Here at Gothamist HQ we only drink the finest coffee that has been eaten and excreted by a civet cat before being ground by a specially-designed cat-powered grinder (hey, we have a lot of cats) before it is cold-brewed with distilled virgin tears. The whole process tastes sublime, but it takes a long time and costs a fair amount—still, it isn't really that expensive when you compare it to the real cost of single-cup coffee machines. Yowza!
The Times today goes and does some simple calculations that we can't believe we've never done, which show just how absurdly overpriced a K-Cup can be. To the numbers!
the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound.
For reference, "An exclusive single-origin espresso like the Ethiopia, Gedeo Single Origin Espresso from Sightglass Coffee costs $19 for a 12-ounce bag, or about $25 a pound." So yeah, that's a whole lot of markup for the pleasure of having a "freshly brewed" single-serve cup of what ever joe you prefer. All of which explains why single-serve is a huge growth area the coffee industry is pursuing vigorously (it currently makes up 8 percent of the global market but accounts for 25 percent of the its value). Still, that's okay. As Tyler Durden never taught us, there is nothing quite as much fun as enjoying a single-serve cuppa with a single-serve friend, right?
