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The K-Cup Coffee Pod Problem
- dbot 12y agoI didn't drink coffee until a few years ago. Starting off with K-Cups, I now alternate between AeroPress and french press. Using freshly ground beans, there's really no comparison in the taste. People say K-Cups are easier, but it's more like a different drink altogether.
- joshuapants 12y agoI'm a big fan of the aeropress. Tastes amazing. I think K-Cups taste like Nescafe.
- ethagnawl 12y agoThe AeroPress does indeed produce fantastic espresso. If only the process didn't involve near-boiling water and plastic ...
- semi-extrinsic 12y agoWhat do you mean? The materials it is built from are FDA approved for food preparation up to 100 C. And what it produces is very far from espresso. Unless you call your americano an espresso.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- karlshea 12y agoIf you brew upside down and don't use a lot of water, you do end up with something pretty close to espresso (including crema).
- jon-wood 12y agoWhat do you mean by brewing upside down? I stopped using my Aeropress and went back to a proper machine because I missed the crema, so I'd love to know how you got one.
- poloniculmov 12y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0t7p9L02nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0t7p9L02nA That's what he's talking about, but I don't know how he gets the crema because my Aeropress cannot.
- karlshea 12y agoI usually only get it with really fresh beans. I normally use it for coffee though instead of espresso so if the crema is what you really enjoy an Aeropress is probably not for you.
- semi-extrinsic 12y agoI also brew upside down, and I do get foam. But this is the same type of foam that you get with a french press. I think the difference is that this foam is caused by heat, while a good crema is caused by the pressure. It certainly tastes and looks different.
- TillE 12y agoYeah, if you just want some quick coffee, buy a jar of Jacobs Krönung or another decent instant coffee. If you want nice coffee, you have to either do a bit of work or buy a fancy machine that grinds beans and everything. At least in Europe, you can get those for under $400.
- pkulak 12y agoMy coffee story is nearly the same. K-cups about a decade ago, but I sold that thing after 6 months because the coffee tasted like crap. Moved to an Aeropress because it makes amazing coffee. I just recently bought a Bonavida drip machine that makes Aeropress quality coffee, but with far less fuss. And it's easier to make multiple cups.
- w1ntermute 12y agoSan Francisco Bay Coffee sells biodegradable K-cups (they call them OneCups). They're also cheaper than the official K-cups. The only catch is that they don't work on the new Keurig 2.0 DRMed brewers.
- goatforce5 12y agoIt seems as though it's pretty easy to bypass the Keurig 2.0 DRM system: http://www.keurighack.com/ http://www.keurighack.com/ (not tried it myself - i'm not a K-cup user)
- xemoka 12y agoExcept it looks like OneCups are now including the "Freedom Clip" with each box: https://www.gourmet-coffee.com/Keurig-DRM-Freedom-Clip.html https://www.gourmet-coffee.com/Keurig-DRM-Freedom-Clip.html
- brandon272 12y agoCouldn't Keurig sue them for selling that?
- joesmo 12y agoSeems like the most ridiculous DMCA issue yet.
- jmgrosen 12y agoIANAL, but I would think the Sega v. Accolade case [0] would make this legal (unless the DMCA applies, but I don't think it would here, due to the more physical nature of the product). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Enterprises_Ltd._v._Accolade,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Enterprises_Ltd._v._Accol....
- paulannesley 12y agoHN breaks that link — the trailing period is part of the URL. The path is “/wiki/Sega_Enterprises_Ltd._v._Accolade,_Inc.”
- keslag 12y agoI find EZ-Cup the best solution, I use a little paper filter that fits in a reusable cup, and I get to use fresh ground coffee. Cost per cup is around a dime or so, and the cleanup is literally just pop the filter into the compost bucket. It may not be as good as an AeroPress, though I can't tell the difference. I find the fresh beans, quality coffee, and a good grinder are far more noticeable to me than press vs. drip.
- zyx321 12y agoAt that point, how s it different from a Senseo? As a matter of fact, why would you want a Keurig over a Senseo if all you're ever going to make is plain coffee?
