Stainless or plastic?

Foil lids or clip on?

Has anybody tried them? How long will coffee last once in a pod as I’m guessing they aren’t airtight.

Doesn’t that mean you have to clean and refill the pods? Might as well use a proper coffee pot at that stage, surely?

…..If I can’t have a proper cup of coffee
In a proper copper coffee pot,
I’ll have a cup of tea!

Are they now a thing – that’s hilarious!

I prefer an espresso based drink over a cafetière, and don’t really want to move into full on coffee machines. Plus I always take a mini machine away on holidays.

This is quite good:

I also use these – not re-useable, but do go on the compost heap.

Not quite sure why it’s hilarious? Simple coffee making system, but use your own coffee & less waste of pods.

You sound like someone who needs to try an aeropress then. Aeropress coffee is not espresso but then again neither was an Nespresso – not even close. But an aeropress will make you a good strong short coffee if that is your thing and is very mess and faff free.

Not quite sure why it’s hilarious? Simple coffee making system, but use your own coffee & less waste of pods.

To explain. Nespresso was a crap system that makes mediocre coffee with a huge environmental impact. Their only redeeming feature was the faff free nature. To make reusable pods to overcome the environmental issue you now just have a machine that is just much faff as other systems but makes worse coffee. Hilarious!

Ahh, good stuff.  A thread that allows people to feel superior about the way another person likes their coffee.  Not had one of these in ages*.

*Probably not true.

If you can’t get / don’t want the faff of a proper Espresso machine and grinder (or insanely expensive bean to cup that actually works and isn’t a faff to clean). Second best thing…

Actually you still want a grinder and fresh beans really but you can get away with pre-ground fresh from decent suppliers and still vastly cheaper and immensely less wasteful than pods.

I have a Nespresso machine and really like the convenience and the coffee. Am I a terrible person?

I have a Nespresso machine and really like the convenience and the coffee. Am I a terrible person?

No, but I worry about your taste buds.

And your conscience 🙂

I have a Nespresso machine and really like the convenience and the coffee. Am I a terrible person?

If you are then so am I..

Time to resurrect “SavingThePlanetTrackWorld” thread.  I’m on the case.

Foill nespresso capsules which can be recycled FTW

(or insanely expensive bean to cup that actually works and isn’t a faff to clean).

The Delonghi Magnificas are really rather good.

I asked a friend to make me one of these

3D printed Nespresso capsule tool

No idea why there isn’t an official product that can do this, and a shame that most 3rd party capsules are plastic.

and a shame that most 3rd party capsules are plastic.

Some are moving away from plastic, there were at least 2 brands in Tesco the other day selling aluminium capsules.

Some are moving away from plastic, there were at least 2 brands in Tesco the other day selling aluminium capsules.

I doubt that. Most ‘aluminium’ looking pods are made of a laminate of plastic and aluminium that make them very hard to recycle. I know Nespresso have a returns scheme but any put through a council facility (regardless of if you put them in your recycled or general waste bin) will end up in landfill. Sneakily some will be branded as recyclable which is technically correct but in reality won’t happen as facility to do so is rare and it’s not cost effective regardless.

technicallyinept – trying to work out what the point is in that. Is it to make reusable capsules? Or so you can compost the used grinds and then send the aluminium laminate off to landfill?

Foill nespresso capsules which can be recycled FTW

How is it in this day and age that people STILL don’t understand that making something thats unnecessary is bad for the environment recycleable does not make it good for the environment!

Recycling is bad for the environment. It is only a way of reclaiming resources and reducing the amount of stuff we put in the ground.

Weird: posted a reply in the wrong thread.

I like coffee.

How is it in this day and age that people STILL don’t understand that making something thats unnecessary is bad for the environment recycleable does not make it good for the environment!

I never said it was good for the environment, just hinted that it was a lower (environmental) cost option.

We should all just drink water – preferably with our hands out of the local stream (just don’t destroy any biodiversity) by stepping on it to get there.

EDIT: And do we understand the full carbon footprint of one sort of coffee making over another?

Percol pods are compostable

I’ve had an aeropress and a bean to cup machine (with fancy fresh roasted beans) and still prefer the Nespresso (for taste as well as convenience). I’m not saying it’s better coffee but for some people it’s tastes as good/better (and there’s a huge variety so if you just sample one or two and don’t like it it’s a bit short-sighted to write the whole thing off), so stop being ridiculous snobs…

I’m a supertaster but I like nespresso – possibly cos us supertasters can’t tolerate the bitter taste of lots of other coffees and foods that others can’t even notice?  And we re-cycle our capsules.

I do wonder how many miles those moaning about the environment do in their cars, and how many times a year they jump on aeroplanes?

