

Yes. The coffee in a capsule is sealed away from oxygen, so it holds its aroma for months, up to a year — unlike an opened bag of ground coffee, where you are counting in days. So you can buy a few weeks’ worth without worrying.

Summary and recommendations

A Modo Mio is a system for the person who drinks black coffee and wants it simply and cheaply. The capsules cost less per cup than most Nespresso compatible pods, the coffee blends come in packs of thirty as well, and the machine does not check the capsule, so you can choose between the Italian roasters on price as well as on taste. Maintenance is minimal.

There are two weaknesses and it is better to know them in advance. There is no milk capsule in the system, so a cappuccino means working with milk. And the capsule is plastic, so once you have drunk it, it wants emptying for recycling to mean anything. Anyone making milk drinks every day will be happier with Dolce Gusto or Tassimo, even though they pay more per drink.

A practical procedure while you are deciding: check that you really do have A Modo Mio and not Lavazza Blue or Lavazza Espresso Point, then take one large pack of coffee as your everyday base and one small pack of a different profile alongside it to try. After two weeks you know what to do next. Anyone who wants to compare the systems against each other first starts with our guide to how to choose coffee capsules, and after that it is only a question of taste in the range of A Modo Mio capsules.