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Comment by mikegioia | Hacker News Reader

I actively try to dissuade people from buying Keurig machines, or any "coffee pod" machine and this is just another reason why. Aside from the fact that the coffee is watery, the pods just add such an unnecessary amount of garbage to something that doesn't need to generate any waste.

I think the concept is cool but re-usable pods are the way to go. This is stupid of Keurig.

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I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work, and .01 lbs from my morning k-cup. My time has value, and I am not going to waste it greenwashing.

Far better coffee with roughly equivalent hassles: http://www.sweetmarias.com/clevercoffeedripperpictorial.php

Thanks, that is a good suggestion. It takes 5 minutes instead of 15 seconds. I'll give that try using the Keurig machine for hot water. The Keurig coffee is definitely mediocre.

Definitely doesn't do away with waste, although compostable paper filters are better than plastic pods (unless the pods can be composted?)

Most people just throw away those compostable paper filters and they wind up buried in an oxygen deprived environment where they will never biodegrade. I wonder which one compresses into smaller land fill space: the paper filter or the plastic k-cup.

We're hippies so we use an organic cotton one, unless it's 4am and it's dirty we have backup paper filters.

That's a good one.

Also try the AeroPress: faster brew, smaller filters (reusable metal available), fast clean, excellent results.

I guess value is relative. I prefer good coffee and preparing it is part of the experience.

It's like writing this comment on HN, what value does it bring to you ?

I was referencing the "actively dissuade" part.

I don't mind if people adopt environmentalism as a religion where all trash is a sin, I just don't want to be a part of it. I want to think about environmental impact broadly and go after the high impact items. Talking about K-Cup trash is a distraction from what is important.

So you're saying that you're going to stop burning so much petroleum to get to work, and to do that you have to ignore anything that you do that has a lesser impact on the environment?

I can't say that I understand the single-mindedness, but congratulations on the electric car or the not commuting so far or whatever.

Unless what you're saying is that you're going to ignore everything that pollutes less than the important high-impact items that you're also going to ignore.

Yes. I use logic and reasoning and order of magnitude estimation to think about environmental impact.

I also think people who obsess over polyethylene grocery bags are bad at math. Unfortunately, many of these people manage to influence public policy to my inconvenience. It is religion, not science.

I am sure there are some who claim the small amount of oil that went into the production of a grocery bag is a problem, but my impression in general was that they were being legislated away in many places because of littering, hazards to wildlife, etc., and not so much that they are wasteful of fossil fuels.

I'm afraid it's an inherently proselytizing religion.

The restrictions on minor consumer items are a penitential hairshirt.

I think your "big-picturism" bypasses the immediate absurdity of consumer environmentalism, but leaves the deeper contradiction untouched.

"Rational" environmentalism implies some cost/benefit analysis. Is it "bad" for one person to burn 100 gallons of gas per day in his commute? Is it "ok" for 100 persons to burn the same amount? What if the one person produces as much "benefit" as the 100 persons? Who gets to define benefit?

Yeah. I have a nice burr grinder, and I loved the ritual of preparing coffee every morning. Then I had a baby. The Keurig machine we got as a Christmas present two years before got pulled out of the closet, and we've been pod people ever since.

How is using a good old coffee maker with beans a waste of time? You're getting better coffee and you're only spending a minute on brewing.

Well part of the problem is the claim about better.

Craft beers are superior to generic domestic lite beers, right? No, it's strictly subjective to every individual's preference.

I've known some people that prefer cheap or generic coffee, made in a clunky old coffee pot, slightly burnt. Is their taste wrong / worse / inferior? It can't be, it's their taste.

Well if taste is your only metric, we can probably conclude that perception is _less_ objective than one which factors in freshness of beans (oxidation), amount of mycotoxins, waste, etc.

> I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work

Yes... that is also a problem.

That's about a gallon and change. Depending on your drive that might not be too bad.

25-30 miles is right on the cusp of "an unmanageably long commute", to me. Especially if anything goes wrong.

> I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work .. My time has value

Why do you value time in the car (or monster truck) so highly?

Incidentally, a gallon of gas seems to weigh about 6 pounds. So 7 pounds is a bit over a gallon, which probably gets you around 30 miles or so in an average car with decent fuel economy. On the commuting statistics I can find, look like around 8% of Americans commute about that far. So OP is probably a standard deviation or so past average for either distance or fuel economy, but nothing crazy.

