The enormous amount of waste? And I question how bio-degradable those cups are, ...

dwaltrip · on Aug 29, 2014

We use [1] at the office. It seems they are only 97% bio-degradable. Does that mean I shouldn't be composting them? And 50 cents is not bad per cup (cheaper than brand name Keurig). Making the coffee yourself (buying grinds or beans), it will still cost you $.25 - $.35 per cup. Pretty small difference IMO.

Now taste is another matter, but I'm not much of connoisseur, so I don't really pay too much attention. I mostly drink for the warmth and the caffeine =)

nucleardog · on Aug 31, 2014

Well, I can get 6lbs of coffee at Costco for $42.99 (price from their website). According to Folgers for 6floz of water (a small cup of coffee) you need 1tbsp of ground coffee. Another site suggests one tbsp of ground coffee would be 4.5-7g. Looks like the coffee pods can brew up to about 12oz.

So per 12oz, coffee beans are going to cost $0.14-$0.22/cup. Since I didn't shop around for prices on the beans, I won't for the k-cups either: the cost per k-cup at Costco seems to be pretty close to ~$0.65/k-cup across the board.

That's at least a 195% increase in cost.

If you're just having the occasional cup of coffee, it's not worth worrying about. At 3 cups a day all year that would be around $500.

If you clear $25/hr after tax, that means you're spending 20 hours at work to pay for the difference. Even if we assume you brew each cup of traditional coffee individually at 2 minutes each to a 1 minute k-cup, you're saving 18.25 hours per year.

Whatever way you cut it, it's seems like it's a net loss to me. And the coffee tastes terrible.

hatfieej · on Aug 29, 2014

You mention Grove Square...they were the worst. Interesting thing about them was to get around the (now expired) filter patents, they used instant coffee rather than using coffee grounds. They were much worse than your standard Keurig.