Sep 01 2010
French Press Pots
The average automatic drip coffee maker brews eight to ten cups of coffee. The average person drinks one to two cups before heading out the door to work. This leaves six to eight cups of coffee to be poured down the drain, or four to six in a family of two coffee drinkers. If this happens five days a week, 52 weeks a year, there are more than 1500 cups of coffee being poured out and that number is conservative. French press pots eliminate this waste and can save money at the same time.
Do the math to find out how much money can be saved with a French press pot and be astonished and sickened at the same time. Staying on the conservative side and assuming six cups of coffee are wasted out of each pot of coffee on weekday means that 1560 cups of coffee are poured out every year. A pound of coffee should make about thirty two cups of cups by most people’s measurements. This means that it would take almost 47 pounds of coffee to brew a year’s worth of coffee, just for the weekdays. 47 pounds of coffee at a low price of $6.99 per pound – if it can be found for that price- adds up to $328.53.
A French press is a fraction the cost of an automatic drip coffee maker, even if a top brand is purchased in a large size. The money spent will be recouped in a few short weeks of brewing coffee and not pouring it out every day. The other savings will come in the form of not stopping at the local coffee shop every day to get a better cup of coffee than what is brewed at home. In fact, with a French press, what is brewed at home can be better than what is purchased at the coffee shop.
The math presented here is on the low side, most people who use an automatic brewer pour out more than six cups of coffee per day. They don’t like the aggravation of trying to figure out how much coffee it takes to make a partial pot and they don’t want to spend the money required to purchase one of the newer single serve brewers. These are the people who will benefit financially from a French press the most.
Once they purchase a French press they will realize that they have been pouring hard earned money down their kitchen sink for years. The good news is that they will have taken the first step to stop pouring money away by using French press pots to make one or two cups of the most decadent coffee without having to waste one drop.
-Sharon Chapman
I like French presses because they are easier to store. But there is still a potential for waste in that using a big press for one or two cups of coffee can seem a waste, but if you make enough to fill it up, but still only drink one or two cups, then you are either pouring out the excess or storing the excess in the fridge for iced coffee. I personally am on a coffee renaissance. I’m learning to reduce the size of my cup of coffee back to an 8 oz size rather than the 12 oz & up you get at 7-11 (you can’t even get an 8 oz. cup there). Because I’m measuring my servings now, 8 oz of well brewed French press coffee is actually more satisfying & doesn’t leave you wanting another cup, whereas 16 oz. of watered down bad coffee never satisfies you. It really does make a difference, plus as you say in your article, using a smaller quantity saves you money. You don’t go through a can or bag of coffee as quickly. I’ll never go back to electric coffee gadgets.