We have a shared coffeepot at work. Total of 65 employees, but I don’t know how many actively participate in the coffee - I’d suspect no more than 20 or so. And I’m sure folks’ usage varies from a cup every day or so to my 10 or so cups each and every day.
It is annoying when you go to get a cup of coffee, and there is less than 1/2 a cup left. I know I find myself thinking unpleasant thoughts about whoever left the pot like that.
But this a.m. I poured myself a cup, and realized that what was left in the carafe was probably less than a full cup. So what should be done in that instance?
I didn’t want to simply pour it down the drain and waste it. And no other solution came readily to mind. Without pouring it into a cup I didn’t even know exactly how much was left (opaque thermal carafe). There are some disposable cups by the pot, so I could have poured it out and either taken it to my office along with my full cup, or left it for someone else (whom I expect would have poured it out.)
I have absolutely zero objection to making a new pot myself, and have no thoughts that someone is not doing their share. I probably make at least 1 pot a day, and am sure I make 2 or more on some days.
I also guess practices might vary depending on the time of day. After noon, I would probably give less thought to leaving less than a cup, as fewer folk drink coffee then. But at 8 a.m., the coffee flows pretty fast and furious around here!
BTW - this a.m. I left it, and when I just got yet another cup, someone had made another pot. So I assume someone somewhere was cursing me anonymously.
We gave this all a miss and bought a Keurig. No more wasted coffee, ever. I think it is the best idea…you may need more than one, though, for 64 people. AND it makes hot chocolate and iced drinks, too.
Personally, I would waste the coffee and just brew a fresh pot. Coffee’s cheap. If, for some reason I couldn’t do that, I’d pour the remainder in a cup, brew a fresh pot and add the remainder back and hope the new coffee would cover for the old. But, again, my preference would be fresh pot.
I know that for me, I want a full cup more than I want a fresh cup and if it’s as popular as you say, I’m sure that even the old coffee isn’t that old.
Single-serve coffee tea bags. And you don’t have to use the crappy Folgers bags, you can make them yourself using whatever coffee you want. Then you can just replace the coffee maker with an electric kettle. No wasted coffee, no piles of coffee pods.
Man, I hate the Kuerigs. Didn’t participate in the coffee club in my last office when they went to those. As much coffee as I drink, I’d need a substantial raise to cover the cost!
Good thoughts IS. I’m thinking wasting the dregs and brewing a new pot - at least in the early a.m. - is likely the best practice.
I like the Keurigs a lot, but we have a small office so it works out pretty well for us. In the circumstance you say, I would fill up the coffee pot. But then, it only works if everyone else also fills up the pot. Even in our tiny office there’s always someone who takes their coffee and leaves, oblivious to the fact that the “need water” light is blinking.
We went through this where I work and the decision made was that you dump it and make a new pot if there’s less than one mug left. Or, if you think it’s beyond the time anyone’s going to want coffee, you dump it and turn the coffee maker off.
The problem we were having is that the pot would reach the less-than-a-mug level and then be left on. Sometimes all night. By then, of course, the coffee evaporated and you have to deal with cleaning the pot out.
If no one is approaching or near the coffee station to offer the last of the coffee to, then I would pour it out and start a new pot. If someone was approaching, I would ask if they wanted the last bit before I made a new pot.
My assumption is that the carafe is used to refill the water. I’m ok with adding old coffee back into a fresh pot, but I am not ok with running coffeewater through the brewing cycle. It tastes much worse than old coffee as any college student who thinks they’ve hit on an easy way to make a mugful of espresso quickly learns.
Nothing better than fresh coffee - make a new pot if there is any reason to believe there isn’t enough in the pot for the next person.
If there is still a little left - ask if anyone wants it.
The guy who takes only a half a cup, leaving a tiny smear of coffee in the bottom of the pot, so he doesn’t have to make a new pot should be kicked out of the coffee club.
I ran the coffee club in my office for years. The pettiness of otherwise normal, pleasant people is amazing. One guy probably never made a pot of coffee in his whole career, another demanded a full accounting when I came around once a month to ask for a lousy 5 or 10 dollars, still another felt that vast sum should cover top quality creamer, sugar, cups, lids, spoons and cleaning services. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was like music to my ears when I canceled the club. None of the complainers stepped up. Now I make a pot of cofee for myself each morning, it costs a me pennies a day and the moochers know where Starbucks is.
Karma’s a bitch. Just went to get another cup and guess what?
More facts than any of you could possibly desire, but the maker has a thermal carafe and turns off after brewing, so leaving it on overnight is not an issue. And there is a very large plastic glass that is used to fill the maker with fresh water.
As long as I brought up the issue of coffee club pettiness, it reminds me of when I started working fulltime some 27 years ago. Our office had a coffee club run by on individual - the “Coffee Czar”. Seemed like every week of so Bill was asking folk for another couple of bucks to buy coffee, filters, whatever. Long story less so - a couple of years later Bill took a job elsewhere, so we appointeda new Czar. After a few months she observed that she wasn’t sure why Bill was collecting so frequently, because coffee and supplies lasted much longer than she had expected.
Yep, this SOB was embezzling from his fellow workers to the tune of a couple of bucks every few weeks! Now THAT’S a class individual!
You kill the joe you make some mo’. And yes, if there’s less than a cup left after you take yours, you’ve killed it. Toss that last half a cent’s worth of coffee down the drain and make a fresh pot.
I also had to put up a sign on the pot saying you better make strong coffee (5-6 scoops or more for our pot). There’s a hot water spigot right on the coffee maker, so if you’re afraid of strong coffee use that to weaken it, don’t make a slightly brown, tasteless mess for me to spit out when I expected real coffee.
My office provides coffee, tea and hot chocolate for free. There are two Bunn commercial coffee makes with three burners each. In the morning someone usually makes a couple pots of regular and maybe a pot of decaf. Then as carafes are nearing empty, the carafe is moved to one of the warming burners and a new pot is brewed. Often in the morning, people waiting for coffee will do setups (filter with coffee packet emptied into it) for several pots, stacking them on top of the coffee maker. Then as the need for a new pot arises, they just empty the old filter and grounds, pop a new one in and press the button. It does drive me crazy when someone will leave an ounce of coffee in a carafe and leave the burner on. I hate the smell of burned coffee. The company used to provide cups and lids, but we recently gave everyone an insulated sippy cup and took away the styrofoam. Good environmental move.
I had to create a flowchart and post it above the coffeemaker. Then, when I heard some people bitching about the flowchart, I knew who the bastards that left an empty pot were.
So can’t you make a new pot and add it to the carafe? The ones I was familiar with had enough room for an extra cup without overflowing.
Etiquette seems to be to make a new pot when you take the rest*, but personally, I’d rather make the new pot myself when I go to get a cup, to have fresh coffee. That’s only an issue with the glass pots on the burner, burning the coffee. With a thermal carafe, that problem goes away.
I bring coffee from home in a thermos, and on the rare occasions I want one more cup, we have a couple of Keurigs anyway, so it’s not an issue for me any more.
unless it’s late afternoon. Then the next person kind of had to ask around to gauge interest in another pot.
I am not a coffee drinker, but I was once the receptionist in an office where it was part of my job to make the coffee. I was amazed by the number of times that I was away on a work-related errand (delivering something to another office, going to the post office) and would return to find someone waiting to tell me to make a new pot. If they had made it themselves, it would have already been done in the same time it would take to wait for me to come back!
Coffee makes people weird, is my conclusion. Or maybe it’s the combo of coffee plus workplace dynamics.
