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Comment by jcampbell1 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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