Assuming he didn't just make up the weight number, of course.

Yeah, I don't think it is odd for an American in general just in the context of valuing time.

You don't think about the 30-60 minutes in the car because you are sitting there killing yourself faster, but wasting less bodily energy than sleeping.

The time spent making coffee is probably good for your lifespan, but standing around, moving and cleaning things feels bad for us lazy apes..

I was trying to use the US average. A 15 mile commute each way is about 1 gallon of gas per day. I thought that was 7 lbs, but my memory was incorrect as that is the density of diesel/jet fuel. Gasoline is closer to 6 lbs per gallon as you say.

Then use a reusable keurig pod and get both the benefits of fast coffee and less waste.

Unless, of course, your time is so valuable that you can't even spare the 15 seconds it takes to wash the reusable pod.

The needy baby is the bigger issue, not the time. She also likes pressing the button on the machine.

I have a Breville machine that allows you to pour in a heap of coffee beans, and it grinds and automatically fills the filter with your desired strength based on how much water you put in the machine. I believe they also make one that has a water reservoir that you periodically fill and you can just dial in a cup amount and it does everything else for you.

I've been pretty happy with it since I get fresh ground coffee and don't need to measure it. You still have to clean the filter after every use, but really it takes me less than 60 seconds to clean out the filter and fill the machine with water. Grinding the coffee and measuring it out manually was the biggest bottleneck in my daily coffee routine, so the Breville has at least eliminated that step.

Now if I could only plumb water directly to it...

60 seconds to clean isn't nothing. Changing the keurig pods takes less than 3 seconds.

It might make me lazy, but every second I am not cleaning my coffee device I can be doing something else.

This. Plus I have yet to see any non-pod-style coffee machine that can competently make one cup at a time.

I have a manual grinder and an Aeropress. Making one cup at a time is easy, and the taste is superior to pod-style coffee in my opinion.

The time I spend grinding the coffee is part of the enjoyment.

Really?

http://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/bbbb918e28fa404b836...

I much prefer that machine to the crappy k-cup machines.

Hard to tell what machine that is from just a tiny photo.

Soz for the smal shot.

Basically it's a machine with 3 compartments:

Coffee, Decaf Hot Chocolate

And you can push a button, it grinds, and outputs your cup.

I prefer it vastly to the k-cups.

Never heard of the aeropress before. Will have to try it. Thanks for the tip!

I just got an Aeropress and it's very nice--smoothest coffee I've ever tasted. Slightly more fiddly preparation compared to a pour-over or press, but worth the effort.

I have the previous version of the Delongi Primadonna[1]. Fully automatic - you attache the milk frother, pour some beans in, it grinds them and makes the coffee.

Previously I had the Nespresso Lattissima Premium[2] (the top-of-the line pod machine). I liked the Nespresso coffee fine, but the Primadonna makes better coffee and is no more trouble to use (It's also twice the price...).

The clean up is exactly the same for both machines - you press a button to run steam though the milk frother, detach it and put it in the refrigerator. You press the "rinse" button and it runs water through the coffee system to clean that.

~Once a week you empty the grounds container or the empty pods container.

The one trick is to only put as many beans as you a planning on using immediatly in the bean dispenser. It can take a lot more, but as they get exposed for longer they get more bitter.

[1] http://www.delonghi.com/en-AU/products/coffee/coffee-makers/...

[2] http://www.delonghi.com/en-AU/products/coffee/coffee-makers/...

Which ones have you tried? Any Jura machine will do the job and produce better, fresher coffee than a pre-ground pod. The upfront cost is substantially more, however; they start at about $800.

what's the freshest you can have your coffee? If a could have my way (which frequently I can) I'd always have 1-2 day old beans. I'd take beans still warm from roasting over those older than 3-4.

If optimizing 57 seconds of your day makes such a drastic difference, you are doing a vast number of things wrong.

I don't think the parent implied it was drastic.

How does it make sense to project that calculation onto another person to begin with? Their time is not yours, and every person values their time differently. It means your statement of them doing a vast number of things wrong must inherently be false, because there is no objective "wrong" there.

The comment is certainly a bit overgeneralized, but it raises some important points.

I've been a "time-peeler" for a large part of my life, and when I stopped being such, I became way more productive. This happened because I started to waste less and less time on things which didn't really matter.

In certain cultures where most of the people watches TV, for hours every day (in average), then you start to see what's wrong with saving 57 seconds.

