If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get your morning coffee fix, you have two options. Your first option is traditional ground coffee and the second is the more modern option – coffee pods. Both coffee pods and ground coffee come in an array of flavors that are sure to make waking up that much easier. However, each offers its own set of unique pros and cons. In this post, we will explore both the positive and negative factors of each style of coffee.
Coffee Pods
Coffee pods are small plastic containers with foil tops. Each one holds enough ground coffee to brew a single cup of coffee. They are commonly found in hotel rooms due to their single-serve style and overall convenience. The brewing process is quite simple. The hot water simply drips through the pod and fills a single-serve cup with delicious coffee.
Coffee pod machines, such as the Keurig brand, operate the same way. You place the pod inside the top of the device and the water then drips through the pod. The coffee then comes out the bottom of the pod and flows into your cup beneath the spout.
Benefits of Coffee Pods
In our modern convenience-centric world, it comes as no surprise that coffee pods have taken off. One of the major benefits of coffee pods is their single-serve design since most normal people do not drink a full pot of coffee before jetting off to work. Furthermore, not everyone enjoys coffee and many of us simply use it as a means to wake up each morning. In both cases, coffee pods are the answer.
In addition to saving time, coffee pods also serve up a cup of coffee that is neither too strong nor too weak for most people. Coffee pods also don’t go stale. Lastly, the machines you use to brew coffee pods are easy to use, easy to clean, and allow you to make as little as one cup.
Cons of Coffee Pods
The cons associated with coffee pods are limited, yet equally as important as the benefits. The primary downside to coffee pods for most consumers is that they aren’t recyclable. Another major downside is that the machines are expensive. Lastly, most of the pods only work with a single type of machine, so if you’re a big fan of a certain brand of coffee, you best know which machine works with those types of pods.
Ground Coffee
Just about everyone and their grandmother is familiar with ground coffee. We’ve seen cowboys pour it into their tin cups from a percolator sitting over a hot rock by the fire and we’ve likely been to a diner with a row of coffee pots designed to brew ground coffee.
We’ve all witnessed traditionally ground coffee made at some point in our lives. But what about the ground coffee that goes into the pot? Let’s start off with the benefits of ground coffee.
Benefits of Ground Coffee
First and foremost, you can tweak the strength of ground coffee to your liking. Another key benefit to ground coffee is that you’re not limited to what the coffee pod manufacturers decide to produce. You can also customize the size of your grind from finely ground with a delicate flavor to coarsely ground with a robust flavor. Another major perk of ground coffee is that you don’t have to spend money on a grinder. The blades on any grind eventually dull and the motor will fail over time. Ground coffee doesn’t require a grinder, which means you save a decent chunk of change.
Cons of Ground Coffee
The only real downside to ground coffee is when you purchase pre-ground coffee off the shelf at your local grocery store. When you purchase pre-ground coffee, you lose the freedom to choose how coarse of a grind you want, which, in turn, impacts the flavor profile of the final product.
Closing Thoughts
When you consider the pros and cons of coffee pods and ground coffee, you need to weigh the freshness, grind, and interchangeability of the pods or grounds. You should also take into account the impact that each option has on the environment and whether you can repurpose your soggy grounds and leftover coffee.
