K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

I have mixed feelings about writing about Keurig single-cup brewers and K-Cups. Yet single-cup brewers are wildly popular, and Keurig owns 80% of the North American market share. If I’m going to talk about consumer coffee choices and how they impact the environment, I feel I should talk about Keurig and K-Cups.

Over the years, I have written about how to minimize or eliminate the waste in the disposable K-Cups themselves:

• Refilling Keurig K-cups. Possible, but a major PITA.
• Refilling K-cups, take 2: The My-Kap reusable lid. Slightly less onerous.
• Keurig reusable coffee filter for single cup brewers. The first, and Keurig’s own, alternative to using K-Cups altogether.
• Solofill Reusable coffee filter for Keurig K-Cup brewers. A better-engineered alternative device to K-Cups.

In the past I’ve stated that I believed that K-Cups are the most environmentally-friendly product in the single-use arena because of the strong corporate responsibility and environmental record of Keurig parent Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. However, now that Folgers, Millstone, and Dunkin Donuts coffees are available in K-Cups and GMCR seems willing to license to anybody, no matter how bad or mysterious the sourcing, I no longer have this view. Ergo, it’s even more important to emphasize ways to use your own carefully chosen sustainably-grown coffee if you have a Keurig brewer.

A new contender

This brings us to the latest generation of reusable coffee filters/brew baskets to use in (most) Keurig brewers: the ekobrew Cup. [Note – product is now discontinued, but company still survives and makes ancillary products]. I’ve not yet tried this product, as it was just released, but it is receiving very favorable reviews and has a number of benefits over competitors which are obvious to those of us who have fiddled with the various alternatives:

• It has a larger capacity than the others. It can hold up to 14 grams of coffee (versus 9 grams of a regular K-Cup, and around 11 for Solofill). You may not want to jam the max in there, though, but take advantage of the fact that the extra room will provide for more complete infusion of the coffee and get you a stronger brew, especially for < 8-ounce cup settings. Weak coffee is a major complaint with many of the K-Cup alternatives (and K-Cups themselves).
• It has a flat bottom, and is easy to fill. The Solofill has a big “nipple” on the bottom and won’t stand up by itself. Also, that depression can hold wet grounds and make the Solofill harder to clean than the smooth interior of the ekobrew.
• It is BPA-free. So is the Solofill. The My-Kap is not.
• You don’t have to remove the holster in the brewer to use the ekobrew (or Solofill) as you do with the Keurig My K-Cup.

Other reviewers have commented on the overall positive design aspects and durability of the ekobrew, including details of the brew basket, hinge, and stay-cool handles. There have been a few other products in the interim between the Solofill debut and the ekobrew, but the ekobrew seems to be the most significant recent step forward in this product arena, having improved on the few shortcomings of the well-liked Solofill.

This product could lure me into plugging in my Keurig at the office once again.

The future

I have been a fan of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and their effort to source coffee sustainably, their support of farmer communities, and other green initiatives.  But Keurig brewers and K-Cups are now making up 88% of the company’s revenues, and most of this is from the K-Cups. Their willingness to license to big corporate coffee roasters is seemingly profit-driven; they receive $0.064 for every K-Cup sold. In my eyes, and to others I’ve talked to, this seems like a contradiction of Green Mountain’s values.

Further, when I first wrote about K-Cups in 2007, Keurig was working on sustainable (recyclable/renewable/biodegradable) packaging. There has been no meaningful progress on this front (I don’t consider the release of one flavor of one brand of tea in a paper K-Cup truly significant). Currently, three billion K-Cups head to the landfill a year.

The patent on the K-Cup runs out in 2012, ushering in the era of even more crappy, cheap coffee being available in these dreadful little cups. Will there be any incentive for other manufacturers of K-Cup clones to develop sustainable packaging? Of course not. They’ll all be competing for a slice of the market, and cheap will win out. This cheapifying of coffee has broader implications, and I can do no better than to refer you to Jim Pellegrini’s excellent blog post on the topic, Why the Keurig K-Cup is the beginning of the end for great coffee.

My final recommendation is at least use your own coffee if you already own a Keurig brewer. Use a good product in place of K-Cups, like the ekobrew. Even better — go for the dead-easy way to craft excellent single cups of coffee tweaked to your individual taste with your own beautiful, sustainably-grown beans: try a Clever Coffee Dripper. Low initial investment, low tech, great coffee.

Used K-Cup photo adapted from a Creative Commons photo by Randy Read.

I’ve written about less-wasteful alternatives to the single use K-Cups used in Keurig K-Cup brewers. Each allows you to use your own coffee with the Keurig brewers. There are two routes.

One is to reuse a used K-Cup. I described step-by-step how you can refill used K-Cups, which is rather labor intensive. I also wrote a detailed review of the the My-Kap Kaps for Keurig K-Cup Brewers, a lid that fits on a used K-Cup. This does cut down on the labor of refilling a bit, but either way, you can only reuse a used K-Cup a limited number of times, and eventually it ends up in a landfill.

