Another lover of the Keurig. I’ll admit that I went through a few different types of coffee before finding my favorite but I thought all the coffees that I did try tasted better than drip. I also like tea and it is so much easier to use the Keurig than keep an electric kettle on the counter or boil water in the microwave. Yes, it is more expensive but it used to bug me that I ended up throwing away coffee left over in the drip that tasted burned so fast. Finally, drip coffee makers are a lot messier. I hated the look of a stained pot and the hassle of cleaning it as well as the burners seeming to wear off too fast. I wouldn’t put one in the office simply due to the expense but it has turned into my favorite appliance at home.
I do agree with Enright3 that unless the employers pay for the coffee, a work Keurig is no gift at all.
This is exactly how I feel. With the old-fashioned coffee makers, you could compost the coffee grounds, and not produce too much plastic waste. With the Keurig, you are producing a piece of plastic waste every time you use it! It’s ridiculous!
By the way, here’s an environmentally-friendly way to make tea with a Keurig: Just use the machine to produce the hot water, and put in the tea yourself using looseleaf tea and a reusable metal teaball.
I like my Keurig, although I use it only part of the time. It’s good for a quick cup of coffee, or on the rare occasion that I want a cup of decaf. If I’m home for the day or afternoon, then I’ll use either the drip maker or the press, depending on how hard I want to work.
I do use the disposable cup for my Keurig (aside from the decaf, which I only drink maybe once a month), so I don’t have to drink 18 cups of one type of coffee–I usually make a different brew every day. I don’t even rinse the filter–just knock the grounds out into the compost.
I have lined up on my counter: teapot, French press, drip coffeemaker, and Keurig. My clients have the same lineup with the addition of an espresso machine AND a Tassimo. I love working for people who understand me.
There’s stuff there that Jamicat is sharing with us, but we have to make sure not to share too much? It’s the tragedy of the commons.
Either it’s only yours, in which case, you shouldn’t put it out where people can take it (or put a sign on it saying it’s not for sharing).
Or it’s free for the taking, which means it’s going to get used up, how quickly depending on how popular. There’s no way to partially share stuff.
Do you expect the entire rest of the office to get together and develop a plan so that the stuff gets used up at a certain rate? If that’s what you want, then it’s up to you to propose some kind of system for people to take turns restocking the item.
If the water doesn’t get hot enough for the coffee (ideally around 200), it absolutely doesn’t get hot enough for tea (just off boiling to start). If all you’re using it for is the water, why not buy an electric kettle?
This used to be true. Our local recycling provider will take any numbered plastics. There’s also a specific 5 plastic recycling scheme; you can drop them off at Whole Foods and a few other places, or even mail them in.
Anyway, the first and most important R is REDUCE. If you have a way of making tea/coffee without all the waste, why wouldn’t you?
Huh. I love the coffee I get from my Kuerig. I grind my own coffee and don’t use those overpriced disposable things. Even if I did, I would set it to give me 10 oz rather than the preprogrammed 8 oz cup. It makes very little difference in the coffee. The coffee i get is not weak. Of course, since i use a k-cup filter, i can fill it to whatever level I like. I didnt realize some machines were set at 6 oz. Thats ridiculous. But, I’m the only coffee drinker in the house, and this way I don’t waste coffee.
Keurigs are poupular because they’re predictable. You’re never going to get a great cup of coffee, but you’re never going to get a terrible one either. Every trip to the Keurig you’ll be rewarded with an surpassingly ordinary cup of coffee, a beverage you will little note nor long remember. No one will ever reminisce about that great K-cup they had, or complain about the 8 hour old boiled and reheated sludge from the gas station hotplate. Mediocrity is their goal, and they achieve it. Their coffee has proven to be more or less adequate. Congratulations seems too much, condemnation, too little.
I usually only have a cup a day, and some days I don’t even have any, so the cost doesn’t bother me too much. I wouldn’t buy the machine myself, but the office pays for the machine, so the cups are the only cost. Plus the Green Mountain Hot Chocolate cups are the best non-fancy hot chocolate I have ever had. I’m also not a coffee snob.
It’s strange to me reading the complaints about the price when you consider how many people stop at Starbucks or even a diner or vending machine every single day and pay several times that for a cup. (Not to say it’s the same people, but it gives perspective.)
