Princess Juicer

After having the old Philips juicer for a few years, I have begun to realise that I like freshly squeezed orange juice pretty much every morning. I felt I needed to represent this commitment to squeezing oranges by upgrading, and I'd noticed that many bars in Holland use the Princess Juicer for making orange juice. So, I reasoned, lets go pro.

But then there was price. A brand new Princess juicer costs around €85, and as the old one was still in good working order I was reluctant to pay that much just to see whether I liked the new one better. So I decided to go second-hand, via the internet.

I put in an offer of €20 on the Dutch website www.markplaats.nl. After a quick email from the owner saying thanks for the offer and asking me where I lived, the offer was accepted. We arranged a time and a place for the transaction (money for goods). The following Saturday I travelled to Amsterdam to pick up the juicer. The owner was about 38, had with him his young child and, this being Amsterdam, arrived on a bike.

He wished me luck. The juicer obviously hadn't worked out in his family, and I wondered what had gone wrong. It felt slightly odd, taking over his possession, like I'd adopted something slightly soiled.

The juicer is good, but there are problems. It's big, and heavy, and takes up a lot of space. It makes nice juice, but you have to unclog the filter after a few oranges, which is annoying. And the black lead just sits on the kitchen surface, half coiled, in a mess.

The jury is still out.