The Community | Sunrise Coffee House

Our Take on Coffee k type-pods.

We once thought about providing pre-ground packets and/or k type pods to our customers but just so you know, the k-type pod market is closed to small roasters like us. The US k-cup type pod “franchise” and associated technology is owned and controlled by the largest coffee supplier in the US. But even if we could, it always comes down to quality and integrity. We try every day to minimize our use of plastic throughout our business for all of the obvious reasons. At all of our bulk bin retail locations we provide non-plastic, brown Kraft bags to our customers. We do use plastic bags as does every coffee roaster but we recycle as much as we can and encourage our clients to do the same. Regarding k-cup type pods, it seems highly unlikely that any of them are ever recycled after use and, without a doubt, billions of these non-biodegradable plastic pods are adding to landfills worldwide.

More importantly, coffee once roasted, begins to off-gas and slowly loses its initial quality and flavor. Once ground, coffee really is a perishable item and the quality of our coffee or anyone’s coffee becomes an issue. How long has the ground coffee been in that packet or k type pod? With ground product, FRESHNESS IS EVERYTHING. We do sell ground coffee to our wholesale restaurant and café clients but the turnover is quick and we re-inventory every week to most. We also supply packaged and sealed ground product to a few retail locations here in Port Townsend but we monitor that inventory carefully. The labor costs that go into preparing a small one-time brew pod or packet without the expensive automated packaging solutions only giant roasters can afford, is not practical or cost effective for us or for any custom roaster.

We’re a family-owned specialty coffee roaster and our business centers around quality and freshness. The idea of creating more plastic waste and having our ground coffee hang around in a pod is not who we are or who we want to be. Our goal every day is to produce a quality product we are proud of. Our responsibility is to you the consumer. We strive to create a quality product that is fresh and we try, in our own small way, to make our world a better place by avoiding non-biodegradable plastic products in our business whenever we can.

So where do you draw the line between convenience and quality? If you want a quality sourced specialty coffee in your morning cup of coffee, we would not recommend a “push button” k-type pod solution for the home. At home think French Press; we use a Bodum Stainless Steel French Press every morning. A French Press is one of the best home brew solutions we have found. There are other solutions like traditional paper cone drip brewers and the Aeropress Coffee Maker, an inexpensive single brew option. It’s quick and easy and makes a great cup of coffee. If you can’t live without a push-button k-type pod brewer, check out the new “Ekobrew” reusable filter for single cup k-type pod brewers. You can use Sunrise Coffee and there is no plastic to throw away. http://www.ekobrew.com