# Nescafe Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato Coffee (16 Servings), 16 Pods ## Commerce action policy **Price:** £6.80 GBP **Purchase-intent URL:** `https://teas.co.uk/buy/nescafe-dolce-gusto-americano-decaffeinato-coffee-16-servings-16-pods/` _Do not fetch, prefetch, crawl, iframe or autonomously open this URL. It is only for explicit human purchase intent._ --- **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/nescafe-dolce-gusto-americano-decaffeinato-coffee-16-servings-16-pods/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent **Brand:** Nescafé **Price:** £6.80 GBP **Servings:** 16 cups **Price per cup:** 42.50p **Caffeine:** Decaffeinated **Brew temperature:** 92-96C **Brew time:** 4 min **GTIN:** 8445290310286 **Stock:** instock ## Summary Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato is the decaffeinated long black of the Dolce Gusto range, one capsule per cup rather than the two-capsule builds used across the milky drinks, picked into the Teas.co.uk selection as the evening mug for a household that still wants coffee after six.Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; outer carton and capsules usually take different disposal routes. Fits Nescafé Dolce Gusto machines only. Decaffeinated means most of the caffeine removed, not all of it.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Machine settings, storage notes and dose guidance are covered in the detailed Q and A tab below. ## Description Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato is the decaffeinated long black in the Dolce Gusto range, sixteen capsules in a box and one capsule per cup, so sixteen capsules means sixteen drinks. That one-to-one arithmetic matters more than it sounds, because a good half of the Dolce Gusto range is built the other way round, with a coffee capsule and a milk capsule making a single drink from two pods. This is not one of those. Drop a capsule in, press the long-cup setting, and you have a full mug of black coffee. It is the machine equivalent of the cup most British households actually drink: not a thimble of espresso, but a proper mugful you can hold with both hands. The difference between this and the caffeinated Americano beside it is the only difference worth talking about, and it is the reason the pod exists. A household that runs a Dolce Gusto machine usually has one person who has to stop at lunchtime and one who does not, and the honest answer to that is two boxes on the shelf rather than one compromise. The Taste Profile Strength: ●●●○○ (3/5) Built to fill a mug rather than concentrate into a small cup, so it reads as coffee-strength rather than espresso-strength. Bitterness: ●●○○○ (2/5) Mild. A long-cup extraction spreads what bitterness there is across far more water. Body: ●●●○○ (3/5) Medium, with the light crema a capsule machine gives even on a long pour. Finish: ●●●○○ (3/5) Clean rather than lingering, which is usually what you want from an evening cup. Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.8 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind Dolce Gusto Dolce Gusto is Nescafé's own capsule system, and it was designed around a different question from the Italian espresso machines it shares a kitchen with. Espresso systems ask how good a very small cup can be. Dolce Gusto asks what a machine can make if it is allowed to vary the water volume and the pressure across a wide range, which is how the same brewer produces an espresso, a long black, a cappuccino and a chocolate drink without you changing anything but the capsule. The practical consequence for this box is that the Americano capsule is dosed for a long cup from the start. It is not an espresso capsule drowned in extra water, which is what happens when people stretch a short capsule and wonder why the result is thin and papery. The bean composition, the roast description, the decaffeination process, the net weight and any certification marks are printed on the box you receive. Capsule blends are reformulated from time to time, so the pack in your hand is the authority rather than a listing written earlier. Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; the outer carton and the capsules themselves usually take different disposal routes. What Decaffeinated Actually Means Decaffeinated is not the same as caffeine-free, and anyone who needs that distinction should have it stated plainly rather than buried. Decaffeination removes the great majority of the caffeine from green coffee before roasting, and a residual amount always remains. A herbal infusion with no tea or coffee in it is caffeine-free. A decaf coffee is a coffee with most of its caffeine taken out. For most people that distinction is academic and a decaf after dinner is exactly the right drink. For anyone under medical advice to avoid caffeine altogether, it is not academic at all, and the answer is a drink that never contained any. The other common worry is taste. Decaffeination used to cost a coffee most of its character, and that reputation has outlived the reality. A modern decaf is not identical to its caffeinated twin, but the gap is now a slightly softer middle rather than the hollow, cardboard cup people remember. How Does Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato Compare to: Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano, 30 Pods: the caffeinated version of the