At home French Press, ChemEx, or other drip method, with beans just ground. At work? For a cup when each of us want a cup, quickly grabbed between running to do this or that? It beats coffee that has been sitting on a burner for hours or making a pot for just me.
The best quality stuff in the world? The most cost effective* means to get a cup? Of course not. But it is quick and easy and no mess and at work that is what I need there. I’ll save my savoring for my morning cups and having company. At home? Well I guess the reusable K-cup would make some sense for some people but boy, my wife and I have no problem drinking the whole French Press just the two of us.
*That might be debatable even when people make a whole pot and only one or two cups get drunk before it gets tossed because it got too old already, plus you add in the lost productivity time with a fairly well paid worker spending time making coffee and cleaning up instead of actually do the work they deserve that pay scale for.
I hate it…environmentally it’s a mess. It costs more. And you use the same spout for all the flavors. People at my office routinely run a full mug of “water” through to clean it out before making tea. And the “water” that comes out is pretty dirty.
We have two on my floor. Both are the kind that auto-disposes of the used k-cup…so using my own filter cup isn’t much of an option.
My facilities department has a rule that we can’t have standard coffee makers…apparently because they don’t work well in an office environment. That’s despite the previous three companies I’ve worked at that had no issues with them.
I’ve thought about bringing in my french press…or something…but I have to find something that’s quick and easy enough to clean with the supplies at work.
I’m a little dubious about all the complaints of the waste or environmental impact involved with using the disposable K-cups. I’m not a fan of putting stuff into landfills, etc., but I’m pretty sure that one day’s commute to my workplace (walking and mass transit) or my husband’s shredded pork dinner tonight have way more of an environmental impact than using a tiny plastic cup once a day as part of my caffeine delivery system. Heck, drinking coffee alone (unless it’s grown locally and organically) has some pretty nasty environmental implications.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone from doing whatever they can to counterbalance their impact on the planet - we’re all typing these messages on computer-type devices that cause serious pollution in their manufacture - but this isn’t that damaging unless you drink a whole crapload of coffee.
Well since I do drink a whole crapload of coffee I think I will stick with my grind-and-brew. If someone gave me a 6 oz cup of coffee in the a.m. I would be done with it and looking for more in a minute; what’s the point of that?
There’s a lot more to making coffee than just the coffee itself. I’m not saying the coffee isn’t important, but really great coffee beans brewed in an inferior manner still result in bad coffee. The water has to be heated to the right temperature and it has to flow through the grounds in the right amount of time to make truly good coffee. Most automatic machines don’t do that, and, though I’m no expert in Keurigs, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s no better than the rest.
I have to say that I’m a bit hooked on the Keurig. I’m drink coffee in the morning and tea at night and rarely more than one cup of each. I also don’t like my coffee particularly strong which rules out most of the coffee in the offices I’ve ever worked at.
I don’t think the coffee is spectacular but I do like the option of being able to have two cups of completely different flavors if I choose.
From a cost standpoint, it’s far cheaper than the drive thru coffee that I used to buy. I could consume about 8 cups a day and still be saving money.
For me it’s a good thing, but I certainly understand that it’s not the best option for a lot of people.
I like the one we have at work. The coffee is better and I bring my own k-cups. So the 2 coffees I have a day is cheaper than stopping at Caribou on half the days I work, especially because I’d get a mocha or something if I stopped.
At home it would be prohibitively expensive at the rate my husband drinks coffee, though with him working out of the house it would almost be nice to be able to each have a single cup in the morning. I’d love to try a Nespresso but it seems a little pricey for the initial investment. Anyone use one of those?
Yeah, but you’re going to be having that impact anyway. The little disposable cup is on top of that.
The tree-hugger take would be that if everyone saved one little cup a day, that’s 8 billion little cups (assuming the folks in China and India are using Kuerigs).
Rarely do either because of the environmental impact, so that would be no in our house. Not that we don’t sometimes have our own plastic packaging nightmares, but I try and avoid them in favor of milk in wax cartons, meat wrapped in paper, and fruits and veggies in reusable bags.