- keslag 12y agoWell, Canada doesn't have Senseo, but why would I use a Senseo over my Keurig. I really like the reusable cup design of the EZCup, and there isn't any cleanup. I'm guessing the Senseo by looks of the cups are similar to the Tassimo design we have here, but the pucks aren't nearly as clean and neat. I brought one in to the office, and you don't need to be near a sink, so it's really handy. Converted a Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and a French Press user, and now they're all using it. The AeroPress user, she hasn't converted, though she hasn't even tried it.
- zyx321 12y agoNo, Senseo consumables are biodegradable. There's no cup at all, just coffee grounds wrapped in a paper filter. There's also reusable filters equivalent to EZ-cup. I guess it does drip a little if you're not careful, which was less of an issue with the cup machines I tried.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago"It’s digital rights management, the coffee equivalent of Steve Jobs’ attempt to fill iPods only with music sold through iTunes." What?? Not really. Keurig machines refuse to use anything other than a Keurig-brand K-Cup. The iPod always played non-DRMed music. It just wouldn't play music with DRM from other stores. Any store willing to sell music without DRM is/was perfectly compatible with the iPod.
- pmelendez 12y ago>What?? Not really. Keurig machines refuse to use anything other than a Keurig-brand K-Cup. That's not true.. there are several no Keurig-brand K-cups that are compatible with Keurig machines.
- uptown 12y agoThe new Keurig machines enforce a weak form of K-cups DRM.
- coding4all 12y agoUntil iTunes deleted music not bought on the iTunes store... \ source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/04/apple-deleted-music-ipods-rivals-steve-jobs http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/04/apple-dele...
- bri3d 12y agoIt's worth noting that the music that was deleted was "protected" by a reverse-engineered version of Apple's DRM, and the "deletion" was Apple dropping support for old, broken versions of FairPlay. iPods always played everyone's DRM free music and never tried not to, as far as I know.
- armc 12y agoNespresso coffee pods are recyclable. Our Magnapower eddy sorter has separated aluminum from plastic after crushing the pods. Video here: https://vimeo.com/118085045 https://vimeo.com/118085045 I don't think K-Kups would present much a problem either, but I haven't had the chance to try shredding and sorting them yet.
- bri3d 12y agoThis is actually really cool! Do many/most/any municipal recycling facilities have ECS sorters? Should I tell people to throw K-cups in the recycling? I'm assuming the coffee grounds need to be removed first?
- rrggrr 12y agoMost have them. I dont see the harm in putting them in the recycling bin though thats not to say they wont end up in the landfill fraction for various reasons.
- deitcher 12y agoThe bigger issue with the DRM is that Keurig is fighting their own customers. Great for competitors, not for Keurig. "never Fight Your Own Customers" http://blog.atomicinc.com/2014/12/15/never-fight-your-customers-1894/ http://blog.atomicinc.com/2014/12/15/never-fight-your-custom...
- bane 12y agoMy work burns through K-Cups, but we also have a 100% no-landfill corporate policy. Everything gets recycled, or if it's not recyclable, is processed by a waste processing company and turned into feed for local incinerators. Where possible, even "plastic" items like forks and spoons in the cafeteria are made out of recyclable materials. But the K-Cups won't die. They're everywhere. They must make up a significant fraction of our incinerated trash every week.
- jsprogrammer 12y agoSo, instead of burying the carbon (or just not incentivizing its production), your company burns the plastic into the atmosphere?
- Dylan16807 12y agoIs the little bit of carbon in the plastic anywhere close to the biggest issue here? Lookup up the carbon offset price gives me under $20 per ton.
- jsprogrammer 12y agoWhat is the bigger issue? I did imply that not purchasing the carbon (and therefore, not incentivizing its extraction) would be better than burning it (and whatever other pollutants are created by the combustion of K-cups, or equivalent) into the atmosphere. My lungs don't really care about your 'carbon offset price' denominated in US dollars.
