The last couple of days I have been visiting my parents and trying out their new Keurig.  It is truly one of the most convenient ways of making coffee on the market.  Turn on, open, pop in a premade plastic cup full of coffee, hit brew, and your morning cup of coffee is ready to go.  Coffee machines excite me!  I wanted this machine to produce A Good Cup of Joe, or even a descent cup of Joe.  However, I was greatly disappointed with the brown liquid that it made.  It was one step above instant coffee, and at about the same level as Starbucks Via (the packets of finely grounded coffee that you stir into hot water).

Yet, my hopes for this machine had not been completely destroyed.  The machine comes with a micro screen filter that allows you to add your own fresh ground coffee.  I began the laborious process of trying to get my fresh ground coffee into the tiny screen without spilling coffee grounds all over the place.   Then I started to brew and water started shooting out of the sides of the machine.  This is a frequent problem with Keurig machines.  The water is moving too fast, and instead of all of the water going through the filter some of it overflows and pours out the side of the machine.  Creating a balancing act where one tries to catch all of the liquid in their cup.  Once again I was trying to avoid a mess all over the counter.   I was left with a cup of coffee that didn’t taste any better than one I could get out of a $25 drip coffee machine at Target.

Is there a solution out there for the person looking for in-home convenience when making their morning Cup of Joe?  First, I recommend coffee machines with built in grinders.  These machines do not produce the greatest cups of coffee.  However, they add convenience, fresh ground beans, and a descent cup of Joe.  Second, there is the fully automatic espresso maker.  Check out the Equipment Corner for more info.  This is no cheap investment.  However, at the rate of $0.50 a day for a Keurig cup of coffee and the cost of a Keurig machine it wouldn’t take a person long to pay for a low-end fully automatic espresso machine.

Is Starbucks Coffee anything more than pop culture bling?  Starbucks created a coffee revolution in the United States.  High quality coffee would no longer be limited to places like Pete’s Coffee in Berkeley, CA or Starbucks as Pikes Place Market in Seattle, WA.  People all over the country would begin drinking coffee that had dramitically increased in quality in comparison to the swill that they were used to drinking on a daily basis.  In addition, they would pay top dollar to drink these tasty cups of coffee.  However, in the long run Starsbucks has not maintained a high quality product.  Their regular cup of Joe is often weak and/ or burnt.  In France and Italy people enjoy magnificant cups of cappacino as part of their morning routine.  However, in the U.S. Starbucks has destroyed that cappacino and turned it into the, “vanilla skinny latte.’  A drink that is mostly sugar and artificial flavoring.  Furthermore, Starbucks has slipped so much on quality control that a person is lucky if their sugar and artificial flavoring are hot.

So what happened to a company that spread higher quality coffee throughout the U.S.  Unfortunately, it has just become another consumer good.  Nothing more than a status symbol that gives a person a little pick me up: a short burst of sugar, and an ego boost that communicates that, “I drink only the best coffee.”  Unfortunatly, many people have never tasted a truly Good Cup of Joe.  Consequently, the only quality that many customers care about is the logo on their Starbucks cup and gift bag.  This has brought coffee to a sorry state for many hard working Americans who pay their hard earned dollar for these drinks.  Americans deserve a high quality product that truly tastes great!