Posted on 12/15/2005 8:33:20 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
A half dozen production lines operate 12 hours a day, cutting small filters and stuffing them into tiny cups, dropping in 2 or 3 grams of coffee and sealing them before whisking them into boxes.
The scores of little coffee containers, known around Green Mountain Coffee Roasters as K-Cups, rolling off the line every few minutes represent what the small specialty brewer hopes will be a revolution in the way Americans brew their favorite roast at home.
The diminutive cups are a self-contained coffee brewing system that can be popped into a relatively new brand of coffee maker to produce a single cup of steaming java. Gone, promoters of the systems say, are the days of a full pot of coffee slowly burning before it's thrown down the sink.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. isn't alone. Brewers large and small, as well as appliance manufacturers, are getting in on the act and pushing the brewing systems as an ideal gift this holiday season for a population addicted to convenience.
"It's an instance of quality meets convenience," said T.J. Whalen, marketing vice president at Green Mountain Coffee. Green Mountain and other small specialty brewers like it are trying to capture the higher end of the market with their more expensive brews and their fancier brewing systems. But companies from Procter & Gamble Co.'s Folgers brand to Sara Lee Corp.'s Senseo and Kraft Foods Inc.'s Maxwell House also are trying to capitalize on what a number of companies believe is an emerging trend in the home kitchen.
The machines have taken off in offices, but a critical mass is only just beginning to be reached where consumers might consider buying them for their homes. Companies as diverse as Mr. Coffee, Black & Decker, Krups and Keurig now make systems that can brew single cups of coffee in as little as 30 seconds using coffee pods -- pockets of grounds that look like oversized tea bags -- and individual cups manufactured by the roasters and food companies.
"We know from different market research that there is a reasonable potential behind this segment," said Lars Atorf, a spokesman for Procter & Gamble's coffee products, including the gourmet oriented Millstone brand. "We can definitely see where awareness is rising in the U.S."
The major brands are hoping that the connection with the gourmet coffee industry can give them an entree to that lucrative part of the market.
The 2005 National Coffee Drinking Trends survey by the National Coffee Association of USA found that more than 172 million American adults consumed coffee and 15 percent -- some 32 million -- said they drank gourmet coffee daily. That's grown from 9 percent six years ago.
That survey also found that nearly two-thirds of consumers were aware of single-serve brewing systems, but only 2 percent reported owning one and 14 percent said they were very or somewhat likely to buy one.
Jon Harris, vice president of Sara Lee Food & Beverage, said the machines are not intended to replace Starbucks stores or the corner coffee shop. He said Sara Lee's hope is that the Senseo brand will complement the ubiquitous coffee houses around the country.
"People are looking for that experience at home," Harris said.
The brewing systems have only been mass-marketed for the past couple of years and there are skeptics about whether they'll take off. Peter Greene, vice president of the NPD Group home appliance marketing research firm, believes they'll never replace the familiar automatic drip coffee makers.
"I don't think your everyday coffee drinker and the majority of the population are going to go in this way," he said. He noted there are limitations to the technology and no uniform pod or cup fits all machines.
And the machines are more expensive than the typical automatic drip system.
A basic Senseo brewing machine is being sold online for $69.99. The higher-end Keurig machine is being sold for between $99.95 and $279.95 for a version that's also marketed for office use.
The coffee that goes into them isn't cheap, either. At a Safeway supermarket in Washington, D.C., this week, a package of Senseo pods good for 18 cups was $3.99, a 13-ounce vacuum-packed brick of Folgers coffee went for $3.95. A box of 24 of Green Mountain's K-Cups is available online for $13.95, while a 12-ounce bag of beans goes for $8.19.
Still, NPD Group's market tracking has determined that a little better than 4.5 percent of the estimated 27 million coffee brewing appliances sold this year will be single-serve systems, up from roughly 1.5 percent of the market last year.
"It all depends on how you define success," Greene said. "I'd say these are going to be a success, but only 5 percent of the market."
But some of the disadvantages of the systems can be especially amplified in homes where people often expect a superior brew, said a coffee reviewer. One are the machines themselves. There's no industry standard, at least not yet, and the coffee pod or cup that works in one machine often isn't compatible with another.
And the other issue, a bigger one for a coffee aficionado like Ken Davids, editor of Coffee Review, is the coffee that goes into the machines. Quality varies widely, he said.
"Some of these coffees taste flat-out stale," Davids said late last month as he was halfway through blind tastings produced from the single-serve machines.
Davids is not impressed, although there are some decent coffees available.
"It's a cafe-at-home if you consider powdered milk, sugar and instant as a cappuccino," he said. "If you consider freshly brewed espresso and fresh-frothed milk a cappuccino, it's not."
"That was the one good thing about moving back to Detroit."
AHH!..This explains everything. No doubt someone held a Starbucks to your head and forced you to go back.
Put just over a cup of water in the reservoir, put in filter and enough coffee grounds for one cup (tablespoon or so), and start the coffee maker - without the carafe in place, leave it out.
Without the carafe in place, the hot water collects in the basket cooking the coffee grinds like percolated coffee. After brewing has stopped, the all the water is in the basket (remember, there's no carafe in place), wait a few additional minutes for the beans to cook.
After the waiting a few minutes, like you would for a tea bag to steep, put in the carafe and presto, you have a rich single cup of coffee.
One note, before you try this, make sure a full cup or more of coffee can fit in your brewing basket.