Yogurt pots and water bottles are at least recyclable. K-cups aren’t.
I dislike Keurigs and their ilk. The water just doesn’t get hot enough to make good coffee OR tea. I rarely drink coffee, but when I do, I’ll spend the money to get a decent espresso. At home and at work, I drink tea, which I am enough of a non-snob to make with tea bags and a kettle.
Other than the convenience factor, I can’t imagine why anyone would use one of the things. They haven’t caught on here in Japan yet (and probably never will) so I’ve never used one, but I can’t imagine they’re much better than a regular drip coffee maker, and those are usually pretty crappy.
For one thing, the water is probably too cool; it should be just off boiling, and I doubt the Keurigs are hotter than drip machines. I’ve seen size adjustments on them, but pre-packaged coffee in individual serving cups can’t be adjusted, so all you’ll get is weaker coffee, but more of it.
There’s about 14–16 grams of coffee per 6 oz cup, which is too low of a ratio of coffee to water. It should be about 10 g to 100 ml (6 floz = 178 ml), which means even at the amount the machine is set for the coffee is about 10–20% too weak. And it’s under-extracted due to a too-low water temp. Add more water volume and I’m sure the stuff is piss-weak.
The pre-measured cups are very expensive. I buy really nice coffee from a place that hand-roasts the beans while you wait. I would have to buy some of their Blue Mountain or Kona coffee to get something more expensive…and that’s at Japanese prices, which are ludicrously inflated. This place has stuff on the cheap end that goes for ¥500 for 230 g, which is still really nice coffee, up to ¥2500 for 230 g for the premium stuff. Cheap prices I’ve seen for the k-cups online come out to over US$9.00 for the equivalent weight of coffee, using the generous 16 g end of the range per-k-cup. That better be some damn nice coffee for that price, because I can get fresh-roasted mid-range premium for the same price. At Japanese prices. In the US, I bet I could probably get the same quality for easily 40–50% less.
The machine costs over $100. For that price, you could get a decent burr grinder, glass pot and ceramic cone, and have a couple bucks left over for your first pack of filters (unbleached are best) and have coffee that is much better for a lower daily cost. Don’t get it.
Big yogurt tubs are easily recyclable, but the individual pots are usually polypropylene or blended plastic (marked 5 or 7) and very few municipalities recycle them. If you put them in with your recycling, they will probably find their way to the landfill anyway.
Obviously I can only speak personally. I don’t eat yogurt. I don’t buy bottled water - it’s free from the tap. Of course I’ve had rare occasion to buy bottled when there wasn’t another option, otherwise I carry a steel canteen. I also use a canvas shopping bag that still seems to confuse check-out people at conventional stores, you would think they’ve seen enough of them by now.
The Keurig style really just doesn’t factor in for people like me.
Folgers makes k-cups. You can get 80 cups for $45.00 at Sam’s. That’s 56¢ a cup.
Sam’s sells drip Folgers which makes 240 cups for $8.00. That is 3¢ cup.
Of course your using it for convenience factors. Someone should find a way to bring down the price. At that cost, I’ll stick with the drip and throw out any extra
I love my Keurig, only not so much for the coffee, but the tea. I usually have a cup of decaf tea at night before bed, and love being able to just slap in a k-cup and hit brew, then enjoy. The last thing I want is to wait for water to boil, then wait some more for the tea to steep.
For morning coffee, I have a k-cup that I can take the top off and add my own coffee to. It’s a bit messy, but the taste is pretty good.
I don’t see the point, but then, I can’t stand coffee, and the time I’ve tried it for tea, the result was piss-poor tea (not steeped anywhere near enough – it was just colored water).
I can see it being used in office waiting rooms, but I wouldn’t have one myself. I drink a lot of coffee and it would be too expensive, not to mention the trash factor. It’s IMO the newest toy, the newest fad, for those who consider such things a must-have.