Like many of you, my morning coffee routine involved popping in a Keurig or Nespresso pod and filling up a thermos on my way to work, these pods cost about 50 cents each on average, average is also the nicest word to describe the coffee in these pods.

If you follow the drip coffee ratio that most roasters suggest of 1:16 to 1:17 (grams of coffee to milliliters of water), your K-cup is designed to make you about 6 fluid ounces of coffee. Yes, most Keurig machines have different size options, but you’re just drinking more diluted coffee when you pick anything larger than the 6 fluid ounce size. The “strong” setting on your Keurig machine just adds an extra 30 seconds to your brew time to try and improve the extraction.

I was curious how much coffee is actually in one of these pods, the answer is 7-12 grams for a K-cup and about 5-6 grams for the small Nespresso pods. For Keurig you’re paying about $1.42 per ounce of coffee (at 10 grams per pod) and $2.58 per ounce of coffee for Nespresso (at 5.5 grams per pod). A quick search will show you that “premium” coffee usually costs about $1 an ounce and local roasters charge about $1-1.50 per ounce of specialty coffee, so about $16-24 a pound. With pods you’re paying about $23-41 per pound of coffee.

The frugal side of me wanted to find a better option. Why am I paying premium prices for stale below average coffee? The most common answer is, convenience. People need to get their coffee and get out the door. You may be saying well it is cheaper than Starbucks and tastes about the same. While we have to give credit to Starbucks for growing the coffee culture in America, Starbucks coffee is not recognized as good coffee in the specialty coffee world. Compare that to coffee you can get at a shop that roasts their own single-origin beans or does made to order pour over and the difference will be huge.

I found an old ekobrew reusable K-cup in my cupboard and bought some pre-ground coffee and started to use that. However, with more reading I learned that you really need to grind your own beans as everything about coffee centers around freshness. You want fresh roasted beans that are freshly ground before you brew.

There are plenty of articles out there talking about the waste generated by these pods, I won’t get into that because so many others already have. I do know some offer recycling programs also, but my main argument against pods is that you are paying premium prices for below average coffee. For less than the amount you spend on pods, you could be getting premium specialty coffee in exchange for a little convenience.

I started researching better ways to make coffee and eventually landed on the pour over method. It sounds like a pain at first, but after some practice I think it is pretty easy with only a few minutes of your attention required. If you don’t have the time for that I’ve written about other methods for single servings and better convenience.

If pods work for you, then keep using them. In talking to friends and family, I noticed so many of them were deliberate about what they purchased and consumed, but when it came to coffee they were paying a lot more for the convenience of pods. Once they realized with a little more effort and less cost, they could get amazing coffee many of them switched over.

Here are some follow-up posts you might find interesting:

• What next? How do I transition off pods?
• What do I need to up my coffee game?
• How/where do I buy good coffee?
• How many scoops of coffee should I be using?

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