This is quite exciting in that it removes plastic waste. I see no reason why different companies can’t make different shape ones to maintain their lock-in. I expect a knock-off market to pop-up, but that exists with plastic pods too. It’s a step in the right direction at least.
For fast easy machine single-serve, get a machine that takes beans. They cost about three pod-machines but they’re worth it. The pod-machines are cheaper because they come with vendor lock-in for the pods, and they just profit more on those instead.
Yes. About four years ago I got an automatic espresso machine. Grinds, presses, extracts, done. Good shot everytime. Maybe not as good as an experienced person with a manual machine, but that’s not my goal. Now I can have a double oat milk Latte everyday made at home.
Yes! We can finally buy our way out of unnecessary waste, and ultimately climate change, with this new thing that keeps us buying. Just gotta buy the ecological things and everything will be good.
I hear you and ultimately we all have our own versions of utopia. But it doesn’t stop us celebrating small steps in the right direction just because we’re not at our destination.
Is it a step in the right direction, or is it a refinement to the sinister system that is sending us down the drain?
It can be both
Especially when you could just buy a sack of coffee instead of disposables or single use.
Or we could stop putting the onus on consumers and demand manufacturers/producers actually do the right thing. Even Keurig said they’re still making the plastic pods. The actual answer is regulation.
We need to stop excusing the “it’s too expensive to be green” bullshit. If it’s too expensive not to poison the planet then it’s not economically feasible.
It’s like saying “it’s too expensive to not put poison in our food”, then you shouldn’t be making food.
I just use the resuable pods. Can throw any coffee grounds in them, dump them in the compost when done, rinse, and use again. Have used these for at least 5 years.
This might be a really stupid question, but if you’re going to use reusable pods, why not just… Use a classic Mr. Coffee-style coffee maker that has been around for decades?
I’ve got two: One Keurig which was a gift and an off-brand single-cup coffee maker that uses pods. I’m the only coffee drinker in the house, so one cup at a time is about right (and uses less energy than keeping a carafe warm all morning).
I used to love my coffee maker (One of the ones with the thermos built in as the carafe) but my daughter wanted a Keurig. I was hesitant at first but I really like them now that I’m used to it.
We use reusable pods so making coffee is as cheap as before, and there’s little wasted coffee that sat too long. If I want coffee I get one without worrying if my daughter might want one later, and visa versa. It’s always fresh and never has to sit. And since we both don’t really have regular schedules this way makes it easier than planning how much to make. It also works just as well if one of us wants tea or hot chocolate instead.
If you are on a fixed schedule and always drink the exact same amount of coffee then it’s not as big of a deal though. The only real downside is if you have friends over then sometimes being able to brew a pot is less of a hassle than individually making multiple cups at the same time, but in our case that doesn’t happen often enough to keep the old coffee maker out.
Team Aeropress here.
Good to see Keurig try to cut down on plastic waste, but if they really wanted to make an impact, they could open-source the design of the pods so all the alt-cup manufacturers could switch as well. It may be counter-intuitive, but the more options customers have, the more machine sales and goodwill Keurig will create.
Aeropress for the fucking win. It’s so beautifully simple and making coffee with it is so easy.
Do you use a new paper filter every time or do you use some reusable filter for your aeropress?
Unbleached, round paper filters. Come in 300 packs. Goes into compost bin along with grounds.
Had metal, reusable ones, but accidentally tossed them out.
How did the metal ones compare? Mind you, the paper rounds are really small and compossible.
Same size as paper ones. Thin, perforated metal. Came in two gradations. Taste-wise, couldn’t tell the difference. When opening to clean, it slid off so you could wash it, then compost the coffee as usual.
Pretty handy. But somehow, I managed to dump them away. Went back to paper.
Make it sustainable in pod form specifically. Pour over, drip, French/aeropress seem pretty sustainable. Especially of you use a mesh filter.
Everything in context though. Even if you use a paper filter for coffee every day, the overall paper usage in a year is like the equivalent of what, maybe 2-3 print NYTimes Sunday editions?
In Switzerland we got something similar, it’s little balls though. It comes packaged in cardboard and you can compost the remains https://www.coffeeb.com/en-ch
Oh, cool! How’s the coffee?
It’s actually pretty good, don’t own a machine but have tried it a couple times. It’s also comparable in cost to normal capsules.
That’s really good. One of the criticisms I always see about capsules is the taste and it seems the Swiss managed to overcome it.
Keurigs taste like trash though.
For real? I never drink coffee outside of the very rare frappuccino.
They’re very poor brewers, but most people like that sort of grimy mass market coffee flavor. Or just want caffeine and feel weird about taking tablets.
I figured they just used instant grounds which always taste like crap compared to real brewed coffee.
Nope, it is regular coffee grounds, but usually they’re using terrible beans. You can actually get nice third wave pods, but there’s only so much better beans can do if your brewer isn’t doing its job well.
isn’t that a time issue? Like a lower heat and longer brew should fix that right?
Sort of. You want an even extraction most of all, and while their grinders are probably pretty good, the water coming in doesn’t saturate the grounds evenly and isn’t a consistent temperature.
That makes sense. That seems like something they should focus on at the design stage.
I solved this problem by not drinking coffee. I know, it’s blasphemy I don’t need daily caffeine to function.
Edit: I feel like the people downvoting this have muttered the words “I can’t start my day without coffee” and least once in their life.
Never had coffee in my entire life and feel like I’m the least tired person of my social circle. Caffeine is definitely not a must. It only becomes one once you consume it regularly.
Awesome. I wonder why it wasn’t like this in the first place. Disposable plastics are too cheap I guess
That has always been my issue with the K cup. It isn’t recyclable and isn’t biodegradable.
I want a pod I can throw in the mulch.
All coffee pods are garbage.
Especially espresso pods. There’s a place around here that has a 20,000 dollar espresso machine, that serves over-extracted espresso because the owner felt pods were easier or something.
Is it actually a cafe or just part of another establishment? What kind of cafe has a pod espresso machine? I would never go there.
It’s a restaurant run by an Italian. Not even Italian American, but a first generation immigrant.
It’s not a pod espresso machine, it’s got normal e61 group heads, perfectly capable of making great espresso if he had a grinder. But instead they use pods of pre-ground coffee that just lets the water shoot through, giving like 4:1 brew ratio.
That’s such a travesty and a waste of a good machine… Wow.
I was surprised to learn that the store brand k-cups around here are already fully compostable. It’s just a biodegradable plastic ring with half a sphere of coffee filter on the bottom and a paper disc on top.
Would like to see this for more than just coffee. Although, the knock off Keurig I have came with a filter cup thing that acts like a reusable pod, so I don’t really need the single serve plastic cup pods anyway. I can just put tea, coffee, hot cocoa, etc in that mesh cup and then clean it afterward.
Do official Keurigs not have that?
They do
Noone else is using Senseo dosettes ?
I think I’ve only seen these in France, which is crazy because it’s such a simple and elegant solution to this “problem”.
Senseo is everywhere in the EU. Personally, I rank it below homemade filter coffee though.
What are those?
Basically, a single dose of coffee, wrapped, and sealed in traditional coffee filter material, which is inserted into the machine,can be thrown in to the compost.
So I’m learning that the Keurig isn’t even innovative. Shame!
3rd party Senseo pads are a godsend; good easy fast coffee with a paper filtered coffee pad that just decomposes. I’m sad that it didn’t work out over Keurig.
I like Carte noir, but their shape is not perfect for my machine.
