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Coffee Pods Are Evil

Evil you say. There are so many reasons why. Here are just a few to get started.

Scientist replacing a coffee pod in a coffee machine.
Scientist replacing a coffee pod in a coffee machine.

First, I must admit that Ive never been a fan of coffee pods or the contraptions that use them. Pod made coffee taste’s like dish-water, only drinkable with plenteous amounts of cream and sugar.

In the beginning… twenty something years ago, I began my relationship with coffee through the daily ritual of microwaving a cup of disgusting tap water and adding a few teaspoons of instant coffee to it. I simply didn’t know any better.

Then I attended a wedding of a friend. This friend’s parents were Italian of descent. Tired from working late the night before, I had a cup of coffee a the celebration. From the moment I took that first sip, my relationship with java has ever changed.

It was this simple cup of coffee with milk which changed the coffee experience for me forever. Though the drink was small, its flavor was anything but. Dark, rich and gloriously delicious, the taste lingered long after each sip was done.

I can honestly see the convenience of using pods, but ultimately life’s too short to drink bad coffee especially when you can easily create a high-quality cup-of-joe right at home, and for far less money. If you’re attached to your Keurig, Nespresso or K-Cup brew, here’s a breakdown of why you should kick your sad habit post haste.

Freshness is the key

Like any nutrient rich, edible  substance, coffee has a certain shelf life. Roasted coffee beans in particular become stale in short order when exposed to oxygen. Freshly-roasted coffee should ideally be consumed within two weeks, three max, of its roast date. That’s why premium brands print the roast date of their beans right on the bag, and less forthright ones merely disclose a sell-by or best-by date.

Once ground, its freshness is even more fleeting. Think in terms of  hours, not days, where you’re losing those tasty organic compounds. The situation worsens the finer you grind coffee beans due to the increased surface area and greater exposure to air. Experienced roasters and baristas have told me that the finely ground coffee used for espresso loses its potential for greatness in just 30 minutes.

A cup of delicious espresso next to a Cappuccino.
Nothing like a cappuccino to wash down your espresso.

All of these things are challenging  hurdles for pod manufacturers  to overcome and brew java with exceptional taste. Keurig, Starbucks and others do their best to offset these physical realities. Common tactics are to top off pods with Nitrogen gas to put a lid on oxidation, or sealing the container with an extra layer of foil. Despite those efforts, open Starbucks Verismo, Green Mountain K-Cups and even pods from prepackaged beverage company Touch, and you’ll often finds grounds that look and smell anything but fresh.

Please, more coffee is always better

Being a coffee addict, the stronger the brew in my cup the better. Each single mug of drip or pour-over coffee I make consumes roughly 0.7 ounces (20 grams) of grounds per 8 to 12 ounces (337 to 355 mL) water. That’s the same ratio I rely on whether brewing at home with my $38 Kalita Wave or in the lab with the $16 Oxo Good Grips Pour-Over. Unfortunately not only do consumer coffee pods contain stale grounds, their coffee dose is much too weak. Keurig K-Cups contain only about 0.25 ounces (7.1 grams) of ground coffee.

Starbuck’s weak coffee is legendary. Their true following is simply a gang of sugar addicts who really don’t like the taste of real coffee. For instance, Starbuck’s Verismo espresso pods contain slightly more (0.26 ounce, 7.4 grams). Starbucks has added more coffee to its Verismo Pike Place (dish water) pods ( 0.37 ounce, 10.5 grams) which it designed to brew 12 ounce cups. That’s a decent amount of coffee grounds, but sadly it doesn’t translate into a good cup of coffee. Both Keurig K-Cup and Verismo Pikes Place coffees consistently come out weak and watery. Most coffee critics refer to it as dish water.

It’s not just a problem of personal taste,  either. Using the refractometer from my Zero Water purifier, I measured both these pod coffees to determine  their total dissolved solids (TDS) percentage. TDS percentages for liquid coffee (black) provide a handy indication of how much material has been extracted from coffee grounds and entered solution. The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) maintains the ideal TDS for drip coffee is between 1.2 and 1.4 percent TDS.

A overhead view of a delicious cup of coffee.
Coffee. The true elixir of life!

To put things in context, I’ve logged McDonald’s coffee at around 0.8 percent TDS. Starbucks Pike Place drip came in at a slightly higher 0.9 percent TDS while I recorded Dunkin’ Donuts brew a 1 percent TDS. One of the best single cup coffee brewers I’ve used personally though, the previously mentioned Oxo Good Grips Pour-Over, created outstandingly tasty drinks with TDS numbers hovering around the 1.5 percent mark. The gadget also used my humble Costco Colombian Suprema test beans (ground fresh at medium coarseness through a burr grinder).


I also enjoyed excellent results with the Bonavita BV1900TS coffee maker. The machine consistently brewed whole 40 ounce (1.2 L) pots within the SCAA’s ideal range (1.28 percent TDS). By comparison, all of the pod coffees I’ve analyzed came in with a low TDS percentage of 0.8 percent.

Coffee is life!

Even if you don’t mind the taste of pod coffee, buying into the pods system is also expensive. Amazon will sell you a 50-count pack of coffee pods for $28, or 56 cents per serving. Starbucks Verismo pods costs even more, $10 to $12 per 12-pack, which comes to 83 cents to $1 per drink. You’re much better off picking up a 3 pound bag ($16) at my local grocery which supplies enough for 69 cups at 23 cents a pop.

The real hidden cost of pods though is the waste you’ll help create. Whether it’s plastic like Starbucks Verismo and Keurig K-Cup pods, or aluminum Nespresso coffee inserts, disposing of spent capsules isn’t easy. Both Keurig K-Cups and Starbucks Verismo casings are not biodegradable nor can they be recycled.

You do have the option of bagging spent Nespresso Pods then shipping them yourself to a recycling facility. That’s a tall order to ask of any consumer, let alone one looking for convenience. Now consider the staggering 9.8 billion pods sold in 2015 — a massive amount of plastic and metal for the poor Earth to swallow, or choke on.

Coffee pods are evil.
Coffee pods are evil.

True coffee aficionados will always abandon the pod. Period.

Still, I get it. Coffee pods are convenient, just pop one into your machine, hit the button and boom — instant gratification. There’s a big price both you and the whole world pays, however, for your level of laziness. Sure, you may gain back a few minutes of time each day otherwise spent manually preparing your morning coffee. Unfortunately we and everyone else on the planet are stuck with your pod remnants for hundreds of years, even a millennia.

If coffee made from these silly pods was really that good I might understand its attraction, but it’s not. In fact coffee made from pods is awful. Period!

The final nail reason to eschew coffee pods is the price which over time becomes quite expensive. Compared to buying your own beans and grinding them yourself at home, the cost of pod coffee is akin to thievery. The rich aroma and savory flavor of freshly-roasted, ground and brewed coffee exceeds anything that could ever come from inside a pod. Coffee made the right way is truly the elixir of life. Wake up and smell the coffee, not the pods.

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