Below is my translation of a recent article from Julia Calderone from the International Comunicaffe website about the disadvantages of capsule coffee. The article is aggressive. In some places even too much. We would hardly express ourselves this way, but, as they say, you can’t erase words from a song.
However, the article does make good points regarding the major vulnerabilities of coffee, primarily through exposure to oxygen. We've never used a Keurig coffee maker and it's a shame that they got such a flak here, but at the end of the day, we have our reasons for not drinking coffee pods. And many of them are explained quite clearly below.
Introduction
I'm sitting in front of me with a cup of coffee brewed using a Keurig pod coffee maker, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that this coffee tastes like a heavily aged and watered-down version of the fresh bean drink. It tastes terrible.
It may not be common knowledge, but pod coffee makers like Keurig have already made their way into the homes and offices of millions of American coffee drinkers and have actually become the second most popular brewing method behind traditional drip coffee makers.
The sudden explosion in popularity of capsule coffee makers is a paradox.
Of course, coffee gadgets save time on the preparation steps and cleanup, which is valuable in our fast-paced and stressful world, but in addition to the dramatically negative impact on the environment (if only due to disposable capsules), many critics support my opinion that The taste of the drink these coffee makers produce is mediocre at best, if not more like warm mud.
How many cups of coffee can you drink?
How many cups of coffee you can drink follows from the ratio of the volume of the drink to the positive and negative effects on the body. It has been proven that drinking coffee in large doses causes nervous exhaustion. This is due to the effect of caffeine, which first stimulates the nervous system and then destroys it. A number of reports include a dose of 1000 mg of caffeine per day. This is a clear indicator of doses that can cause harm to health. As for how many cups of coffee you can drink, it depends on the preferences of the coffee lover himself. Richer and stronger coffee requires a smaller dosage, while instant coffee, containing 70 to 100 mg of caffeine per cup, can be safely consumed up to 3 to 4 times a day. The main thing is that the dose of caffeine does not exceed a safe 300 mg.
Why?
To get to the bottom of this question, I spoke with Elisha Nucci, wholesale sales manager at Cafe Grumpy, a small roaster in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with over 5 years of coffee experience. I also contacted Keurig, the market leader in capsule coffee makers, to understand where they source their coffee and how they package it. The company refused to answer some of my questions. Here are my conclusions about why the drink from Keurig and other pod coffee makers tastes so bad.
Myth 1: Capsules are coffee fast food.
Let's start with the main thing. Capsules for capsule-type coffee machines are filled with coffee and only coffee, and it is no different from the one sold in beans. That is, capsule coffee is not some kind of fast food. This is high-quality coffee with a adjusted degree of grinding required for the specific strength of the drink.
A capsule coffee machine allows you to clearly control the result: the temperature, pressure and time of contact of boiling water with coffee are known in advance, which means the drink turns out equally tasty every time.
Violation 1: Grinding
This is one of the main reasons for the terrible taste of the drink from capsule coffee makers. Nuchi told Tech Insider that by the time you get a coffee capsule, it has already started to age.
Nuchi says what's most egregious is the fact that the coffee may have been ground days, weeks or even years before it ended up in your cup. At the same time, thanks to the preliminary grinding of the beans and packaging into convenient vacuum capsules, the buyer receives an incredibly simple and fast way to brew in a capsule coffee maker.
All you have to do is insert a coffee pod (in the case of Keurig, this pod is called a K-Cup) into the coffee maker, press a button and within seconds you will have a fairly warm cup of drink.
The process of grinding the beans immediately exposes the coffee to oxygen, triggering a chemical reaction that sucks out the flavor and aroma. The oxidation reaction causes the flavor and aroma of coffee to degrade - this is the same reaction that causes steel to rust.
Nuchi says, “It starts going bad right after you grind it.” Therefore, all baristas recommend brewing coffee immediately after grinding the beans.
While Keurig is attempting to prevent further flavor degradation by sealing ground coffee into vacuum pods (and likely adding chemical preservatives to it, although Keurig declined to comment on whether they do this or not), damage from oxidation may already have occurred. caused by the coffee before it is sealed.
Violation 2: Complicated packaging
When green coffee is roasted at high temperatures, a complex mixture of minerals, carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, lipids, water and caffeine fuse together within the bean, giving it the irresistible nutty flavor and coffee aroma.
Just like with grinding, the coffee beans also begin to suffer the negative effects of exposure to air and lose their flavor and aroma. That is why not all, but many coffee roasters recommend consuming beans as quickly as possible after roasting in order to get the freshest taste of the drink at the peak of its “form”.
Freshly roasted coffee poses a particular challenge to the packaging process because immediately after the roasted beans have cooled, they begin to release the carbon dioxide they contain, a process that can last from several days to several weeks. It is most intense in the first few days after roasting and gradually weakens in subsequent weeks.
Carbon dioxide itself is a major concern for producers wanting to pack freshly roasted and ground coffee into airtight containers as quickly as possible. The active release of CO2 from whole or ground beans can cause the packaging to swell or even explode. Many companies solve this problem by building a special degassing valve into the packaging that only works one way and releases CO2, which is not possible with sealed K-Cup capsules.
To avoid this problem with capsules, manufacturers will wait until the CO2 emissions finally stop, which can take up to 15 days, before packaging the ground coffee. Each day of this wait ages the coffee further as it is constantly exposed to air.
I asked Keurig how long they wait after roasting and grinding the beans before packaging them into capsules, and what they think about degassing, but they refused to answer those questions either. Given that the contents of their capsules do not emit CO2, it is reasonable to assume that they wait days or even weeks after roasting to ensure that the coffee has stopped actively releasing CO2 before entering the capsule.
