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Comment by gnoway | Hacker News Reader

I'm a 2-3x a year coffee drinker. Are these machines radically more convenient than the alternatives?

My folks manage to get by with one of those machines where you put the grounds in a basket, fill the water reservoir, put your mug under the spout and push the button. The machine is cheap, it looks like it's about the same amount of work to use as the Keurig machine and you get biodegradable paper + grounds afterwards instead of a plastic cup. And you can put in however much of whatever kind of coffee you want.

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"Are these machines radically more convenient than the alternatives?"

Yes. Drop the capsule in the machine, press the button, come back a minute later. A noticeable difference in effort when you drink a lot of coffee.

Slightly less convenient than instant granules, but radically better tasting than instant granules. It's generally not quite as good as traditionally-made espresso coffee, but it takes a lot less effort too.

All in all, it's a good benefit for very very little effort. And some capsule manufacturers do at least offer capsule recycling.

They're both pretty easy, but I can make a cup from a Keurig while holding my baby in under a minute.

The traditional machine takes two hands to set up, and 10 minutes to drip.

> while holding my baby

Hmmm, that's a great standard to test UX against.

I drink a pint of coffee a day, brewed using a French press (spoon freshly-ground coffee into a tall glass pot; add boiling water; press down on a lever that pushes the grounds to the bottom using a wire mesh filter attached to a spindle; pour and enjoy). I love making my own coffee and can more or less do it in my sleep - an essential prerequisite given my preference for a bucket of the stuff first thing in the morning :)

But - most people don't want to drink as much coffee at a single sitting as I like to, so small coffee pods sort of make sense for them. Also, it took me many years to find my recipe for a 'perfect' cup of coffee, with the right strength and so on. I'm picky; if I have a 'bad' cup of coffee I'd rather dump it in the trash and make another or even go without than drink it, and buy a pre-made cup of coffee over the counter is often a disappointment (I'm looking at you, Philz coffee). I easily understand why people who find something they like that comes out of a pod want to just stick with it instead of spending years developing their own recipe for the perfect cup.

I'm a huge coffee fan and I love my coffee. They are significantly quicker than the alternatives because they make a single cup at a time and take less time to make that cup than a coffee maker would. The quality of K-Cup coffee is trash though. I have yet to find a remotely drinkable brand that I enjoy. I still pack my own reusable K-Cup with my own beans.

It's less convenient than a super-automatic, I think, which it sounds like you're referring to.

I have a Jura Micro 9 [1] (bigger brother to the Micro 1 [2]), and it's literally just the button of a button, even to make a latte. They're both amazing, the closest to what I imagine you'd get if Apple had made espresso machines.

It grinds and steams, has lots of easily-changed adjustments, and the only regular maintenance is emptying the grounds, which it will tell you to do when required, and descaling every year or so. No waste aside from the bag of coffee beans every now and then.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Jura-Micro-Automatic-Coffee-Center/dp/...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Jura-13626-Ena-Micro-1/dp/B008RZFQKO

> Are these machines radically more convenient than the alternatives?

No. But they are fairly well-designed, and the small convenience of not having to portion out your coffee yourself seems enough to lead to huge sales.

Personally, I'm a french press kind of person who likes to take his time with his loose-leaf tea.

I think Keurigs are useful in an office environment, where there is limited water available to make coffee and clean up.

Other than that they seem to be sold because of the hype/convenience factor.

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