This image shows the 'permanent' filter the machine was supplied with after a single use.  I have held a white tea towel over my hand to show more clearly how tainted this nylon mesh filter is after a single use and thorough washing.  The point is the nylon is quite absorbent and therefore imparts a taint to the coffee, and this can be detected in the cup.  So this is a 'permanent' filter, but made of nylon which means tainting will occur, and equally important, you will have to wash it quite carefully if you want it to be 'permanent' as they are quite easily damaged once they have been used a few times and lose their elasticity.  Prior to running the first coffee cycle we flushed the machine twice with Volvic bottled water.

This is a 12 cup machine, so for this first coffee cycle we filled it up to the 12 cup mark and added 45g of espresso ground coffee.  You have to be careful doing this as loading the machine with too much coffee ground too finely will restrict the flow too much and is likely to cause the machine to overflow, although they are designed so the overflow is captured internally within the space that holds the coffee basket, but it is still something to be avoided as you want the water passing through the coffee, not bypassing it which is what happens if it floods over the top of the basket.

It will be interesting to see if the same volume of water and mass of coffee with the Swiss gold filter produce a similar result.  We found the coffee from this filter to be relatively weak, yet we would not have chanced adding any more coffee as it would most likely have flooded the filter.

Now it's time to go roasting and bring back a KF4 Swissgold filter to try later today.  Actually the nylon tainting has become more noticeable in the aftertaste.  As I sit here writing this it has gone from being in the background to being dominant and quite unpleasant.  If you have ever had this misfortune of having to drink from nylon water tanks when camping, or perhaps on a boat, you will know exactly the taste I am experiencing.

To be fair, this is a new machine and we may have some plastic taste even after we drop in the Swissgold filter.  Hopefully not, but it is certainly a possibility.  More soon.