Sonic# wrote:What do you two identify as the weaknesses of a Keurig coffee machine? Is it process? Ingredients? Overall taste? Waste?
Well, the only strength is convenience;
everything else about the machines is a weakness.
The biggest weakness is that it completely limits where you get your coffee. You can
only use K-cups, so that eliminates most coffee shops, online sellers, and anyone else who isn't already a big chain brand like Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks (as Shiva Indis said, there are substitutes that let you use your own beans, but if you're going to that much trouble then all the convenience is lost anyway and you may as well just use a pot or French press).
Next to that, the taste is pretty miserable. It's usually watered down with a bitter aftertaste (unless you add sugar, then it's just watered down). This probably has to do with what Shiva also said: the K-cups are always pre-ground (so they can go stale quicker), and you can't control anything about the way it brews.
The amount of space and amount of waste are the last two things... Not so much the machine itself, but all the K-cups have to be stacked and take up too much space, and just get tossed afterwards. By contrast, a bag of whole beans and a grinder take up very little space on the shelf, and the only waste is the used grounds afterwards, maybe a paper filter now and then.
Anyway, if I really needed the convenience factor and cared little about taste or where I got my coffee from, I'd just get instant coffee. Nescafe isn't that bad, it's way more convenient (just add hot water), and doesn't require stockpiling supplies. KF