K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

Coffee-related products / K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

Review: Melitta JavaJig

Yet another player in alternatives to K-Cups market, this one by the century-old German company Melitta.  As the story goes, the company was founded by the inventor of the paper coffee filter. The Melitta Javajig is, in fact, as straightforward, reliable, and effective as one would expect from this well-respected company.

I’ve reviewed other reusable-and-use-your-own-coffee K-Cup replacements. The JavaJig is so simple, easy to use, and easy to clean that you immediately wonder why someone else didn’t immediately come up with this design.

The JavaJig has three BPA-free plastic reusable parts, plus a fluted paper filter that looks like a mini muffin tin liner. You place a filter paper over the upside-down black frame, slip the green outer sleeve over the frame, turn it over, add coffee (Melitta suggests an espresso grind), pop on the cap, and you have a pseudo-K-Cup ready to place in one of the many original style (not Vue) Keurig brewers. You do not need to remove the brewer’s filter assembly as you do with Keurig’s My K-Cup.

After brewing, the coffee and filter can be composted, the other parts rinsed, and you are ready to create another cup. Not only is this nearly foolproof, but it is dead easy to keep clean and there is no hinged lid that might snap off, as has been reported with the ekobrew or Solofill. The package includes two units, and they are inexpensive enough to have spares on hand if you feel lids may go missing.

I was able to get 12 grams of finely ground coffee in the JavaJig with a little tamping, but not packing. This is more than the insufficient 9 grams used in a standard K-Cup. There is space between the bottom of the green filter and the filter paper (thus, it does not get pierced like the bottom of a K-Cup). I tried a little manipulation of the filter to see if I could get it far away enough from the needle not to pierce the paper, but still allow for more coffee. It was too difficult to get the paper to cover the prongs, so grounds would easily leak out. Using a piece of regular coffee filter failed as it was too flimsy. By this time I realized that this amount of farting around spoiled the ease of use of the JavaJig.

Using fine grounds in some other devices causes back-up or overflow, but not in the JavaJig. The finer grounds also allow for more extraction. This is important not only because the older Keurig brewers just don’t have enough room or a long enough brew time for proper flavor development, but because the entire bottom of the JavaJig is the paper filter. Under the pressurized brewing, water goes through the grounds and filter faster than it would in a more enclosed environment, such as in some of the other K-Cup alternatives. I tried the JavaJig with 9 grams of coffee and two filters, with a 6-ounce cup; it worked, but did not slow down the brew time enough to make a difference.

Ergo, the JavaJig makes a cup of coffee comparable in strength and body to a K-Cup or similar substitute. It just suffers from the physical limitations and brewing method of the Keurig brewers themselves.

However, the resulting cup is much cleaner than the alternatives that use metal filters, since the paper filter helps eliminate sludge and small fines (for purists who can taste paper — not that they’d be likely users of this product — the assembled JavaJig and filter can be rinsed before filling with coffee).

The beauty of the JavaJig, and the reason I recommend it over all the other devices I’ve used so far, is its simplicity, cleanliness, and excellent value compared to the others. The starter outfit includes two JavaJigs and 30 filters. The filters are around $0.07 each, versus $0.16 each for the other competitor that uses filters. It can also be used with loose tea with very good results.

Alas, this will likely be my last review of any sort of K-Cup or Keurig brewer alternative. I will post an explanation, as well as a summary, in an upcoming post.

Coffee-related products / K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

Re-purposing used K-Cups

Well-established fact: K-Cups are wasteful, and are difficult to and usually are not recycled. While there are many alternatives to them if you must use a Keurig brewer, some people will continue to use them.

I’ve provided instructions on how to refill used K-Cups; not a truly tasty option in my opinion, but no worse than the original. In that post, I even came up with an unusual use for them once you’ve decided they have no business being filled with coffee again.

I recently came across a post on “Can I Recycle This?” which had many ideas for re-purposing used K-Cups, including tiny freezer Popsicles,  bead storage, and many craft items. If nothing else, the whole site is worth a look for ideas on how to recycle or repurpose just about anything, from eyeglasses to medical tubing.