The other route is to use a device that takes the place of the K-Cup. Up until recently, the only option was Keurig’s own refillable filter basket, the My K-Cup reusable coffee filter. You can read my review of it here. Then along came the EZ-Cup By Perfect Pod. I have not tried this particular product, as some reviews indicated it could be a bit fiddly, and it also requires the use of proprietary paper filters, which did not appeal to me. Given that most other brands of pods are made from cheap coffee by the big corporate coffee roasters (Senseo = Sara Lee, Tassimo = Kraft), that isn’t even an option in my book.

Now we have another K-Cup replacement. The Solofill Cup, Reusable coffee filter cup. This invention appears to have resolved a number of the shortcomings of other methods.

• The Solofill drops right into the Keurig brewer’s holder, just like a K-Cup, so there is no need to remove the filter holder assembly, as required by the My K-Cup (which is an inconvenient step).
• The lid is attached and the stainless steel basket is integrated. With this one-piece design, no parts should go missing.
• The whole she-bang is dishwasher safe.
• The plastic is recyclable.  It’s made from BPA-free plastic, which the My-Kap is apparently not.
• It’s “self-tamping” and water is dispersed through the coffee, versus just being shot through a single hole, as in most other alternatives.

The Solofill holds roughly 11 grams of coffee. This is about the same amount of coffee that is in an “extra bold” K-Cup, and so may also satisfy people who find regular K-Cups produce weak coffee. Or, to look at it another way, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, recommends 10 grams of coffee per 6 oz cup. Obviously, how the coffee turns out also depends on the brew size setting of the Keurig brewer — for the Solofill’s 11 grams the brewer should be set to brew a 7.25 oz cup, or even 5.25 oz (brewers vary in their brew size settings). For the sake of comparison, I found that the My K-Cup holds right around 14.5 to 16 grams of coffee.

The Solofill is compatible with 11 Keurig brewer models, two Brevilles, and one Mr. Coffee.  However, an enterprising user has provided a simple modification for the Solofill that allows it to be used with Keurig models that would otherwise result in leakage.

I’ve not had a chance to test the Solofill yet, but it is getting excellent reviews on the Single Serve Coffee forums.  If you have a Keurig brewer and give this product a try, please remember to fill it with sustainably-grown coffee, and feel free to leave your impressions in the comments.

I’ve written several posts on the Keurig single-cup coffee brewers, or more specifically, about the K-Cup single use coffee “pods” and the waste they generate. I have explored, in detail, three ways to cope with this waste:

• How to refill and reuse a K-Cup using plastic wrap.
• How to refill and reuse a K-Cup using the My-Kap reusable lid system.
• A review of the Keurig My K-Cup resusable coffee filter basket.

In each post I’ve also discussed the progress (or lack thereof) that Keurig owner Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) has had on finding sustainable or recyclable materials for use in the K-Cups.

This week the New York Times had a worthwhile article on the continuing dilemma of the convenience of single-cup coffee versus the waste it generates. The article notes that it is expected that nearly 3 billion K-Cups will be sold this year. (We’ll get to the other brands of single-use coffee pods in a minute.)

The article mentions that GMCR are experimenting with a paper K-Cup (no foil or plastic) for use with tea this year; the issues surrounding brew temperature and freshness of coffee apparently still have them stymied. GMCR goes on to say that they have done a life-cycle analysis of the environmental impact of the K-Cup and determined that most of the impacts occur where the packaging is produced, not where the waste is disposed. But this doesn’t mean the waste stream doesn’t have a big impact, and this leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of some consumers.

The article goes on to describe the fact that some of the competitors of K-Cups can be recycled. This is a bit misleading, as these options are very limited. TerraCycle will reuse the plastic from Kraft’s Tassimo pods in Britain (and Mars’ Flavia packages). These recycling options are not available to consumers in the U.S., but offices and food services providers. Nestlé’s aluminum Nespresso pods can be recycled at some propietary boutiques in a few European countries. Sara Lee’s Senseo pods are made of paper and therefore compostable (how many consumers just throw them away, though?).

Even supposing these options were widely and easily available to consumers worldwide, I still believe that K-Cups are the most environmentally-friendly product in the single-use arena.

Why? GMCR sources coffee responsibly and has a strong corporate responsibility and environmental record.* You simply cannot say the same thing about Nestlé, Kraft, and Sara Lee. For just a few examples, you can read my posts deconstructing the sustainability claims of Nestlé, Kraft, and Sara Lee; read how Kraft and Nestlé got caught purchasing illegally grown coffee because they don’t even know where much of their coffee comes from; and take a look at the how a major organization ranked these big coffee companies in areas like the environment, human rights, health and safety, etc. Finally, you can see how these big corporate coffee roasters exploit farmers and the environment, to the detriment of us all.

The most sustainable choice is to not use single-cup brewing systems in the first place. If they are going to be used, then consumers have to look at the big picture. With the Keurig system, there are alternatives to throwing away K-Cups, as outlined in my other posts. If disposable K-Cups are going to be used, consumers are easily able to find sustainably-sourced coffee, including Rainforest Alliance certified Caribou Coffee K-Cups. And at least using K-Cups will be better than supporting the dismal environmental  and ethical records of the big corporate coffee roasters that manufacture other brands.