In addition to that, somebody pointed that the structure is incredibly wasteful. For some reason, there's this widespread vision of sustainability where the responsibility is somebody else's. If this is not accepted in simple things at the bottom, where should it starts from?

In this terms, the comments make sense, although of course, it's not possible to say if it applies to a given person.

With these things in mind, while there are no "objective wrongs", in the big perspective, there are objective foolishnesses, to say the least.

It's less than 60 to clean and fill with water. The water takes longer than the cleaning. Really, if I want to be lazy and dump the grounds in the sink disposal, it would take about 10 seconds to clean.

Automatic coffee machines exist and take no longer than pod machines to make the coffee or to clean up.

They do tend to be more expensive though.

... but every second I am not cleaning my coffee device I can be doing something else.

Like, picking your nose?

At the place I used to work we had one similar (I think Delonghi), except it automatically cleaned the filter. Every so often you would have to empty the tank of used grounds, but other than that it was just a case of finding a cup and pressing the button. It cost about $1000 mind...

I have a de longhi machine. It's our favourite appliance. Pays for itself easily.

http://www.delonghi.com/en-US/products/coffee-and-espresso/c...

Making an espresso with a mostly manual machine is an enjoyable once or twice-daily ritual for me. The flavour is most important, but I actually enjoy the time spent making the coffee. However, each person may value the various aspects of caffeine consumption differently.

If you can afford a Jura, they're just as easy as a Keurig, better tasting, and a much less wasteful. You can use any beans you want, too.

http://www.amazon.com/Jura-13626-Ena-Micro-1/dp/B008RZFQKO/r...

At four cups per day it pays for itself in about two years.

> My time has value

Well, aren't you special? There's no difference in time spent using a standard all-in-one grinder/coffeemaker vs. a Keurig, and the results are going to be better-tasting.

20 mins a week roasting beans (10 mins a batch), and a morning ritual of espresso making and then drinking. Id have it no other way.

Interesting that you view it that way. I also compare my convenience to time, and every time I use a plastic container I think about how it came from peat that was built up over millions of years and took a certain amount of energy and fuel to travel across oceans to reach me in final product form and now I will handle it for approximately 15 seconds and it will proceed to the landfill where it will stay for a few hundred years and outlive my children's children.

Chemex[1] is hard to beat. I recommend it to all of my aspiring coffee-aficionado friends. Easy[2], inexpensive, and very high quality.

1: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/ristretto-chem...

2: http://www.bluebottlecoffee.com/preparation-guides/chemex

Shame about the name -makes me think it's something for the car or to unblock a really stubborn drain.

Just ordered a Chemex for the office today. We're probably gonna take the Keurig and dump it on the New York streets to fend for itself. Not because of this news, just because it's such a hunk of shit.

The new pods (Keurig Vue pods) are recyclable[1]. Also, I don't care too much about my coffee taste, so it does a great job getting my caffeine with coffee flavor, especially when I'm the only person in the house that drinks coffee.

[1] http://www.vuerecycling.com/

You and me both, brother. The coffee infused taste of cream and sweetener and vanilla is what makes my morning.

Thank you for having the honesty to say what I've been ashamed to admit all these years.

Honest question: If you don't care about the coffee taste, why not drink a glass of water and pop a caffeine pill?

Or Coke (and a caffeine pill), or whatever you prefer. Bad coffee is a perplexing choice.

Thermogenic diet pills are crap for direct weightloss but they are effectively an energy drink in pill form without the water or sugar.

Well, I partially like the taste of Keurig coffee. I can drink keurig coffee, or fancy coffee shop coffee and they end up tasting pretty close to the same for me. I like having a hot beverage with a bit of flavor, but I'm not all that picky about the flavor.

While my instinct is to agree with you, I suspect the waste and emissions from producing and transporting the coffee greatly outweigh those from the half-ounce plastic container .

I think Keurig coffee is terrible, so I've never seen one of the reusable pods. But what's the point, if you are going reusable isn't it just as easy to make a normal cup of coffee?

I've only seen 1 legitimate use for a Keurig machine. My company's office used to be on the 9th floor of a very old building (built in 1914). The plumbing is subpar and our office had no sink, despite being otherwise very nice. Having a regular coffee maker would mean cleaning it in the only restroom on our floor, which was a women's room. So we got a keurig.

