Kill the K-Cup...

Before it Kills Our Planet

Have you seen the brilliant video?

http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/02/05/video-kill-k-cup-kills-planet/

Yeah, I'm not a fan of those.  A friend of mine LOVES his keurig, so after a bit of arguing, he found these.

Rozax and everyone, the better single-cup solution seems to be those old-school filter apparatuses that fit atop a single cup. According to the following link from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, upwards of 100 people have been treated for serious burns caused by the Keurig machines: http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2015/Keurig-Recalls-MINI-Plus-Brewing-Systems/

I have a small Bodum coffee press, which is perfect for making a single (large) mug of coffee. No plastic involved, and since I use a stove-top kettle on a gas stove, there is also no electricity used. A lot of the keurig and similar coffee brewers keep the water hot, so they use power all the time. Plus I think the coffee tastes much better from my press.

This one really baffled me as I had no idea what a K-cup is nor what anybody was talking about until I did some digging.

We make coffee using the thing with a plunger in it (is that what you call a coffee press, NorthernStar? It's called "cafetière" in UK, I believe), and like >4 NorthernStar: we have a small one that makes a single cup of coffee as well as a larger one which makes several cups when full (but you don't have to fill it if you want less cups).

We also often drink coffee with Italian priests who use the old-fashioned espresso percolator on a gas stove. Again they have small ones which just make one cup, and bigger ones for several cups.

It's called a French Press here. Why is using natural gas good compared to using electricity?

Hi jjwilson61, some other threads in this group discuss a very popular preference here for using standalone (on site) forms of electricity, if at all, the assumption being that small is beautiful when it comes to energy use to support sustainable living. Standalone use of electricity is best done only as needed, unless your budget is quite vast.

For cooking indoors, propane-fuelled stoves are currently common. (Natural gas pipelines often do not serve rural communities where sustainable homes are located.) The new induction stoves can use site-generated electric power, but induction stoves create a heavy magnetic field, for which safety data is currently unavailable. (PS: Propane is a similar product to natural gas.)

I wondered if those Nespresso things George Clooney hawks are the same, and they seem to be. They apparently have collection points for the capsules but I wonder how many people would go to the trouble of dropping them off rather then simply throwing them in the trash.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/jul/17/george-clooney-nespresso...

The alternative glass coffee makers mentioned seem much more environmentally friendly and convenient, all you need is hot water, and plunger ground coffee. We call them french presses here too (NZ) or simply coffee plungers. I just got another Bodum one for my husband after his first one cracked, he makes a full jug with 5 cups worth of coffee but it could just make one if you wanted.

I also got him this cool thing mug and coffee press in one from thinkgeek, great if you only want one cup: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/eef2/

>6 jjwilson61: - Sorry, my point was not so much that gas is better (or not) than electricity (although I do prefer a gas stove because you don't have to wait for it to heat up or cool down), but that it isn't running all the time, the way many of these coffee makers are.

The way my husband and I typically make coffee is to heat up water, grind the coffee beans, dump them in heated water, then filter with a tea strainer.

Why the man behind Keurig’s coffee pods wishes he’d never invented them (Guardian)

Everyone, here is the website of the new Toddy cold brew coffee system. One of the recent Consumer Reports magazines gave it a preliminary thumbs-up:

http://toddycafe.com/

I am not so a big coffee drinker any longer, but still brew time to time. And I do try cold brew. It brings a lot milder taste from the same coffee beans, my family and I all love. The problems are; you can't incrase the amount you brew at the last moment, and I sometimes forget to set next morning's coffee before bedtime.

Inconclusively, I am using paper filters for both hot and cold brew. My mom used to filter with cloth, but it needs washing afterwards and seems it does not go with water conservation.