I like mine. I live alone, I hate doing dishes- it is now and for as long as I can remember always has been my least favorite household chore- and I’m not a coffee snob nor do I have a desire to be one as if anything I find them more obnoxious than wine snobs. (I like what I like and don’t give much of a damn if somebody else’s mileage varies.) Therefore as a labor saver and as a convenience it’s perfect.
Personally I’ve always found it difficult to get exactly the right proportions for one just one person as well, and somedays I want a second or third cup and somedays I don’t so that has waste. I think when you add in the fact I’m not wasting coffee or buying coffee filters or having to pay for the water to wash the pot everday it doesn’t offset the cost of kcups but it does give a rebate.
I were having an elegant party, I’d trot out the French press. Then I’d trot out somebody to work it. For just me, toss me that k-cup and then toss it out when it’s done.
Slight hijack: I haven’t bought a filter for mine yet. For somebody who has, could you tell me whether I should use more, less, or about the same as I’d use for a cup from a regular coffee maker?
I live out in the middle of nowhere. No Whole Foods. Very little recycling done. The nearby “Waste Transfer Site” has JUST NOW started accepting bottles and cans, separated from the regular trash.
Now, I COULD find a recycle center, but I’d have to drive at least fifty miles to get there.
~VOW
Absolutely. I’ve pointed out the same thing about the way people approach buying coffee, software, and other sundries before the Oatmeal did it in a more entertaining way. It seems to me, most people are penny-wise and pound-foolish. They’ll spend huge amounts of time researching a purchase that only requires a few minutes thought, and drop absurd amounts of cash on impulse items. If they thought about the impulse stuff at all, they’d often save enough to buy a better version of the big purchase. And in some cases, they’d get more out of the small purchases too. One Starbucks visit (coffee for me and my wife) equals a week’s worth of nice coffee. It’s really rare that I consider that to be a good trade-off.
Since I drink coffee just about every day and I actually like the process of making coffee, I can’t imagine spending the money on a glorified electric kettle that requires me to buy proprietary single-serve cups of pre-measured coffee. I like very fresh, very tasty coffee and don’t mind spending 5 minutes making it. If I were going to spend the kind of cash you need for a Keurig, I’d probably spend it on a nice bean grinder instead, or a home espresso machine.
I just put in as much as the filter holds. It’s about half as much as I’d put in with the regular coffee pot (one of the scoops I normally use instead of two) but I’m also making a cup of coffee about half the size and using about half as much water, so it’s really about the same.
I also reuse the premade cups most of the time. Yeah the 2nd cup is noticeably weaker, but I don’t mind, it’s still good enough for me. On the rare occasions when I run the thing twice and then pour both into a larger travel sized cup instead of a mug, it doesn’t seem weak at all.
I don’t really give much of a crap about the non-recyclable cups issue. IMO, only metal is really worth recycling anyway.
I think a lot of it is where your priorities and preferences are. I really don’t like coffee much, but I need caffeine fast in the morning, don’t want to take a pill (they either make me too jittery or way too easily addicted), and soda makes a whole lot more waste than coffee but is occasionally environmentally better (unless you buy shade-grown organic free trade coffee, and even then…). The Keurig heats the water before I even wake up. I put creamer and sugar or honey in it so I’m destroying most flavor nuances. My husband is the real coffee aficionado. We’ve got a Moka pot, burr grinder, French press… Yeah, I still go for the Keurig when I stagger out of bed.
Tea, I care about. Beer, I care about enough to seek out microbreweries while on vacation, or brew my own at home. I just don’t seem to have the taste buds to really, really appreciate coffee. I can live with that.
And yeah, most plastic recycling programs are, sadly, not efficient and often don’t carry out much of their mission. I still recycle in hopes that something will get through.
It’s kind of a crap shoot whether you get a good one or not. I had one for 6 months that I loved. Then a tree fell on our power line, and shorted out the kitchen.
The one I replaced it with, was nothing but trouble. I put up with it for 3 months, then bought a $30 drip coffee maker. I also bought several vacuum sealed canisters, so I could have the variety of coffee I had with the Keurig.
I have one at home, but I never use the K-cups. I bought a reusable filter for it. I drink decaf and my husband drinks regular, so he gets the full coffee pot and I get the Keurig.
