Too Easy?

A few days ago, we sold coffee machines. And now, we’re selling coffee!

The catch? You can’t make this coffee in those coffee machines.

Because this is what we do here. We underpromise and misdeliver.

Now, I need to be really honest: I don’t mess with pod coffee on the regular. I had a Nespresso machine at one point, but when it stopped working, I didn’t replace it. And while I enjoy a Keurig in a hotel room or a vacation rental, I don’t want one in my home.

But let me be clear, this is not due to pretension.

I love coffee. All coffee. I buy single origin beans, grind them, and brew them in a Chemex or an espresso machine. But I also enjoy drip coffee at friends’ and family members’ houses. At a diner, I’ll get between two and six refills, whether the coffee is strong enough to peel paint or so weak that a drip of half-and-half turns it almost entirely white.

Every time I fly, I not only grab a coffee in the airport, but I also enjoy a cup on each leg of my journey. And yes, I’ve seen people share all the ways that this coffee is disgusting. As in: I’ve begun to read these posts before my vision goes blurry, thus protecting me from what I don’t want to know.

Therefore, in a lot of ways, it’s not pretension but a lack of it that keeps me away from pods. Because coffee at a moment’s notice, with minimal effort to me? I know how that would go. It would be mid-morning, and I’d think, I could use a little pick-me-up. Then it would be twenty minutes later, and I’d have the same thought. And then twenty minutes after that, and twenty minutes after that, until eventually I felt so jittery I couldn’t type.

In some ways this is what makes pour-over coffee so great. Not only does the product taste amazing, but the hands-on nature of the process keeps you from excess. It’s like if you had to cook each potato chip individually or opening a beer required solving a puzzle that took five minutes. Sometimes ease is unhealthy.

And I wonder, then, is pod coffee one of those products that find purchase almost exclusively with those who should be most avoidant of it? Does it specifically prey upon members of our society who find a way to reframe their addiction to coffee as mere enjoyment of it?

It’s hard to say.

But anyway, we’re selling some K-Cup coffee pods today. Your choice of 4 different roasts.