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  Biggest Waste?

  The previous posts have some excellent ideas about reducing energy use and wastefulness in our coffee drinking habits.  It seems to me that the biggest waste may come from making more coffee than is needed, even if the excess is used to water plants or as a soil additive.  For example, if I fill my 10 cup coffee maker with the organic coffee grind that I bought, and end up only drinking half of the brew, I'm in essence wasting half of the beans.  While perhaps trivial if this overbrewing rarely happens, but I suspect that cumulatively there's a lot of coffee poured out and a lot of beans that didn't have to be used if the actual need was calibrated more precisely. (Excellent argument for one cup at a time brewing.)  Those wasted coffee beans were obviously grown somewhere, taking up land, using various agricultural inputs, roasted with various energy consuming techniques, transported, ground, sold, and carried to the ultimate user.  If I am correct, the energy differential between reheating versus brewing a new pot is minor compared to the waste of resources, including energy, of using more beans than absolutely necessary and then pouring out the excess coffee produced.  Make only what you need and if there's excess, consider putting it in a storage container, refrigerating it overnight, and reheating it the next day (I suspect there are some coffee purists who are gagging at the thought <smile>.)  A few experiences with cold coffee reheated the next day (unless you happen to like cold coffee) and I predict you'll be more cautious with how much you brew.   On Umbra on reheating coffee posted 1 year, 11 months ago 20 Responses