Lavazza compatible pods

The coffee produced by the Italian brand Lavazza is recognised worldwide for its high quality, taste and aroma. The brand has been marketing coffee for almost 130 years (1895), although its incursion into the coffee pod machine sector is more recent (1989).

Lavazza coffee pods are recognised worldwide for their quality and for containing all the essence and tradition of 100% Italian espressos. However, they have two major drawbacks; the limited availability of pods outside Europe and their high price.

This shortage of pods and their high cost leads many users to look for alternatives in refillable pods and, of course, compatible pods. In this article, I will detail all the advantages and disadvantages of compatible pods compared to the original Lavazza pods.

Do Lavazza-compatible coffee pods work well?

The biggest problem with Lavazza-compatible capsules is that the brand does not authorise their use and is not responsible for any damage they may cause to the coffee machine or the person using it.

On the other hand, the brands that sell these compatible capsules do so mainly through online shops such as Amazon, where if you search for information from the seller, you will not find anything. In other words, in case of problems with the coffee pods, your complaints will be directed to Amazon and not to the seller.

However, this is partly an advantage, as the seller cannot control the user reviews. In these reviews, we can find out if the compatible pods work well:

Negative performance review about Lavazza compatible pods
Negative performance review about Lavazza compatible pods

In general, the reviews are good, and not many users complain about a malfunction of the capsules. So, we can say that Lavazza-compatible pods pass the test of good performance.

Varieties and cost of Lavazza-compatible capsules

If you are reading this outside of Europe, you will have to browse the internet to find compatible Lavazza capsules; however, after what I tell you, you will probably prefer to stick with the originals.

If we focus on the UK market, where there is a wide variety of compatible coffee pods, we see brands such as:

Researching all the available possibilities, we can say that Lavazza-compatible coffee pods cost around £0.2.

How much do the original Lavazza coffee pods cost?

Once we know the average price of Lavazza-compatible coffee pods, we need to know how much the original capsules cost to compare them and see how much we save when buying the compatible version.

If we buy the boxes of 16 pods from the official store, the unit will cost £0.31 per pod. In other words, the official Lavazza pods will cost 35% more than the compatible ones. In other words, for every £100 we spend, we will save £35.

Do Lavazza-compatible pods taste good?

By now, it is clear that most Lavazza-compatible capsules usually work well in the coffee machine and are considerably cheaper than the originals. So, all that remains is to find out how the coffee from the compatible capsules tastes to make a decision on whether to buy them or not.

Diversity of opinion on flavour about Lavazza compatible pods
Diversity of opinion on flavour about Lavazza compatible pods

After reading many reviews of many brands of Lavazza-compatible coffee pods, I have come to the conclusion that the taste of the coffee is not the best, but it is not the worst either. This depends on each person, so it’s up to you to try them.

What if I use my own coffee with Lavazza refillable pods?

If you have read any of my articles about refillable pods, you will already know that I am totally against this type of pod. And to help you understand why I’ll ask you a few simple questions:

  • What grind size is the coffee for a refillable capsule?
  • How many grams of coffee should you add to a refillable capsule?
  • How much should you compact a refillable capsule?

I could go on asking similar questions for which you won’t have a technical answer, if at all, you can answer me based on your experience after disposing of a lot of coffee.

So, on the one hand, I don’t think that a normal user can achieve results similar to those of the original Lavazza capsules. Also, I have seen many failures due to refillable metal capsules.

Look at this photo, where you can see how the perforators of a Lavazza A Modo Mio Tiny have bent when reaching a refillable metal capsule:

Bent Lavazza coffee machine perforators
Bent Lavazza coffee machine perforators

This coffee machine became unusable because Lavazza does not sell this part separately, and there are few spare parts on the market.

Related: Lavazza coffee machine button lights and their modes