Starbucks to Sell Single Brew Espresso Machines

The big news in the coffee world this past week was Startbuck's announcement that it will enter the "single-brew" market latter this year with a machine dubbed the "Verismo". Starbucks is already actually in the single-brew market as a vendor for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters' single-serve pods known as "K-Cups", intended for use in Keurig machines. The difference in the Verismo is that it will brew the coffee under pressure and make an espresso shot; Keurig and other single-serve machines just brew coffee without pressure. The announcement kicked GMCR's stock price in the gut.

So what are your thoughts on single-serve coffee makers? We are coffee snobs here, so I certainly have an opinion on these things, right, and it's a typically "snobby" one. I believe that buying a good espresso machine, quality whole beans, and a good conical burr grinder, and then following my advice given here on how to make good espresso and espresso-based drinks, works out far cheaper in the long run, not to mention you will probably make better espresso shots, although we haven't as yet seen the Verismo in action.

On top of that, I don't like single-use coffee pods made of plastic for environmental reasons. They are wasteful of resources. Kind of ironic that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters which currently has 75% of the single-use market with its K-cups has "green" in their name. There is nothing "green" about single-use coffee pods in my humble but snobby opinion. And then there's Starbucks green logo... Neither company has seen the irony of these two observations, I bet.

What about you? What do you think? Anyone using a Keurig at home? What do you think of it?