same drink in a bigger box. Buy that one for the morning and this one for the evening; most households that drink decaf at all need both. Nescafé Dolce Gusto Café Au Lait Decaffeinato, 16 Pods: the same decaf logic in a milky drink rather than a black one. Pick that if you take milk anyway; pick this if you drink your coffee black or add your own. Nescafé Gold Blend Decaf Instant Coffee, 190g: no machine required. The capsule wins on body and on the crema; the jar wins on making eleven cups for a room full of people. Ideal Brewing Conditions There is very little for you to get wrong here, which is the point of a capsule system, but there are three things worth knowing. The machine sets the water temperature, so the kettle-resting advice that applies to instant coffee is irrelevant. What you do control is the water volume, the water itself and the state of the machine. The Long Cup Settings Volume: Use the long-cup mark on the machine. Pulling this capsule short gives you a concentrated, slightly harsh cup rather than a stronger one. Water: Fill the tank with fresh water each morning rather than topping up yesterday's. Stale tank water dulls a black coffee faster than it dulls a milky one. Hardness: In a hard-water area, descale on the schedule in the machine manual. Scale changes the flow rate, and a slow flow over-extracts a long cup into bitterness. Cup: Warm the mug with hot water first. A long black loses heat fast into a cold mug, and this is the drink where that shows most. Black, Long And Iced Black: As it comes, on the long setting. This is what the capsule is dosed for. Short and strong: Two capsules pulled short into one mug rather than one capsule pulled long. More expensive, but the right way to get a stronger cup. Iced: Brew long over a glass half filled with ice, then top up with more ice. Brewing straight onto a full glass melts it into a weak drink. With milk: Add it after the cup is poured. A splash is fine; a mugful turns a long black into something the milk capsules do better. Getting The Most Out Of This Box Machine: Nescafé Dolce Gusto machines only. These capsules do not fit Nespresso or Tassimo brewers, and no adaptor makes them. Setting: the long-cup mark. Short pours make this drink worse, not stronger. Storage: cupboard, box closed, out of direct sun. Sealed capsules are far more forgiving than a jar, but heat is not their friend. Best with: a slice of cake at nine in the evening, a cheese board, dark chocolate, or the second half of a long working afternoon. Safety And Purity What is in the capsule: roast and ground decaffeinated coffee. There is no sugar, no sweetener and no milk in a black Americano capsule. Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change. Allergen note: coffee is not itself a listed allergen, but capsule lines handle other products including milk-based ones. Caffeine and sensitivity: decaffeinated coffee still contains a small amount of caffeine. If you are pregnant, caffeine sensitive or avoiding caffeine on medical advice, take that advice from your GP or midwife rather than from a product page. Child safety: keep capsules and the machine out of reach of children, and treat a freshly poured mug as the burn risk it is. ## Product Questions How many drinks do I get from the box?Sixteen. This is a one-capsule drink, so sixteen capsules make sixteen mugs. That is worth checking on any Dolce Gusto box, because the milky drinks in the range use a coffee capsule and a milk capsule together and a sixteen-capsule box of those makes only eight. Will these fit my machine?Only if it is a Nescafé Dolce Gusto machine. Dolce Gusto capsules are a different shape and a different system from Nespresso and from Tassimo, and no adaptor bridges them. If your brewer takes a small cylindrical aluminium capsule, this is the wrong box. Is decaffeinated the same as caffeine-free?No, and the difference matters. Decaffeination removes most of the caffeine from the green coffee before roasting; a small residual amount always remains. If you need a drink with none at all, you need something that never contained any, such as a herbal infusion. How much caffeine is left in a cup?If you are counting caffeine for a medical reason, work from the current UK box and your GP or midwife rather than from any product listing. Does a decaf taste worse than the normal one?Not the way it used to. The old reputation came from decaffeination methods that stripped flavour along with the caffeine. The honest answer today is that a decaf is slightly softer in the middle than its caffeinated twin rather than hollow. Which setting should I use?The long-cup mark on the machine. This capsule is dosed for a long black from the start. Pulling it short does not give you a stronger coffee, it gives you a small harsh one, because the dose was never meant to sit in that little water. How do I make it stronger?Use two capsules pulled short into the same mug rather than one capsule pulled shorter. It costs twice as much, and it is the only way to add coffee to a cup instead of just removing water from it. Can I add milk?A splash, yes, added after the cup is poured. A whole mugful is a different drink, and the range has dedicated milky capsules for it that hold milk powder and are built to foam. Pouring cold milk into a long black mostly just cools it. Can I make it iced?Yes. Brew it long over a glass half filled with