Following an earlier post on the utterly horrid Greggs coffee, it is my pleasure to tell you about my M&S coffee review. It has been another motorway service station coffee.
Now I don’t want you to think I’m constantly buying coffees at service stations on the motorway – but I am, almost. Thing is, on these long motorway journeys in the winter, I need a caffeine boost as a health and safety measure. A nice coffee perks me up, keeps me alert while I endure the monotony of the M5, almost 100 miles on the M4, the notorious M25 and a mere 20 miles on our stretch of the M1.
I bought the Americano at a Marks & Spencer machine. I went for my usual Americano, with milk. I even remember feeling impressed that I had such a choice of milk – skimmed, semi or full fat. I chose semi skimmed and watched the screen go through all the different stages.
When it got to the final stage of adding milk, nothing happened. It was only on the second journey and second M&S Coffee that I paid a little more attention to the machine. When it comes to adding the milk, you need to press a button at the appropriate time. Silly me, I didn’t read the instructions and it serves me right.
Thing is, in these motorway service stations, often they are self service and the stores reckon they lose less in thieving than a member of staff costs, so there was nobody around to ask for some milk. Never mind, I paid the comparatively reasonable £2.25 (or thereabouts) and headed off.
The coffee itself was really nice, though would have been a little nicer with milk. Nevertheless it was smooth and quite rich, far better than Costa machines. As for the utterly horrid Greggs coffee recently reviewed, this M&S coffee was streets ahead.
The good points
- comparatively cheap at £2.25
- a lovely rich, freshly brewed taste
- not particularly bitter
- easy to use machine, nicely accessible
- easy to use self service till, providing you read the instructions
The not so good points
- you might make the same mistake as I did and end up with no milk
- it might be cheaper and better than Costa but it still costs £2.25
Suitable for
- smooth operators
- drivers of smooth automatic cars (and 15 year old Toyotas with manual gearboxes)
- people who have had Marks and Spencers underwear for their entire life
- observant coffee drinkers who are prepared to read and follow instructions