Exactly. We have no sink or restroom on our "floor." (It's a floor between the first and second floors of an old warehouse.) They have a Keurig and bring gallon jugs of water. To clean a regular coffee maker would mean walking down the stairs and halfway across the building.

Along the same lines, I've seen a lot of touring light & sound techs put a coffee pod machine in their tool roadcase, so they can have good coffee right by the stage / mix position.

Keurig coffee is terrible. It violates two of the most important principles of making good coffee: time and pressure. Making good coffee in 3 seconds with a ton of pressure that destroys the bean is impossible. 10 seconds of extraction at the pressure that Keurig does it at will only ever yield flavors of "burnt" and "chocolatey-ish-I-think?"

And for the rest of us that are not coffee snobs, the Keurig is a great way to get a consistently good cup of coffee without wasting time and effort that could be better spent doing something else.

A consistently mediocre cup of coffee. I drink it every day, but it doesn't fool me into thinking it's good coffee.

Actually, by the time I put in my creamer and sugar it tastes damned good. The thing is, taste is completely subjective. I couldn't give a rat's about all the subtleties of coffee. Same for wine. I want something that tastes fine to my unsophisticated palate and I want it with minimal fuss.

This actually reminded me of a friend of my father. This friend was a chef at some over-the-top fancy (or in my book, prissy) restaurants in his heyday. Anyway he pretty much lost the ability to just eat and enjoy food because he would constantly judge it. If I recall, he would generally just eat some bread and some cured meat for most of his meals. I honestly imagine he would jump over a chance to have Soylent. My thought on the matter is that if I ever get my head that far up my ass that I can't enjoy something that tastes good because of some stupid ideal of what something "should" be, well then I've seriously screwed myself over.

I've never heard this "pressure destroys the bean" theory.

Are you claiming all espresso is burnt or chocolatey?

Espresso machines are designed much differently and as accordingly they are several hundred to several thousand dollars. Really you're looking at $1000 and up for a decent espresso machine in my opinion. And don't even get me started on the amount of skill it requires to pull good espresso shots consistently. Between grind size, tamp, the bean and altitude you have a lot to deal with.

It's because it is also linked to temperature, the higher your pressure the higher your boiling point. It also effects how fast the fluid travels through the ground coffee which effects not just how strong it is but also can have an effect on the balance of what has diffused from the ground and various other characteristics.

There's a lot that can go into making a good cup of coffee. New Zealand (where I'm from) has one of the higher coffee shops per capita in the world (mostly non chain) and you may be surprised how much a coffee can change from barista to barista even using the same beans in the same shop. If you're spending the money every day on that little moment of luxury you can notice the difference. (Whether or not it's suffering from the same biases in experience as expensive wine can I'll leave for someone else to speak on).

Yes! The one with the tattoos always makes the best coffee. If 2 have tattoos, the grumpy one does it better. Once you do your own espresso for a while it become a ritual such that extraction can be very consistent.

I don't know about the other folks hanging around these parts, but I'll go along with that claim. It's also caffeine deficient.

While I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate given that I don't like Keurig coffee much, your numbers are so far off that you're being kind of unfair. It takes about 35 seconds to brew an eight-ounce cup of coffee, not ten seconds (or three!), and AFAIK only uses about 1.5 bars of pressure, hardly enough to "destroy the bean." This isn't that far off from the speed and pressure that an Aeropress brews with, and it's really a fairly comparable method.

"But (nearly) everybody loves the Aeropress! It can't be comparable!"

I'd argue the Keurig's weak spot is not the brewing methodology, it's the coffee itself. The K-Cups are sealed with nitrogen and do their best to stay fresh, but no matter how many tricks you use to try and preserve the flavor of coffee that was ground three months before you brew it, it's going to take a massive quality hit -- and y weren't starting with beans that would bowl a coffee snob over in the first place. When I actually used the correct amount of fresh ground coffee from a good roaster, though, it produced a surprisingly good cup of coffee. And I've cut open a K-Cup and brewed the coffee within using a French Press; what came out tasted, well, a lot like what you'd expect out of a Keurig, just s slightly grittier.

(Then the pump broke and I bought a Chemex and lived happily ever after. The end.)

I actually don't like aeropress either. I found it convenient to use early on in my coffee obsession days but I find it has several flaws. The two biggest in my opinion are the filter actually being too good at filtering and the body of the aeropress dissipating heat poorly.