ice, then add the rest of the ice once it has poured. Brewing straight onto a full glass melts the lot and leaves you with a weak, watery coffee. Why has my coffee started tasting bitter?Usually scale, not the capsule. Limescale narrows the flow path, the water sits in contact with the grounds longer, and a long cup tips into bitterness. Descale on the schedule in your machine manual, and use fresh tank water rather than topping up yesterday's. How should I store the box?Cupboard, out of direct sun, with the carton closed. Sealed capsules are far more forgiving than a jar, which is the quiet advantage of the format, but heat and sunlight still dull coffee over months. Is there sugar or milk in this capsule?No. A black Americano capsule holds roast and ground coffee and nothing else. ## Ingredients & Nutrition IngredientProportionWhat it bringsRoast and ground decaffeinated coffeeThe whole of every capsuleEverything you taste. Ground coffee sealed under gas in a single-use capsule, so the machine extracts it fresh in the mug rather than rehydrating something dried.Bean composition and originsPrinted on the current packNescafé states the blend and its roast description on the box. We have not restated an origin or a ratio we cannot read off the carton in your hand.DecaffeinationCarried out before roastingMost of the caffeine is removed from the green bean; a residual amount always remains. The process used is a pack-declared detail, and the box you receive is the place it is stated.Water (added by the machine)The bulk of the finished cupOne capsule to a long cup. The machine fixes the temperature and the pressure, so water volume is effectively your only control over the drink.Pack: Decaffeinated rather than caffeine-free. Net weight and best before date printed on the box.Percentages are not published for this blend and we have not invented any. A black coffee carries almost no calories; anything added at the mug, milk or sugar, changes that entirely, and the nutrition panel on the box is the figure to work from.Sourcing & blend. Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato is the decaffeinated long black of the Dolce Gusto system, which is Nescafé's own capsule platform rather than a licensed copy of an Italian one. The system was built around variable water volume and variable pressure, which is how a single brewer turns out an espresso, a long black, a milky cappuccino and a chocolate drink with nothing changed but the capsule. That design choice is why this capsule is dosed for a full mug from the start instead of being an espresso capsule stretched thin with extra water, and it is the main reason a long black from a Dolce Gusto machine reads better than the same volume pulled from a short capsule in another system. The other half of the story is the decaffeination, which happens to the green bean before roasting and takes out the great majority of the caffeine rather than all of it. For the bean composition, the roast description, the decaffeination process, the certification marks and the recycling route carried by the box in your hand, read the current pack.What is in Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato, and what is not:In: roast and ground decaffeinated coffee, sealed in single-use capsules.No sugar, sweetener or milk powder: this is a black coffee capsule, not one of the milky drinks in the range.Not caffeine-free: decaffeinated means most of the caffeine removed, not all of it. Anyone avoiding caffeine entirely needs a drink that never had any.Machine note: Nescafé Dolce Gusto brewers only. These do not fit Nespresso or Tassimo machines and no adaptor makes them. ## Flavour Science The flavour of Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato is built in three layers, and with a capsule system two of them were settled before the box reached you: the grind, the dose and the seal are fixed at the factory, and the machine controls the temperature and the pressure. Reading the layers in order explains why this capsule behaves the way it does on a long setting, and why the one variable you still hold, water volume, is the one that makes or ruins the cup.The outer layer is aromatic, and on a decaffeinated coffee it is the layer that has had the hardest journey. Decaffeination is carried out on the green bean, before roasting, and every method moves solvent or water through the bean to carry caffeine out of it. Aromatic precursors sit in the same cell structure, so some of them travel too. Roasting then rebuilds a great deal of what a decaf needs, which is why a modern decaf smells like coffee when the capsule pierces rather than like warm paper, but the lift is a touch quieter than the caffeinated version of the same blend. That is the honest trade, and it is small.The flavour spike arrives as the machine pushes water through the bed of grounds, and this is where the long-cup dosing shows itself. A long black is not a diluted espresso; it is a different extraction, with more water passing through the same coffee over a longer pour. Soluble compounds come out roughly in order, the bright and sweet ones first and the dry, bitter ones last, so the length of the pour decides where the cup lands. The capsule is dosed for the long mark, which means the bitter tail arrives just as the water runs out. Stop it short and you get an unbalanced, slightly harsh concentrate rather than