*UPDATE: Now that Folgers and Dunkin Donuts coffees are available in K-Cups and GMCR seems willing to license to anybody, no matter how bad the sourcing, I am modifying this statement. Let’s just say that more responsibly-sourced coffees (including Caribou and GMCRs own coffees) are available for the Keurig brewer, and there are a lot of options for avoiding the use of wasteful K-Cups altogether by using your own coffee. Do that.

One of the most popular posts on this site is the one I did on refilling K-Cups, the single-serve coffee “pods” used in Keurig brewers. I outlined a method for re-using K-Cups by using plastic wrap. It works, but the amount of time it takes to clean out a used K-Cup and then cut and properly apply the plastic wrap really defeats the purpose of the whole Keurig system, which is speed and convenience.

Later, I reviewed the Keurig My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter, a product designed for the Keurig brewers that avoids the use of the K-Cups altogether by allowing you to use your own freshly ground coffee in the brewer. (Update: see also this post on the Solofill reusable coffee filter.)

Now along comes another product that allows you to re-use K-Cups with your own ground coffee: the My-Kap. It’s pretty simple — a plastic cap with slightly beveled edges that fits snugly in the top of a used K-Cup, once you’ve removed the foil, cleaned out the filter, and refilled the cup with ground coffee. It already has a hole in the center for the Keurig brewer’s piercer/water dispenser.

The main thing you need to do differently when using a used K-Cup topped with a My-Kap is hold down the handle of the Keurig brewer while the coffee is being brewed. This allows a snug fit. It will work if you don’t, but you will get leakage within the brewing “basket” (K-Cup holder assembly) which will spray and/or drip from not only the exit hole, but also the seams of the basket, depending on your brewer and its structural integrity. Even holding down the handle, using the My-Kap is slightly drippy. You may have to clean your brewer more often.

That being said, the My-Kap works like charm, as advertised. Some thoughts:

Pros:

• Putting the My-Kap on the used K-Cup is, without a doubt, much faster and easier than fiddling with plastic wrap.
• Both when refilling a K-Cup using plastic wrap, and when using the My K-Cup Reusable Filter, I had a hard time getting the proper grind and filling the K-Cup or filter with the right amount of grounds. The brewer forces water through the K-Cups under pressure, and the K-Cups are designed and filled so they won’t create problems (overflow, blowouts, etc.). The My-Kap fits tightly enough to circumvent most of these problems. The instructions say to fill to 3/4 full, but it seemed quite forgiving through variations in grind size and amount of coffee used, taking the guess work out of reusing a K-Cup.
• You don’t have to remove the K-Cup holder assembly from your Keurig brewer, as you do with the My K-Cup Reusable Filter.
• The cap is stiff and sturdy, and can be washed (dishwasher safe) and used indefinitely.

Cons:

• Be careful prying the cap off after you brew a cup of coffee with a My-Kapped K-Cup. An odd little plastic tool is provided. I’m not sure if it was actually made for this application, because it looks a bit like some sort of peg board hanger. No matter which way you use it (I believe it is meant to be used as shown on the right), the My-Kap is snug and unless you are very careful, it will pop off suddenly, and soggy ground coffee will fly everywhere. Do it over a sink or wastebasket.
• Although I have heard of people doing so, I wouldn’t recommend preparing many refilled K-Cups using My-Kaps ahead of time. There is a hole in the center of the My-Kap itself (nearly as large as the diameter of a pencil), and coffee will spill out of it if it falls over. There are also one or more holes in the bottom of the K-Cup from the brewing process. Ground coffee gets stale fast enough, and all these holes will just speed that process along.
• The usual caveats of reusing K-Cups apply. The inner paper filter can’t be completely cleaned of coffee grounds and oils, and in addition to trapping flavors will also eventually become clogged. Nor can coffee oils be cleaned from the inner sealed space between the bottom of the filter and the bottom of the K-Cup. Frankly, I also wonder how often the plastic K-Cups should be exposed to high heat.
• My-Kap is made of polycarbonate plastic, and as such may contain BPA. If you are concerned about possible exposure to this chemical, this product might not be for you.

When I wrote my first post in May 2007, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (which purchased Keurig in 2006) was working on more sustainable or recyclable materials for use in the K-Cups. They are still working on this (here is a June 2008 post from the Green Mountain blog on the topic), as they are facing the challenge of finding materials than can withstand heat and pressure, as well as protect the coffee from light, heat, moisture, and oxygen while being stored. I was recently told by a Green Mountain rep that they have “had some promising results in this area and hope to be selling a tea product in a K-Cup made from renewable materials in the first part of 2010 and portion packs with more substantive improvements in the not too distant future.”  Keurig has an environmental policy on its web site, where it explains the construction of the K-Cup in more detail, and other actions the company is taking to reduce environmental impact.

The My-Kap comes with three caps, a removal tool, and/or a brush to clean out the K-Cup.