- Dylan16807 12y agoYour lungs don't care about carbon either. When I hear about things getting incinerated I worry about all the potential toxic chemicals, and what is done with the residue. Producing carbon dioxide and water is the ideal outcome. I bring up the carbon price because they could pay next to nothing and leave the atmosphere with less carbon in it. That's not the hard part. The hard part is making sure we're not spilling ugly chemicals all over the environment, whether that's though burial or burning.
- Dylan16807 12y agoCategory 7 plastic means 'other', please stop referring to it as if the mix used in K-cups is the only kind.
- driverdan 12y agoI don't understand why people still use K-Cups at home. It literally takes two minutes to make a great cup of coffee with an Aeropress, one that's cheaper, tastes better, and produces far less waste.
- bhayden 12y agoIt's boring, if you have kids it's hard to stand still and do nothing for two minutes you're trying to get them out the door, it requires several minutes of waiting for your hot water kettle, it's yet another thing to clean which people don't like, some people like variety every day and wouldn't go through beans quick enough before they went bad. There are tons of reasons (though personally I'd use an aeropress if I drank coffee at home too)
- Kalium 12y agoIt gets you a decent cup of coffee on-demand with no cleanup and obviates concerns about how freshly roasted or freshly ground your beans are. You can zombie through using a capsule.
- Ih8SF 12y agoIt's not a problem. I bought 2 reusable receptacles made of metal mesh for under $10 at a major retail outlet last week. This childish hipster is promoting yet another fake crisis. YAWN!!! ANYTHING in a futile attempt to stay relevant with these hasbeens, eh??
- keeperofdakeys 12y ago> But he was drinking 30 to 40 cups a day. He had to drink that much because, intent on starting his own business I wonder if this means, drinking the cup fully, or only sampling a bit of the coffee from each cup. I don't think someone could survive drinking 30-40 cups of coffee a day, every day.
- asadotzler 12y agoLandfills, consumer recycling, composting, etc. are a dangerous distraction. We have hundreds to thousands of years to solve those problems before they are any serious threat to our way of life and that of most other living things on this planet. We have no time left to solve global warming which is an immediate and critical threat to human civilization and potentially most life on Earth. Given the public's astonishing lack of attention to the environment, and the abject failure of our global leadership to care for us on on that front, we cannot afford to waste any of the limited attention on non-critical problems like landfills.
- datenwolf 12y agoThe problems of waste management and global warming are closely interrelated though. First and foremost the more stuff goes into landfills, the more raw materials have to be mined and processed to replace it, which consumes a lot of energy and by that increases the greenhouse gases footprint. The main point of recycling is to avoid the greenhouse gases emissions that are associated with producing products from raw materials. A secondary problem with landfills is, especially if large amounts of compostable material go into them, that the biological degradation there happens mostly anaerobic, which in turn means it produces lots and lots of methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas. In a properly setup composting facility, be it small scale in your backyard, or industrial large scale the degradation happens aerobic, so that no methane is produced.
- wdr1 12y ago> we cannot afford to waste any of the limited attention on non-critical problems like landfills. As an environmental, this type of attitude is one of the things that concerns me most about the alarmist attitude on climate change. Climate change is an important problem we need to solve. It is not, however, the only problem.
- Spooky23 12y agoThis is the most overwrought controversy ever. How many people go to Starbucks, the gas station, McDonald's or any other store and buy a cup of any beverage? How many wax cups get recycled? How many compressed polystyrene cups for soda? If you feel particularly guilty, you can trivially tear off the foil top, empty the coffee and filter into your compost, and recycle the cup. Total waste is a few grams of foil.
- jaachan 12y agoAnyone know how Keurig stands up to Senseo[1]? Those have pads that were biodegradable from the beginning. Also pads available from third parties, which is already validated by courts. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senseo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senseo
- nemesisrobot 12y agoI recently switched over to making cold brew coffee at home. It's incredibly easy to make a week's worth at time, tastes great, and just as convenient as instant coffee.