Recycling is bad for the environment. It is only a way of reclaiming resources and reducing the amount of stuff we put in the ground.

Worse is the a large amount of recyclable stuff isn’t actually recycled even if you stick it in the recycling bin. Ends up in landfill, exported to end up in landfill somewhere else, or gets incinerated.

Reduce packaging. Less wasteful crap just for convenience. Unfortunately we are a convenience and disposable society and old habits die hard.

I’m a supertaster but I like nespresso – possibly cos us supertasters can’t tolerate the bitter taste of lots of other coffees and foods that others can’t even notice?  And we re-cycle our capsules.

I do wonder how many miles those moaning about the environment do in their cars, and how many times a year they jump on aeroplanes?

Bad coffee is bitter. As mentioned above most supermarket beans and grounds are very highly roasted and do (in general) make very bitter coffee. As does too much heat with a mocka pot etc. But it is possible to make non bitter coffee with other methods pretty easily. Or try mellow birds 😉

How do you recycle your pods out of interest?

I understand – in the scheme of things pods are relatively low on the monster sin scale but it is an easy one to fix and totally unnecessary and avoidable resource waste. I was amused by the lady at the self checkout the other day chuntering away to her daughter about the wasteful carrier bags others were using loading up her pods into her bag for life.

Got some of these: https://www.edenproject.com/media/2018/03/edens-100-per-cent-compostable-coffee-capsules-help-beat-plastic-pollution

from waitrose over the weekend.

Seem good to me and only a quid more than own brand plastic ones.

I’m a supertaster but I like nespresso – possibly cos us supertasters can’t tolerate the bitter taste of lots of other coffees and foods that others can’t even notice?

Going off-topic slightly, but brewing with boiling water will make coffee bitter, as will forcing steam through rather than water (eg, leaving a percolator on the heat after all the water has been pushed through).  Nespresso avoids both of these problems by controlling the temperature and flow of water.  It might be that issues you’ve had with other brewing methods previously is simply down to technique?

How is it in this day and age that people STILL don’t understand that making something thats unnecessary is bad for the environment recycleable does not make it good for the environment!

I never said it was good for the environment, just hinted that it was a lower (environmental) cost option.

We should all just drink water – preferably with our hands out of the local stream (just don’t destroy any biodiversity) by stepping on it to get there.

EDIT: And do we understand the full carbon footprint of one sort of coffee making over another?

Well coffee is unnecessary ….

However if we are going to drink it anyway ….

Carbon footprint’s and recycling are both very dubious way’s of measuring environmental impact.

Both of these are simply panacea’s…. sold by big business. Recycling allows big companies to cause damage whilst claiming not to… both through pollution and passing the buck… sticking a “can be recycled” badge on doesn’t mean that it will be not that the process used won’t cause more damage than no recycling or simply reusing.

Bad coffee is bitter. As mentioned above most supermarket beans and grounds are very highly roasted and do (in general) make very bitter coffee.

That is to disguise the “bad” beans….

Bad beans (Robusta) means cutting down forests… whereas Arabica needs the cover …

Bad coffee is bitter…

That is to disguise the “bad” beans….

Nonsense.

Robusta and Arabica aren’t interchangeable as they’re suitable for growing at different altitudes amongst other things e.g. you can’t grow Robusta in Columbia because the altitude isn’t suitable (it only grows below 600m). You can and do get dark roasted coffee from Columbia, it’s nothing to do with hiding robusta vs acentuating the arabica. All coffee production in Columbia is not ethically good, all the coffee isn’t good either. Most of the locals drink coffee roasted to a darkness even your most committed Italian espresso drinker would baulk at.

Bitter coffee is better suited to quicker brew methods like espresso or aeropress where the acidity of light roasts tends to get highlighted too much. Less bitter coffee is better suited to slower brew methods like pour over which give a more complex but rounded flavour profile and which often produce a dusty and or burnt flavour from bitter beans

Bitter coffee tends to be roasted dark and sweeter coffee tends to be roasted light, dark roasts stand up to higher brew temperatures and pressure better, and it accentuates the bitter more earthy rich flavours better. Light roasts favour complex floral, fruity and citrus flavours.

The bitter taste associated with robusta is a result of the higher caffeine content not the roast. Good robusta helps make a good espresso, it’s the source of the “chewy” rubbery flavour, it’s also the best way of achieving a good crema. A good crema from arabica needs those beans to be roasted darker, which isn’t necessarily good. 100% arabica is marketable though so is desirable to have a bad roast of arabica than a good roast of an appropriate blend.

