how i'll send my kids to college...

Over the past year, I have been experimenting with coffees, coffee makers, and coffee economics; coffeenomics. Why? Because I love coffee---the taste, the aromas, and the morning ritual that makes it such a universal tonic. In this blog post I want to shatter every claim that I’ve made before and teach you how to make the best coffee from home, for the least amount of money. But first, a review.

If you’ll recall in my coffee-maker-shoot-out, the Keurig single-cup brewing system was pitted against the Mr. Coffee auto-drip brewer. Our goal was to determine the most convenient single-cup brewing system, which we did indeed find to be the Keurig machine (for a full review click here). But suppose that our goal was frugality, not convenience. What is the cheapest way to brew, while still making great coffee? A French Press.

A French Press is simple. It's cheap to buy. And since it's not automatic, you're in full control of every step of the brewing process---which in my opinion yields the best cup of coffee i've ever tasted. How impressive are the results? Consider this:

Based on 5 cups of coffee per week, 260 annual servings (which may be less or more than your typical consumption).

     Keurig System ($120) + [ K-Cup Coffee ($0.50 per cup) x 260 ( servings) ] = $250 ($130 after Year 1)

  

     Mr. Coffee Brewer ($25) + { [ Filters ($0.20) + Coffee ($0.25) ] x 260 (servings) } = $145 ($125 after Year 1)

     French Press ($10) + [Coffee $0.10 x 260 servings ] = $36 ($26 after year 1)

Clearly you can save at least $100 per year by switching to a manual coffee-making process. Why is coffee so much more expensive for drip-brew than FP? I have found that a drip-brew process takes roughly twice the coffee grounds per brewing cycle, even if you only want 1 cup. 

Is FP Coffee worth the hassle? I hardly think it's a hassle, think of it as hand-crafting the best cup of coffee. FP coffee is richer, thicker, and more satisfying than any other cup of coffe you've had. So how does one press like the French, observe: 

Step 1: 2 tbs (approx 1/4 cup) coffee grounds* for 12oz of water

Step 2: Heat 12 oz water to 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit

Step 3: Add water to coffee grounds (stir gently while adding water). Let sit for 3 mins

Step 4: At 3 mins, stir gently. Wait 1 more minute

Step 5: Place lid on tightly, slowly press the plunger all the way down. Plunging should take 15-30 seconds.

Step 6: Serve and enjoy.

*I use any premium medium-roast, ground for a drip-brew system. But you can manipulate the strength of your coffee by increasing or decreasing the size of the grind...

Drip Brew vs. Keurig

A few months ago, my good friend Jacob Yoder sent me an article proclaiming Keurig, or similar single-cup coffee brewers, as "the beginning of the end for great coffee". As owner of Muddy Dog Roasting Co, Jim Pelligrini's article is well written, and asserts valid points concerning the mass-production of single cup coffees---namely that licensing products such as K-cups/Tassimo prohibits diversity in coffee roasting. To be honest, I have been a long-time supporter of quality roasts brewed via french-press...except I don't have that kind of time or resources at my workstation to accomodate such complex coffee procedures, but kudos to those of you who do.

As a challenge, I would give up my trusty Keurig brewer for one month and drink only drip-brew coffee. I had so many initial questions: Which would I prefer? What are the pros and cons of the two devices? Is the flavor superior in one brewer over the other?, etc.

The rest of this post is dedicated to answering those questions. For the continuation of this post let us assume that I only have the capability of either the single-cup brewer or the drip-brewer, and that french presses, to-go coffees, or percalators do not excist. I brew coffee in my office and am therefore limited to these two brewing methods.

After one month of use, I created the table below [Fig 1]. This table shows a win/loss assignment for each category, then totals the number of wins/losses in the bottom row. Some categories are subjective, such as flavor, whereas others are very clear, such as electrical consumption. Essentially the drip-brew coffee maker wins in areas of price and flavor range, and the Keurig wins in categories of consistency and ease-of-use. It was surprising to see that, even with the complexity of preparation, the drip-brewer's prep-time was consistently faster than the Keurig. Although it should be noted that the average times below assume that all ingredients/materials need to brew are already set-out and ready for use. In real life I actually have to walk to first floor restroom to wash-out the pot and go to a vending machine for bottled water. Take a minute to examine the chart, the results are straight-forward:

Fig 1

What exactly is the brew process for each machine: I have broken down the two machines' brew process into the next two photo collages [Fig 2 & 3 respectively].

Here is the 9-step process for a drip brewer. The steps are: 1) Rinse-out pot 2) Add water 3) Measure Grounds 4) Place filter/grounds 5) Turn-on 6) Brew 7) Serve/Enjoy 8) Turn-off 9) Remove/Discard grounds:

Fig 2, Drip brewer process

Here is the 6-step process for a Keurig brewer: 1) Add water 2) Turn on 3) Add K-cup 4) Brew 5) Remove K-cup 6) Serve/Enjoy

Fig 3, Keurig brew process

The processes only differ by 3 steps, but it is clear that the Keurig is simpler and requires fewer products to brew a cup. The same is true where maintainance is concerend, the Keurig machine needs very little maintainance. In fact running through a no-cup cycle accounts for 90% of keeping it clean. The drip brewer however has multiple parts, a glass pot, and is difficult to clean in a men's room.

Lastly, I found that when I used my Keurig coffee maker I would only drink one (maybe two) cups per day. One cup was the perfect taste and serving size for most mornings. However, once I switched to the drip-brewer I began to drink as many as 4 cups per morning---because there was 30oz of coffee brewed and I didn't want to dump all of it down the drain, The increased amount of coffee is not favorable to me, because I found that even on the weekends I was craving more and more coffee. Its going to take me a couple of weeks to come-down from my caffeine high...

So will single-cup brewers, like the Keurig, signal the beginning of the end for great coffee? I hardly think so---afterall the microwave oven did not see the end of gourmet cooking. For me, in my office, the Keurig single-cup brewer is by far the superior choice, in terms of ease-of-use, flavor, consistency, and materials needed. It just makes sense. Yes the initial cost of the unit is 4 or 5 times more than the drip brewer, but to me it is worth it for the lack of hassles and serving size.