Why am I reviewing coffee on a cycling website? I don’t know. In my mind, these things are inextricably linked, like cults and Kool-Aid or above ground pools and basement flooding. My nephew got me my first four boxes of Cometeer Coffee two Christmases ago. Now I’m a subscriber.
When the first shipment showed up, I was both confused and skeptical. Here was a large cardboard box, with an insulated, paper insert, like a recyclable origami cooler. Inside that was a small quantity of dry ice and four boxes with 8 individual coffee servings in each. Those servings were frozen, concentrated coffee in aluminum capsules. To make a cup of Cometeer, you run some hot water over the capsule to loosen the frozen coffee puck from its pod, then dump that in a cup and pour hot water over it. Et voila! Coffee!
“How could this possibly be good?” I thought.
But it was better than good. It was great, and it was easy, and I had a hard time not just drinking it all in the space of three days.
Here’s the trick. Cometeer doesn’t actually roast coffee. What they do is partner with top roasters (George Howell, Counter Culture, Klatch, et. al.) to produce a selection of coffees that are good for all the ways you might drink coffee, e.g. black, iced, espresso style, etc. Cometeer’s thing is the process of concentrating and freezing the coffee in this frozen format that makes it easy to work with, and this is really why I love what they do. When I come back from a ride, I’m tired. I need coffee. I boil the kettle and pour. The coffee is made, and it’s fantastic.
That all their packaging is recyclable is a huge bonus. I wouldn’t buy their product if it came along with a lot of plastic waste.
It’s not cheap. It’s $64 (on sale now for $49) for 32 cups of coffee. That’s expensive for single-serve, brew-at-home java, but you’d spend more at the coffee shop and not blink, and this coffee is better, unless your local coffee joint is much nicer than mine is.
Speaking of subscriptions…ahem…now might be a good time to support your favorite cycling site.
I still have a Toddy, which my first father in law introduced me to back in the 1980’s when he worked at Corning Glass and they were making them. You basically do a coarse grind on a whole pound of coffee grounds, pour the grounds into in the plastic top piece over a filter and stopper, and fill the top with water to let the coffee “steep”. Let it sit for a day or however long, and then filter the liquor into the bottom vessel. (see below as an example) Put it in the fridge and then dilute to taste. Works pretty well if you don’t want to be grinding beans and making up fresh. The advantage over those little portions you show is it costs what you normally spend on a pound of good beans. And less packaging. Just add time and a little fuss. I see you can still buy those little setups:
https://www.amazon.com/Toddy-THM-Cold-Brew-System/dp/B0006H0JVW/?ots=1&tag=fnxrt673-20