I use the Chemex when we have company over, it's the best combination of quantity and quality that I have found so far. As for one to two servings, I swear by the Kalita Wave[0]

0 - http://kalita-usa.com/wave_series.html

I do like the Aeropress, although it took me a while to decide that. My quibble with it was that I tend to brew twelve-ounce cups and it really doesn't seem to be that good at that. (And I think I know what you mean about the filter.)

I've heard good things about the Kalita Wave, but I'm not sure I want to add another coffee brewing device to the collection at this point. :)

I have a Keurig but buy my "pods" from various other sources which are cheaper. I think they taste good in general and are very consistent and quick to make.

Other than the 2 reasons you mentioned, why else would you dissuade someone from buying one? I own one and don't mind the coffee. I agree with the garbage aspect, but for me I'd either buy a coffee everyday, or make one in the Keurig with a reusable cup. Equivalent waste in my mind (for my situation)

They appear to have the tendency to fail at around 18 months, even if they undergo routine, recommended maintenance.

Got a Keurig for my wife as a Christmas present three years ago. Generated about 10 cups of coffee per week, and was very happy with the product. Performed the de-scaling maintenance regularly....still broke down after about a year and a half. Went online to see how to repair it, and wasn't encouraged by the number of similar stories.

I see. It's bad, but when I read "fail around 18 months" I think to myself "I only paid $60 for my Keurig, 18 months sounds pretty good."

I guess the manufacturing giants have succeeded in making us believe electronic consumer goods shouldn't last long.

Wow, I feel like a lucky man! I bought one of the low-end models for ~$110 3 years ago, have used it making 8-10 cups a day between my wife and me with the re-usable plastic cups, and it's still going strong!

Waste from a traditional coffee maker is biodegradable or compostable (paper filter, coffee grinds). Coffee pods combine that with foil and plastic, to make it practically impossible to separate and dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner.

I understand the concept of cheap/fast/good - pick any 2; but K-cups are only one (fast.) The cost per cup is significantly more than traditional brewing and I find the output to be undrinkable. There are better solutions. I have a drip coffee maker that brews into a travel mug in about 5 minutes. Are you sure that the saved 4 minutes is worth the extra money and poor flavor?

2/3 of those are subjective and in reality for me personally, the Keurig meets 3/3.

"Good" - Keurig coffee is good enough for me. I don't think I have the palate to discern the difference between my K-cup and the $7/cup coffee in the high end cafes.

"Cheap" - I don't have the time to prepare drip coffee in the morning (or prepare the night before) so for me it's either Kcup or purchase at work. So Keurig is the cheapest option for me.

I have to second the cheap. I can either make a full pot of coffee for ~$2-3/pot or I can make a single cup for ~$.75/cup. I understand it might not be the best bang for my buck but I'm only interested in drinking one cup so it's pretty cost effective in my eyes.

Keurig machines do have reusable pods.

For people whose main complaint is watery coffee, but are not opposed to pod systems in general, try Nespresso. I find them a lot better than the coffee I have had from Keurig and Starbucks machines.

The coffee is pretty good -- better than most coffee shops, but not as good as a great one. Apparently they are actually used by a lot of restaurants when you order a coffee.

I have a Lavazza machine from AEG. The coffee is amazing, so the pods don't bother me anymore than my printer cartridges that I can only buy from Epson. It's a hoop I jump through because the perceived value obtained is worth it.

Conversely, I drive a 3.0 CSL because I won't drive something with a chip in it that I can't control.

M3 CSL? Jesus you have my dream car.

Unless you have an e9. If that's the case, my jealousy just went through the roof.

It's an E9. It's one of the 500 right-hand drive variants exported to the UK so has the stock E9 bumpers (pity) and soundproofing (happily).

I just use ground coffee in the cup-sized filter. My wife and I wake up at different times so this prevents wasted coffee without the pods.

to something that doesn't need to generate any waste.

What do you consider used coffee grounds? Product?

Yes - they make great compost.

In Spain a company is using them to make a kit for having your own mushrooms at home and then reuse it (again) as compost : http://www.resetea.es/#!el-kit/cgmn (sorry only in spanish and the google translate wasn't working)

Used coffee grounds are great compost, and are good as a scouring agent for pots and pans or to scrub off dead skin and stronger odors (garlic, onion) from your hands. Out of everything that ends up in your trash can, they're one of the last things to truly be "waste".

Mine doesn't come out watery.

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