08 2 / 2012
Well, like all Americans… fast!
A NY Times article on single-serve coffee seems to be making the rounds lately. I think it’s mostly sensationalism.
The point of the article is how much consumers are actually paying per pound of coffee ($50+) when going down that K-Cup river of swill. They go on to state the obvious (“you’re paying for convenience”), and explain why the K-Cup thing works with modern consumers (“thinking about coffee pricing in cups”).
Thank you professor. I never would have thought of that.
I think the article could have been written in 2 sentences: K-Cups average out to $50 per pound of coffee, which is comparatively very expensive. People buy them because the average is around $1 per cup, and they are hyper convenient.
Anyway, I don’t think us coffee snobs are going to make a dent in K-Cup usage with these kind of facts. If you live in the United Staes, you know people are fine paying for convenience, particularly at $1 per cup. I haven’t done any extensive research, but from my experience with K-Cup drinkers, as long as it’s potable and caffeinated, they don’t really give a shit how it tastes.
I’d say the angle to take is environmental impact. People are pretty prone to feeling bad about that these days.
As a side note, this line from theKitchn is hilarious:
“The New York Times investigated popular single-serve coffee brewers and found that it was well within the norm to be paying more than $50 per pound of coffee.”
So, by “investigated”, you mean did math for almost a full two minutes? On second thought, “investigated” does have a pretty low bar to entry these days, so maybe that quote is accurate.
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07 3 / 2011
So What’s the Deal With the Coffee Market?
No better way to learn than through comics. (via MadCap)
26 2 / 2011
Stumptown released this wonderful video showing a little about what life is like for coffee producers in Kenya.
Great Kenyan coffees are among the most prized on Earth and this video offers a tiny glimpse into what makes them so. Huge elevation, taylor made coffee varieties and unsurpassed attention to detail are a few of the many things that make the great Kenyas so awe inspiring.
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