A pure arabica coffee will sometimes taste burnt rather than bitter when dark roasted as it is burnt, nothing to do with hiding the robusta content, quite the opposite.

It’s not the sign of bad coffee it’s, at best, the sign of a market wanting 100% arabica and espresso meaning the coffee has to be roasted beyond its best profile in order to give the appearance of an espresso when prepared. At worst it’s the sign of bad roasting but in a commercial basis that’s rare and qc should pick it up. Most “bad” roasts are deliberately that way because that’s the desired end product as there is a market for it, some people like it some don’t. (most customers do as that’s what coffee historically tastes like so is what they want).

The idea there is a “right and wrong” type of coffee is daft, it’s entirely subjective, and it’s far from impossible to produce any of the 100s of varietals responsibly, nor is it difficult to produce any of them in a hugely unethical way.

In regard to the op,

Stainless or plastic?      Stainless if you make long coffees, either for short as plastic can behave badly on occasion.

Foil lids or clip on?         I’d imagine the foils are replaced every time, clip on maybe not? The foil will be near as unrecyclable as it’ll be a laminate. On those guesses clip on of the two.

How long will coffee last once in a pod as I’m guessing they aren’t airtight.        Fill them to use ideally. Depending how fussy you are, in open air, coffee beans are good for a several hours after roasting, ground for less than an hour after grinding. In practice a few days and a few hours aren’t likely to be noticed by most people. Both beans and ground keep fine in airtight containers in the freezer. For ground particularly use a few small containers and pack tightly. If you’re filling pods on mass, pack them into batches and freeze in airtight containers of a couple of days of pods. I’ve no idea whether you’ll need to bring the pods to room temp before making your coffee, I’d hazzard you will due to the brew temp and pressure being low but it’s a more guess than education. You’ll find out the first time you make one.

Personally I’d be looking at other ways to make my coffee, but that’s because I drink enough of it to warrant beans and grinders and i don’t like the output of the various pod machines I’ve tried enough to warrant buying one. I assume the opposite is true of you so a reusable pod is ethically better and will alow you to use a broader selection of coffee, both of which are a good thing.

I’d be dubious about the longevity of the pods mind and depending on the manufacturing process, material volumes etc it’s entirely possible 5 uses per pod is much “worse” than 5 single use ones. (Plastic ones are likely less durable, but production wise 100 single use plastic ones are probably more environmentally sound than using a metal one 100 times, equally there’s a lot more waste in 5 plastic ones than one metal.)

Thanks – all sounds reasonable. I think I’ll get some stainless ones then with clip lids & get an airtight container for the freezer. I hoped I’d get a sensible answer after the inevitable slagging.

had a quick look (on Amazon) and the metal ones with lids don’t get great reviews. A lot of the negatives focus on leaking/lack of crema (which would be a deal-breaker for me lol). Interesting though. There are some plastic ones that get ok reviews, might give them a go.

The coffee snobbery on this thread reminds me of the ‘you should just bake your own with your bare hands’ breadmaker threads of old.

I assume the self-righteous on this thread also forage for their food, wash their clothes by hand (or in a river) and don’t own cars.

As for Nespresso machines, they’re well handy for a quick (and relatively quiet) pick me up at 5am before heading out for a ride.

“hilarious!”

I’d advise against freezing your coffee bean/grounds.

I’d advise against freezing your coffee bean/grounds.

Seen this from the coffee snob forums with some stuff about even if you do, have to grind and use fast as the condensation on the beans… blah, blah, blah.

Been freezing a pack of beans for ages and perfectly fine (and really rather nice). Okay I’m comparing against leaving a pack open and not consuming the whole lot within a day to avoid going stale, but that much coffee will have me in hospital again 😉

https://www.home-barista.com/store-coffee-in-freezer-results.html

Not exactly peer reviewed but accesible enough and broadly acknowledged by coffee snobs the web over.

The nca is perfectly accepting of freezing for long term storage, so long as you don’t repeat freeze thaw etc and actually use something air tight. Opaque container at room temp is great if you’re emptying it every week or so but not really good for the occasional drinker as the result is continual exposure.

http://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Store-Coffee

Or if you want something a bit more sciencey there’s this study in nature though arguably the “storing your coffee in liquid nitrogen produces a more consistent resulting grind quality than storing at room temp” conclusion isn’t exactly useful for your average home owner. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep24483

Yes if you’re going through a pound of fresh roast a week from a decent roaster, it might, maybe, possibly, reduce the quality of the coffee. For average Joe it keeps better than occasionally in and out of a canister in the kitchen, its convenient and better than binning loads of coffee as its stale.

It’s quite possibly not the right thing to keep coffee in the freezer but it’s certainly not the wrong thing to do either.