The technology

What is TEN?

TEN is a system consisting of special machines and special pods created to make the best possible coffee in Italian restaurants and cafés. It is, of course, a system with pods made of filter paper like the ones we have been familiar with for more than 100 years, but it has extraction parameters that are far superior to any other pod or capsule of the past.  

Why is it better?

TEN is so called because it contains 10 grams of coffee, unlike other pods we are familiar with that usually contain about 7 grams; thus, first of all, each pod contains more than 40% more coffee. But that's not all…

Does 40% more coffee powder make such an outstanding cup of coffee?

Of course, increasing the "dose" of coffee does make a difference. But there's another detail perhaps even more important: the increase in dose means the thickness of the coffee panel is much greater

What difference does the thickness of the pod make?

It makes a huge difference! The traditional pod, i.e. the ESE pod, has always had a serious defect: the coffee panel was too thin. Because it was thin, the water that extracts the coffee at approximately 94 degrees centigrade and a pressure of about 9 bars always found "the easy way out", the path of least resistance, within the coffee panel.  The water that passed through the coffee more quickly logically extracted less coffee from the powder it went through, but at the same time slowed the speed of extraction of the water passing along the paths of greater resistance.   The result was always an extraction not quite as good as that of espresso machines in bars or that use capsules, which, as you have no doubt noticed, always have a thicker panel of coffee. For example, an ESE pad is about 9 mm thick, while capsules or filters of machines in a bar are always more than 15 mm.  

Why is 15 mm of thickness better than 9?

Because those paths of least resistance cannot form over the entire course of the water through the coffee.   Some paths of least resistance may form in the upper part of the coffee panel, but if the panel is thick enough, the water encounters greater resistance as it flows downward and for that reason extraction will be the same in every part of the panel.   If that were not the case, nobody would have thought of capsules! 

So?

So TEN, keeping the original ESE diameter of 44 mm, could only expand upwards, and its panel was made thicker.   The result is an extremely uniform extraction, as with a coffee machine in a bar.  In other words, a coffee extracted to perfection that during extraction brings all the best of the coffee powder into the cup. And I defy anyone to find a system – aside from machines in a bar with only slightly ground coffee – that makes a better cup of coffee.  

Is it environmentally friendly?

Well, it's a 10-gram panel of coffee powder contained in an envelope of filter paper, both organic materials produced by vegetation that, when returned to nature, revert to their original state as soil.   Agreed, it really is environmentally friendly.