Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticfox | Hacker News Reader

This would be interesting to read about, but this article seems very light on anything interesting to me. It's mostly just a summary of acquisitions and mergers.

I'm curious if any coffee fans here have any Stratechery-type thoughts on the future of the industry.

View on HN

Well, the consolidation itself is kind of interesting, I think; while retail food service brands have certainly gone through consolidations before, the restaurant and cafe industry hasn't been quite as subject to it. (Not to say that it doesn't happen, but the biggest operators tend to spin off and trade brands as often as they buy them, like Red Lobster being spun off from Darden, or A&W and Long John Silver's being spun off from Yum! Brands -- yes, that local fast food place that's a joint A&W and KFC is actually two separate companies now.)

Something that this piece hints at but doesn't underline well is just how big JAB Holding Company has quietly become in the last ~5 years: they now outright own or have controlling/majority interest in Bruegger's Bagels, Canada Dry, Caribou Coffee Company, Dr Pepper, Einstein's Bagels, Green Mountain Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Keurig, Krispy Kreme, Mighty Leaf Tea, Noah's Bagels, Panera Bread, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Snapple, and Stumptown Coffee. That is a big company. Nestlé's coffee brands aren't all that well known over here, despite the push to get people to pay attention to Nespresso.

Personally, I remain unconvinced that there's a huge untapped market for "better" home coffee and espresso brewers in the US; while this sounds like a setup for a "quality, convenience, and price, pick any two" joke, in practice, it seems like you can pick either quality or convenience, regardless of price. Keurig machines simply don't make very good coffee; a consumer who finds a Mr. Coffee too fiddly is not going to be swayed by a coffee nerd with an Aeropress; and given that Americans don't seem to love espresso drinks unless they're fiddly steamed milk and syrup based concoctions, even a Nespresso machine isn't going to help much with the convenience aspect. JAB's signing a deal with Illy, what led to this Economist article, doesn't seem like it's really going to move the needle much over here, at least; a Keurig capsule full of Illy coffee will still be a Keurig capsule, and Illy's capsule machine that's a competitor to the Nespresso isn't likely to do any better here than any of the other Nespresso also-rans.

(I am, for the record, a coffee nerd with an Aeropress. And a Technivorm, a few different single cup dripper gadgets, a Chemex, and, yes, a Nespresso.)

The best blend of quality and convenience I've found so far is a french press. They're less fiddly and messy than an aeropress (I own one and never use it), cheaper than a drip machine, easy to clean, and produce good coffee. The only drawback is that you do need a decent grinder. A cheap spinning-blade grinder will produce a mix of large grounds and powder that will clog the mesh.

I have a French press, too. I like it, although I am not sure I would agree that it's less messy than an Aeropress, and I think it works best with darker roasts than lighter ones. But, none of the "good coffee gadgets" address the "I want something faster and more convenient than a Mr. Coffee" market that Keurig is going for. I'm not convinced you can get Keurig speed and convenience and get good coffee.

The way I see it, there are 2 factors that make it hard to get keurig speed + convenience and good coffee:

1) Since brew time is a function of temperature and ground size, K-pods can use hotter water and finely ground coffee to speed up extraction of the coffee grounds, even if it results in sub-optimal flavors.

2) K-Pods probably have a complicated supply chain that would make it hard to ship fresh roasted + ground coffee. I'm sure this could be circumvented somehow, but it would most likely require an expensive solution since it's so time sensitive.(ideally you have coffee ground just minutes before brewing, or at least less than a week before brewing.)

Honestly, instant coffee is probably the best solution for extreme convenience + great coffee. Folgers instant is awful, but companies like Sudden are trying to make a decent crystallized coffee: https://www.suddencoffee.com/

While it's been a really long time since I had a Keurig, I seem to remember that they used around 200°F water, and when I had one of the little "use your own grounds" containers for it, if I got the water-to-coffee ratio right it it was...decent. While it brews fast, it brews under just a little pressure, kind of like an Aeropress.

That was before Keurig had been bought by Green Mountain, though, and it seemed like they were trying to manage as good coffee as they could out of K-Cups. They were contracting mostly with specialty coffee roasters, and the K-Cups were filled with nitrogen to try and preserve the flavor. There were a couple I found that I did actually like, although I don't know if I would if I tried them again. :) My impression is that Keurig's quality control has gone down over the years, certainly with the machines, and one suspects the coffee.

I've heard of Sudden before -- positively, from people who really care about coffee -- but haven't tried them. I probably should. I've taken a few trips to places where the nearest good coffee was quite a distance away. :)

For some reason I've found that vacpots are easier to clean up than a press-pot, but they really complement each other: some coffees go to the press-pot, some are better with the vacpot.

Also a coffee nerd.

(PID-controlled Silva / Rocky grinder and an Aeropress at home, La Marzocco GS3 & Nuova Simonelli MDX on-demand at work)

The steamed milk espresso drinks were a gateway drug. I mostly make straight espresso or a machiatto these days.

I would avoid things like Nespresso - creates tons of waste [1], it's much nicer to freshly grind some beans and brew it in a french press or drip brew it if you want filter out more terpenes.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-24/former-nespresso-boss-...

You can recycle nespresso. Also you can buy some reusable capsules as well.

Its more interesting if you read it in a 1940's newsreels announcers voice.

Isn't everything?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com