Not everyone who loves gourmet coffee automatically forks out for a huge 12-cup coffee machine. You might lack the space for a large machine. Maybe your partner isn’t a coffee drinker. Perhaps your job means that you spend a lot of time on the move. Or you’re a student in temporary digs. But that doesn’t mean you have to make do with instant coffee, or pay lots of money to hang out at Starbucks.
The coffee machine market has recently seen a flood of single-cup coffee machines. Most of them employ a system in which a small bag of freshly ground coffee, about the diameter of a coffee cup, is placed in the machine and sealed. Boiling water is then forced through the bag under pressure on its way to the waiting cup. The whole process takes no more than three minutes and produces a perfect cup of fresh, frothy coffee every time.
The technology behind the single-cup coffee machine is very simple, so there’s not much that can go wrong, and the products themselves are mature enough to be supported by a broad range of coffee types to suit all tastes. The discerning coffee gourmet can find coffee bags from all the major coffee producing areas from bitter Java to smooth Kenyan coffee.
Perhaps the only down side is the coffee bag that has to be thrown away afterwards. The argument here is the same as for teabags - which show no signs of losing their popularity in the near future. Making one cup for one person means there’s no waste. You don’t need to use non-sustainable resources to heat water to boiling point unnecessarily. There’s no leftover coffee to throw away when you’re done. And finally, there’s no complicated cleaning - you don’t even have to wash up a coffee jug as you would with a conventional drip or filter coffee machine - the coffee goes straight into the cup.
The coffee bags themselves make great compost ingredients. The bag biodegrades very fast, and coffee is full of nutrients that micro-organisms thrive on. Of course, you’ll need a garden to reap the full benefit.
So if you’re the soul coffee-drinker in your household or at work, you don’t have to settle for second best. A single-cup coffee machine will guarantee you a great cup of coffee and save coffee, water, energy and your time. And with those kinds of savings you’ll be able to treat yourself to the occasional coffee in your favourite coffee shop and maybe invite a friend too.
