The Keurig Conundrum

'Coffee:  the favorite drink of the civilized world.'

Thomas Jefferson

The greatest drink that has ever been produced in the world is coffee.  A close second is whiskey.  I start my days off with a pot of it.  I bring a thermos full of it to work.  There is no better way to get through a low point of a day than a hot cup of coffee.  Coffee is so important, that Jerry Seinfeld did a web series that is worth checking out.  The worst cup of coffee is better than a glass of pop.  With all that said about coffee, I both understand and am confused by the phenomenon that is the Keurig coffee maker.

I started drinking coffee when I worked at Cowtown Living History Museum in Wichita, KS.  I did so because it was something to do on the job.  I made it over an open fire in an old coffee pot.  Unfiltered, fully caffeinated, hot and delicious.  The water boiled and the ground beans went in.  Cool water was dumped in to settle the coffee grounds, but it never prevented them from getting into the cup.  They were the reward for emptying the cup.  Grounds at the bottom to chew on for a little bit.  Ever since then I have been a coffee drinker.  I never drank coffee in college.  Mainly because I was still in the mindset that pop was the way to go for caffeine.  That and the fact that we were college kids that didn't have a lot of money.  I still occasionally drink pop, but not for my main source of caffeine. 

When I think of making coffee, I think of a full 12 cup coffee pot.  I am baffled by anything smaller than that.  I understand that not everyone drinks coffee at a rate that would require a full on coffee maker, but why would you spend, on average, $100 on a top end coffee maker that makes a cup of coffee?  One cup of coffee!  Especially when you can buy a single cup coffee maker for something like twenty to forty dollars?  I know that decent 12 cup coffee makers are not cheap, but you get so much more coffee out of them.  It makes more sense.  There are people that have a four cup coffee maker and it just looks so small and sad compared to a regular sized coffee maker.  It's almost comical.  

There are people that just need to get going in the morning and that one cup of coffee on the drive to work is all they need for the day.  If you're into drinking just one cup of coffee, are you really wanting to invest hundreds of dollars not only on the coffee maker, but invest money on  the coffee itself?  A twelve pack of single cups for the Keurig type coffee makers are about ten dollars (on the low end).  It's just over a dollar for a cup of coffee which is cheaper than going to a coffee shop.  Again, I know that top end bags of coffee can run up to that ten to twelve dollar range, but a canister of Folger's or Maxwell House are nine dollars.  Then you get into the debate of do you want quality or quantity?  I want something hot and caffeinated.  Spending nine dollars on a canister of coffee that you use everyday versus a twelve pack of coffee cups that costs two dollars more but the quality might be a little bit higher. 

And it's not like a regular coffee maker needs to brew all twelve cups.  You can regulate how much water goes into it.  If you want half a pot, put in six cups of water.  This isn't rocket science people, it's common sense.