K-cup Coffee

Recently a good friend surprised me with the gift of a Keurig coffee maker. Very nice!

For those of you not familiar with the Keurig system, coffee for the Keurig is contained in K-cups – small plastic cups containing a single serving of ground coffee and sealed with an aluminum foil top. It's a great system. The Keurig machine rumbles around a bit, coughs, and pours out freshly brewed coffee in about 90 seconds. There is a large variety of coffee types, flavors, strengths, including decaf. Many teas are available as well. I like the sweet Chai tea latte (sweet being the operative word.) Each morning I select a coffee or tea, depending on my mood, the amount of sunshine, the depth of snow, the work ahead of me, the cleanliness/neatness of my condo, etc. So far, in my cabinet are three regular coffees, one decaf, and one tea.

Being a former, mostly recovered engineer, I calculated the cost of a K-cup versus a regular cup of coffee, brewed from ground premium/gourmet beans (not including the cost of electricity to grind them.)  Depending on K-cup brand and flavor, and where purchased, the K-cup cost per cup ranges from a penny or two up to $0.20 more than my home ground coffee. Essentially, using K-cups can cost (me) about $150 a year. I can deal with it.

Summarizing, K-cups are convenient, offer many choices, do not spill grounds on the kitchen counter like my grinder, require no external filter and seem generally wonderful.

Next time I will write about the somewhat less than wonderful environmental aspect of K-cups, and discuss the dilemma posed.