Hacker News Reader

Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

...the worst coffee this world has to offer.

Having heard this from a number of coffee fans, I suspect you're not the market Keurig really targets. Rather I suspect we non-coffee-drinkers might be the primary buyers. We want something that will sit innocuously in the kitchen, looking good and doing nothing, on the off chance that we'll be expected to provide coffee for someone. We don't know how to buy coffee, we don't know how to prepare it, and we don't know how to clean up after preparing it. Also, we don't care to know any of those things. So, here's a something we made for you that came out of a fancy package. Now we're going to throw away this little plastic cup.

View on HN

Seems like an expensive investment on the off-chance that you might have guests who really can't handle not having any coffee when they're visiting a non-coffee-drinking household. My solution is the small jar of instant coffee I periodically have to throw out because it's gone mouldy.

Speaking as such a guest, I look after my own needs in that regard. Expecting one's hosts to attend to one's vices is just tacky.

The issue I have is: when a host offers me coffee, what's the polite way to say "yes please, but not if it's instant"?

There is no polite way to say that.

The polite thing to do would be to accept the coffee or not, without placing conditions on the host, or implying that their hospitality is possibly beneath your standards.

I wish I could upvote you more than once.

Ha, there's not. Instant is better (just) than no coffee, even though I wouldn't touch the stuff at home...

It's like if someone offers you a beer. Bud Light or a strong IPA may not be to your taste, but saying "what do you have" sounds greedy unless they've offered a choice. A free beer is still a free beer. You either turn down the offer or you are grateful for the free beer. There are no other options.

"What kind is it? I don't want to deprive you of a beer if I won't enjoy it." There, done.

I had a colleague who'd ask: "What kind of beer? Heineken? That's no beer."

After a couple of those, everybody knows your taste :D

I swear I am not a coffee snob, but...

If all you have is instant, you're better off not offering anything. That stuff is generally terrible.

So my wife and I use a French Press for coffee in the morning. I love a good cup of coffee and it really does not take that much time to make. Heck, I enjoy the process.

Now for espresso or the like, well that is a different story. We used to have an espresso machine but it was quite a pain (and took up space). For that the machines are great. We have the Nespresso machine with the milk attachment. Makes a pretty good cup. They provide mailing bags for you to send back the used cups? carts? (hum) for recycling.

I've been using a tiny Krups Esprimo for over 10 years. One of the tubes popped off after a few years, but after taking the shell off and identifying the culprit, I just used a zip tie as a miniature hose clamp and have been going strong for a long time. The key with the hose was to clean the nozzle: it has a single port, so a clogged port is a single source of failure. But $90 for an 8-bar espresso machine is hard to beat. Not good for random joe, but fine for a hacker.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00007CWFE

Aeropress. Small, fun, easy to use and clean - and makes excellent coffee.

The french press is just the ultimate coffee making device. It's simple, it gives you a lot of control (via the amount, the grind, the water temperature and soak time) and it makes glorious, glorious coffee.

Expresso machines are complex and bulky, and they generally aren't worth it unless you can spend $600+ (and that plus goes WAY up). Nespresso isn't bad at all (we have one here at work), but even better is a Lavazza machine, which takes cartridges like the Nespresso, but the resulting espresso is an order of magnitude better, in my opinion.

What about the good old Italian stove top espresso pot?

I'm a tea drinker myself, but have one around to serve decent espresso to people that want it.

You can get Maxwell House instant coffee which is packaged in tea bags so making a cup of coffee is as easy as a cup of tea. And it's as good as Keurig coffee.

This is good advice!

A much better device for that use case is a percolator though. They sell them at IKEA for like $10. Using one is as simple as putting in water, putting in ground coffee, and sticking it on a stove. Makes much better coffee than a keurig and takes up less space to boot.

Unfortunately no-one sells ground coffee in small quantities. I don't know about Keurig, but those Nespresso capsules come in small packages and they have a long shelf life.

I'd rather have a cup of Nespresso coffee than a fresh brewed cup of stale ground coffee.

Unfortunately no-one sells ground coffee in small quantities.

Many larger food stores and most specialty coffee shops sell coffee beans by weight and will grind them for you. So you can easily by just a small amount at a time if you want.

That's fine advice for anyone who wants to know or do anything about coffee. As indicated above, that ain't me. I'm not going to a weird store to talk to someone who operates weird equipment to buy some weird stuff that I don't consume. The reason I'd consider buying a Keurig is that then I wouldn't have to do any of that.

I mainly use two different sized old school Mokka Express aluminum cans from Bialetti. Super cheap (got both for less than 20$) and very small/easy to handle and clean. Plus: the coffee tastes great. I grind my own coffee (cheap used 20yrs old grinder, 4$), but there are sealed ground coffee packs containing only 60 grams (2oz). Coffee is not as instant as with a Keurig/Nespresso though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com