Coffee Pod Snobbery

Del_UK

Is it just me?

So I’ve just had a lovely espresso with some beans from a roaster I’ve never used before and thought I’d look into them a bit more; check out their site in a bit more depth, check out the social meeds etc, when I was horrified to see that they have a post, front and centre, proudly proclaiming to all to see that they are now selling those oh so hideous pod things that uses a vast amount of packaging and contain barely enough coffee to wake an insomniac mouse…

“Great…” I thought, “another roaster I can’t use.”

(I usualy roast my own supply, but if there’s likely to be a spike in usage aka Christmas, I’ll get a kg or so in to buffer the demand)

Then it occurred to me, am I the problem? Should I be happy that a roaster has enough of a wide appeal to have a demand for small, usually disappointing coffee brew methods? Should I see it as a plus that someone, somewhere is offsetting the need to increase prices on whole bean purity with pre-ground pollution pods that are a licence to print money (50p per single pod vs 45p for a whole bean, 18g double in this case)?

I’ve done this with a few roasters in the past that I liked, but out of good conscience/spite can’t look past the wastage in packaging, shipping, manufacturing and (hopefully) recycling those ‘iconic’ silver capsules and put them on the nope list.

Am I crazy/grumpy/stupid? Should I just enjoy what I like and let others do their objectivity worse coffee drinking in peace? Or, is my mini boycott a worthy cause and should I single-handedly start recycling used pods to create a large hammer to smash all the roasting equipment of any pod producing perpetrator?

…or is it just me?

Raziel

Del_UK …or is it just me?

I don’t know, but this turn of phrase is exceptional and I shall be stealing it:

Del_UK contain barely enough coffee to wake an insomniac mouse…

CoyoteOldMan

Del_UK I don’t think you are in any way crazy, grumpy or stupid - certainly not for thinking about these things. But then, neither are you the problem.

We face ethical dilemmas, big and small, pretty much any day: even having a coffee, which is a non-necessary activity*, means we use resources that are finite and could be ‘better’ used. That we even realise that some ‘everyday’ decisions present an ethical dilemma is to our credit - although it doesn’t necessarily help us making a decision.

* OK, OK. I know, I am on a coffee forum. Flame away.

hornbyben

Del_UK while I appreciate the dilemma, and don’t use nespresso myself, for a lot of people the coffee is good enough and the convenience excellent. I used to have one, and it was part of the journey that got me to here.

I’d rather specialty coffee from small roasters that you hope have high ethical standards were being used in the machine rather than Nestle sourced coffee

Del_UK

I completely agree with the above points. I know I am asking if my way is morally/ethically/environmentally the best to produce a drink that requires vast amounts of energy to produce its raw material (apparently 15kg per kg of greens) and then numerous kWh of power to roast and then brew.

This site, and many others, seem to suggest that it’s not that big of a deal, as the coffee required in making a cup is reduced enough and the energy is lowered by the pod machines using less, to mean that the drink is actually similar in environmental impact. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coffee-pods-nespresso-recycling

I’d assumed that the mining of aluminium would have pushed this right up to Dodge V8 levels of wastage, but maybe not.

CoyoteOldMan

Del_UK Aluminium is definitely highly recyclable - with substantially less energy input than mining and extracting from ore, so it’s the one material in a capsule that I would guess is actually reused… if people bother separating it out at least minimally from the rest.

InfamousTuba

I know caravela coffee claims to produce only 8.6kg of CO2 per kg of greens, so some suppliers are trying to reduce their impact. For Nespresso I think some of the impact will be offset due to the sheer scale of the operation, which will lead to a lot of efficiencies that other companies cannot match

Del_UK

CoyoteOldMan
From what I’ve read, official Nespresso pods aren’t made from 100% recycled aluminium. Some sites say up to 80% while other sites claim them to use only virgin minerals in their products.

Some sites also say that up to 70% of pods aren’t recycled. That’s a lot of wasted potential.