Keurigs

What's America's most popular drug? Caffeine! Where do Americans get their caffeine? Coffee! In fact, we Americans love our coffee so much, we have to order Café Americanos instead of regular cafés in exchange for snobbish looks from baristas just to get our fix when we're abroad. 

Coffee drinkers do one of three things every morning to get their dose. They brew some at home, pick some up on the way to work, or mooch off of the company stash when they get to work. Each comes with their own problem. It's tough to allocate enough time to make your own coffee, and still be on time for work. That is of course, unless you drink instant coffee, and in which case you don't deserve to call yourself a coffee drinker. Buying coffee on your way to work is a great way to get your favorite coffee, but the issue is that all that money adds up after a while. $10 to $15 dollars a week, or $500 to $750 a year if you only take two weeks off. Some people are lucky and are actually blessed and have good coffee at work, but in reality most companies are cheap when it comes to spending money on that sort of thing, so most of us are left drinking room temperature, watered-down coffee from the bottom of the pot. Also, there are few feelings as lousy as being bombarded with work before you've had your morning coffee. So that leaves us with the question...What's the best option?

By now I'm sure you've heard of Keurigs. They instantly brew coffee into a single mug in approximately 30 seconds, or so. There's a wide range "K-Cups" available out there. Even chains like Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts have gotten in on the game and offer their own special K-Cups for your machine at home, or at work. There's also options outside of coffee for Keurigs. There's hot chocolate, hot apple cider, and even tea, but I'll be honest...the tea one is pretty stupid if you ask me. That aside, Keurigs come in various models and prices that start out at $99, so they're relatively affordable. 

I know Keurigs sound amazing, and they actually are pretty impressive machines, but there's one important thing you should realize before you go out and buy one, if you haven't already. These things are awful for the environment. Each mug full of coffee requires a new plastic K-Cup to be used, and then thrown away. It's important to know that these cups are not biodegradable. For me, this is really concerning. I can't speak on your behalf, but I seriously question the convenience of Keurigs knowing how strong of a negative impact they have on the Earth. That said, buying coffee on your way to work isn't great for the environment either, because each cup creates more waste -- although often times you get discounts for using reusable travel mugs, but it still ends up costing a lot over time.

So it's up to you. Get your morning coffee at the expense of the environment for convenience sake, spend money every morning when you buy coffee at Dunky's, or maybe drink your work's shitty coffee. OR maybe we should all just start drinking tea?

Keurig

-S.D. Oscar