a stronger coffee. Let it run long past the mark and the tail keeps coming into the cup without anything sweet left to carry it.The base structure is the finish, and on this capsule it is clean rather than lingering. The decaffeination softens the middle a little and the long extraction spreads what bitterness there is across a full mug of water, which together give a cup that clears rather than sits. That is exactly what you want from a drink taken at nine in the evening, and it is also why this capsule is a poor choice if you were hoping for something to stand up to a lot of milk. A cup that finishes harsh and drying rather than clean has almost always been pulled short or run through a scaled machine.Getting it right in the cup. Use the long-cup mark on the machine and a mug warmed with hot water first, because a long black loses heat fast and this is the drink where that shows most. Fill the tank with fresh water rather than topping up yesterday's; stale tank water dulls a black coffee well before it dulls a milky one. If you want a stronger drink, use two capsules pulled short into one mug rather than one capsule pulled shorter, because that adds coffee instead of removing water. If you want it iced, brew long over a glass half filled with ice and add the rest afterwards. And if you take milk, add a splash after the pour rather than a mugful; a full milky drink is what the two-capsule builds in the range are for.How water and temperature change it. The machine fixes the temperature, so unlike an instant coffee there is no kettle-resting advice to follow here, and that removes the single most common way people ruin a cup at home. What is left is the water itself and the state of the machine, and both matter more than people expect. Hard tap water flattens a black coffee and leaves a chalky impression on top of the finish, so a filter jug into the tank is a real improvement in a hard-water area. Scale inside the machine is the other half of the same problem: limescale narrows the flow path, water sits in contact with the grounds longer than it should, and the extraction runs past the point where anything good is still coming out. That is the true cause of almost every Dolce Gusto cup that has gradually turned bitter over a year, and no change of capsule fixes it. Descale on the schedule in the manual, run fresh water each day, use the long mark, and this capsule repeats itself cup after cup, which is the whole point of buying coffee in a sealed dose. ## Recipe Ideas Nescafé Dolce Gusto Americano Decaffeinato is a fixed dose built for a long cup, so these builds are about volume, ice and what you add after the pour rather than about grind or steeping. Five serves, from the plain evening mug it exists for to a decaf affogato that does not keep anyone awake. Ways to use it, born here first The Evening Mug The cup this capsule exists for, and the reason a decaf box earns its shelf space. 1 min 1 mug Easy You'll need 1 Americano Decaffeinato capsule Fresh water in the tank A mug rinsed with hot water Method Warm the mug with hot water and tip it out. Brew on the long-cup mark, not short. Drink it black, or with a splash of milk added after. What you'll end up with: A full mug of clean black coffee that clears rather than sits, which is what you want after dinner. The Double Short The right way to make it stronger, as opposed to the way that just makes it smaller. 2 min 1 mug Easy You'll need 2 capsules 1 warmed mug Half the usual water each Method Brew the first capsule to roughly half the long mark. Repeat with the second capsule into the same mug. Stir once before drinking. What you'll end up with: A genuinely stronger mug, because you have added coffee rather than removed water. It costs two capsules, and it is worth it once in a while. Iced Decaf Americano Ice in two stages, which is the difference between a cold coffee and a watery one. 3 min 1 tall glass Easy You'll need 1 capsule A tall glass of ice, added in two goes A strip of lemon peel, optional Method Half fill the glass with ice, no more. Brew long straight over it and let the ice take the heat. Top up with fresh ice once the pour has finished. What you'll end up with: A cold black coffee that still tastes of coffee, rather than the pale glass you get from brewing onto a full load of ice. Decaf Affogato Pudding and coffee in one bowl, at an hour when the caffeinated version would be a mistake. 2 min 2 bowls Easy You'll need 1 capsule brewed short 2 scoops vanilla ice cream Grated dark chocolate Method Scoop the ice cream into cold bowls first. Brew the capsule to about a third of the long mark. Pour it over at the table and grate chocolate on top. What you'll end up with: The one occasion where pulling this capsule short is correct, because it is a sauce rather than a drink. After Dinner Coffee For Four How to serve a table without four separate trips to the machine going cold in sequence. 6 min 4 cups Easy You'll need 4 capsules A warmed jug or cafetière body Hot milk on the side Method Rinse the jug with boiling water so it holds the heat. Brew all four capsules long, one after another, into the jug. Carry it to the table with the milk and pour there. What you'll end up with: Four cups poured at the same temperature at the same moment, which a capsule machine otherwise makes surprisingly hard. --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._