Starbucks beans are stored in sealed containers as well.
Peets are stored in open bins.
Whether coffee should be frozen is debateable. I don't, but I use my beans quick enough to avoid the issue.
I will agree with you about Peets having character to their blends. A cup of #101 tastes damned good. I used to get ALL of my beans there until I discovered Orchard Valley Roasting Co., and subsequently Barefoot Roasting Co. I do believe that the closest thing to heaven on earth is brewing up a fresh pot of Ethiopia Yergacheffe after waking up in a campground in an old-growth forest (note: it doesn't actually have to be old growth).
Yeah, I believe that's true and usually stop my roast right as the oiliness begins.
But my target for roasting perfection is Peet's French Roast - it's the best bean I've ever had. Now, I haven't bought it from them in 3-4 years, but at least it used to be dark and pretty oily but definitely not burned and made the perfect cup of black coffee.
I still don't know exactly how they do/did that without it ending up as Charbucks.
Trivia: did you know Peet split off from the Charbucks gang back in the early days, when Charbucks was growing beyond a handful of stores? He hated their mass-roasting methods to keep up with the need to grow with cheap ingredients, and formed Peet's coffee, staying in the Bay Area until fairly recently and resisting the Charbucks decline in quality due to mass expansion.
Pretty much the same plan that In-n-Out used.
I think their dark-roasts taste better than *$$ because they are fresher when you get the beans. They seem to get a fresh supply daily, and don't leave the stuff sitting around for weeks.
My target roast is basically a City Roast. I've found that I tend to like the lighter roast more. But again, I'm using it for drip, not espresso.
I don't drink much coffee, but my Senseo machine at home is nice. It'll make the occasional 4-oz cup without much hassle that tastes pretty good to me.
Where does Starbucks store their beans at room temp? They roast them, bag them, ship them. FROZEN coffee beans? You mean frozen like in frozen orange juice, frozen steaks? Is frozen broccoli better than fresh broccoli? What nonsense.
You definitely need to meet passive Hank, the forum's Juan Valdez, and have a coffee klatsch..
We won't even open that can of worms. =)
Hank..Your characterization of Peet's history is, apparently, a figment of your imagination.
READ THIS IF YOU CAN
Known as the "grandfather of specialty coffee," Peet's Coffee & Tea has been a Berkeley institution since we started more than thirty-five years ago.
Alfred Peet opened the first Peet's store in 1966 - with a roasting machine on the premises - at the corner of Walnut and Vine in Berkeley, a few blocks from the University of California. Mr. Peet grew up in the family's coffee and tea business in Alkmaar, Holland. After World War II, Peet worked in the tea trade in Indonesia. At age thirty-five, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and later opened his shop, roasting coffee in the distinctive style he learned from his family.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Peet's Coffee & Tea was a pioneer among other food purveyors in Berkeley's "gourmet ghetto" - a collection of European style shops and restaurants that later included the Cheese Board and Chez Panisse - whose emphasis on artisan, fresh foods spawned an American revolution.
Today, we continue to maintain the traditional values of hard work and attention to detail that are essential to creating coffees of distinction. Our Vine Street store still attracts a large, loyal following, including many who remind us they have been customers since the store opened. Our roasting facility is in Emeryville, just a few miles from our original location.
"Oil is there because the internal temperature of the bean got too hot during roasting."
The amount of oil on the bean is determined by whether you want a light roast, medium, dark roast. The darker, the more oil on bean exterior. It is a matter of personal taste and preference. A dark roast without oil is a stale bean -supermarket kiosks mostly contain stale beans. (Safeway coffee, for example, is not really coffee beans .It is made from soybean and Mexican jumping beans. Only a coffee snob could tell the difference, though)
My preferred camp fare is a Folger's coffee bag. Boil the water, open the foil packet, dunk the bag...mmmmm...savor the flavor.
Thanks...funny.
Whatever floats your boat is OK with me:) However, use caution when expressing what you like on this thread, or Hank the poster will tell you that Folger's is a communist plot or some such nonsense. Be cautious - you have been warned.
Thanks..Pray that you do not have to enter into an intellectual coffee discussion with Hank the poster, though. He has coffee angst and could explode at any moment.
Yes it does. I was only putting the idea out there because hadn't seen it yet. I ground the beans and brew as necessary.
They do go stale quickly, I do the same.
Apparently there is no standard size yet of these packets. kind of like inkjet cartridges where you have to buy a specific product. Plus the incremental cost adds up for a pond of coffee.
Read post #82. He has a great idea for one cup on a full size coffeemaker.
Read. Learn.
The inspiration for the Starbucks enterprise was a Dutch immigrant, Alfred Peet, who had begun importing fine arabica coffees into the United States during the 1950s. Peet viewed coffee as a fine winemaker views grapes, appraising it in terms of country of origin, estates, and harvests. Peet had opened a small store, Peet's Coffee and Tea, in Berkeley, California, in 1966
. . . . . . .
In March 1987 Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker decided to sell the whole Starbucks operation in Seattle—the stores, the roasting plant, and the Starbucks name. Bowker wanted to cash out his coffee-business investment to concentrate on his other enterprises; Baldwin, who was tired of commuting between Seattle and San Francisco and wrestling with the troubles created by the two parts of the company, elected to concentrate on the Peet's operation. As he recalls, "My wife and I had a 30-second conversation and decided to keep Peet's. It was the original and it was better."7
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