Coffee-related products / K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

New Keurig brewers, K-Cups won’t fit

Key patents on K-Cups, the single portion packs used in Keurig brewers, are expiring this year. Rather than lose market share to the competition, Keurig is countering by coming out with new brewers. The upcoming “Vue” brewers will offer a wider range of brew sizes and beverage types as well as temperature control and other features. The list price of the Vue V700 brewer is $249.99

Importantly, the Vue brewer is not compatible with K-Cups — they will use new Vue Packs.

On the bright side, the Vue Packs are made of #5 plastic, which can be recycled once the foil lid, inner paper filter, and contents are removed by many recycling programs.

Coffee-related products / K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

K-Cups are now recyclable! Not really.

Update: In early 2016, the New York Times reported on Keurig’s announcement that they would finally be coming out with a K-Cup made of plastic recyclable by typical municipal facilities. But it also pointed out the continued environmentally-negative aspects of K-Cups outlined below, including high energy costs to produce and potentially low consumer cooperation. It did not address problems with the size of the cups jamming sorting machines at recycling facilities, or potential contamination if consumers don’t remove the lids. 

Green Mountain Coffee Roaster’s Keurig division has announced a “recovery” program for their naughty little K-Cups (already incorrectly being referred to in the media as a recycling program). I’ve talked about the waste issue surrounding these single-serve coffee portion packs specifically, as well as posted two ways to re-use them, and three different products that allow you to use the Keurig brewers and avoid the K-Cup dilemma altogether.

In response to the environmental impact of K-Cups, Keurig has launched the Grounds to Grow On program. This sounds like a great idea, but it has some limitations.

  • It is only available in some (22) states. This program is in a testing phase with an intention to go national next year.
  • It is only available for business locations. Only about 10-11% of Keurig brewer sales are to “away-from-home” locations, based on 2006-2008 data.
  • It costs $59.75  for five small “recovery bins” which hold 175 K-Cups each, or $114.75 for larger bins which hold 450 K-Cups.  Shipping to and fro is included in the cost.
  • The K-Cups aren’t recycled. The grounds are composted, while the K-Cups themselves are burned to produce steam energy by partner Covanta Energy. This is referred to as “renewable energy” a few times. I have a hard time seeing how waste-to-energy could be considered renewable, and I’m not the only one.  The irony, of course, is that recycling is the enemy of the never-ending stream of garbage needed to feed waste-to-energy facilities. Covanta is one of the companies pushing to have waste-to-energy defined as renewable, as it would make the company eligible for subsidies. Keurig’s choice of Covanta as a partner in the Grounds to Grow On venture is unfortunate. Multiple Covanta incinerator facilities have been fined in several states for emissions violations, including Connecticut (twice), New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Further, they have a history of labor relations problems.

I certainly love the idea of all the coffee grounds being made into compost. As for the K-Cups, perhaps burning them is better than having them end up in a landfill, providing you believe waste-to-energy is clean and safe. Even if this aspect weren’t a topic of debate, the success of Grounds to Grow On depends on participation. This program was rolled out after a pilot test in 2010, but I have seen no figures on the participation rate for the pilot.

Purchasing the bins is pretty expensive, and adds 5 to 7 cents, or about 10%, to the cost of each K-Cup. Once a supply of bins has been returned, more will have to be purchased. How many businesses and consumers will make this investment?

Even in a bin is available, it is not a sure bet that everyone will drop in their K-Cups.  An EPA study of found that participation in voluntary residential curbside recycling without incentives averaged around 68%.  With the disincentive of having to purchase the bins, I’m not sure how many K-Cups will be actually be removed from the traditional waste stream with this program.

Finally, some of the patents on K-Cup technology are due to expire next year.  This may mean others will manufacture K-Cups with different materials that cannot enter the Grounds to Grow on recovery program.

It looks like a lot of effort went into this program, and I don’t want to seem like too much of a curmudgeon. As my mom would have said, it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye, but perhaps not quite as rosy as first meets the unpoked eye.

In an upcoming post, I’ll be looking at the recycling of Nespresso coffee capsules. Due to a stunning bit of greenwashing, not nearly as many capsules are being recycled as Nespresso/Nestle would have you believe.