Coffee for women: harm, benefits
It was found that the effect of coffee on health certainly depends on hormonal levels. Therefore, the harm and benefits of coffee for women will manifest themselves differently than for men. Of course, the doses used must be adequate to the safe caffeine content. But the general indicators of the body, in particular the surge in hormonal indicators, are the basis for reducing the consumption of the drink. It has been noted that on critical days, coffee does more harm than good for women. With normal indicators, the drink is very useful and can lift your spirits! And considering that the calorie content of coffee is low, the fair half of humanity is happy to be a follower of the southern elixir.
Violation 3: Poor marking
What makes the situation worse is that, according to Nuchi, you know absolutely nothing about the origin of the coffee or the date it was roasted or ground. Therefore, it becomes almost impossible to find out how fresh and high-quality the product you received is.
I asked Keurig's outreach team about what beans they use and where they come from, and they again refused to answer.
A Keurig representative, who did not want to be named, said even Keurig employees don't know when a particular batch of coffee was roasted and ground. Each box only has an expiration date on it, which is the only way to ensure freshness (which doesn't really say much).
According to Nuchi, coffee can sit in a sealed K-Cup for months or even years before the capsule reaches your hands. And the complete lack of information about the origin of coffee beans makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about its quality.
“I believe that the less transparent their packaging, the lower the quality of their contents,” says Nuchi. “What’s remarkable about the coffee industry is that producers take pride in the origin of the beans and when they were roasted.” The absence of this fact from Keurig can only indicate the mediocre quality of the product.
Quality of supplements in capsules
To attract customers, manufacturers are trying to expand their product line, constantly offering new flavors and additives. Buyers note that many brands have already abandoned whole milk and use synthetic substitutes.
At the same time, the taste characteristics of the final drink change for the worse, as well as the nutritional value.
If these are officially patented original brewing technologies, then what can we say about fakes, where it is impossible to determine the origin of products and food additives.
Many consumers of capsule coffee try to save money, so they choose cheap analogues that fit their coffee maker. This further reduces the quality of the drink. At this stage, you need to decide what is more important - saving money or health.
Violation 4: Warm water
Besides the quality and age of the coffee, another aspect that seriously affects the taste in Keurig coffee makers is the fact that they do not heat the water to a temperature sufficient for optimal extraction and flavor.
According to their website, Keurig coffee makers heat water up to 88 degrees Celsius, but the National Coffee Association (NCA) recommends water temperatures between 90 and 96 degrees for brewing coffee.
The association also believes that brewing coffee at water temperatures below 90 degrees Celsius results in a "flat, under-extracted coffee flavor."
Violation 5: Brewing too quickly
Finally, the last problem that Keurig and other pod coffee makers are prone to is the amount of time it takes for the coffee to interact with the water.
Keurig prides itself on the fact that their coffee makers will get you a hot cup of coffee quickly. But there are some things you shouldn’t rush into, and a cup of delicious coffee is one of those things. The National Coffee Association recommends that for preparing a cup in drip coffee makers, the interaction time of ground beans with water is about 5 minutes.
The Keurig brews coffee in seconds, which results in a flat and weak flavor in the cup, especially when combined with water temperatures below the recommended temperature.
Myth 3: Horror story about aluminum and plastic
So, the capsule contains the same high-quality coffee obtained from coffee beans, and this coffee does not come into contact with foreign substances. But it comes into contact with water during preparation, and with the material from which the capsule itself is made. Perhaps there is harm in this?
There is an opinion that aluminum from Nespresso capsules gets into the coffee, and plastic in other types of capsules when boiling water passes through the capsule can produce toxic compounds that settle in the water. We hasten to report what researchers think about this.
Scientists measured the content of substances in coffee prepared in different ways. In particular, they measured the content of aluminum ions, as well as substances that could potentially be formed when plastic (capsules or parts of coffee makers) come into contact with boiling water. It turned out that there is no difference between coffee prepared in different ways. Aluminum capsules are as safe as the aluminum pans or foil you use when cooking in the oven. And the polymers from which the capsules are made do not contaminate coffee with toxic compounds.
Will the situation change for the better?
This question is difficult to answer. There are probably thousands of studies devoted to improving capsule coffee machines - after all, this is such a profitable business that Keurig alone earned $4.5 billion in sales of its coffee makers in 2015.
But in reality, it's unlikely that capsule coffee will ever truly match the rich flavor of a freshly brewed cup. Mainly because the coffee capsules are already ground, Nuchi says. “I have no idea how to overcome this.”
There are many ways to keep beans fresh, such as flushing them with chemicals like nitrogen, but Nuchi says even such measures may not have an effect on ground coffee.
Companies have suggested that Cafe Grumpy make capsules for capsule coffee machines with their coffee, but for the reasons described by Nuchi above, Cafe Grumpy does not plan to do this.
It turns out that the biggest advantage of capsule coffee machines becomes their biggest disadvantage when it comes to the taste of the drink. Coffee that is prepared quickly and in pre-prepared capsules can never compare to fresh coffee.
What is capsule coffee?
Externally, the capsule is a hermetically sealed container. It can be made of aluminum, plastic or a combination of both. The top of the container is covered with foil. Some manufacturers additionally use paper layers or special materials.
Inside the capsules there is natural ground coffee, often compressed. Depending on the company and type of drink, it can be either regular espresso or a more complex drink with milk, flavorings and sweeteners. The concentration of caffeine also varies, and some products may not contain it.
Manufacturers of capsule coffee focus on the quality of the product, so even regular espresso comes in several varieties. And some went further and began packaging tea, cocoa, milk and hot chocolate in the same way.
