You know how it goes, everyone was getting a pod machine, they looked so easy and convenient, they made a great gift, and so you ended up with one. You looked around to get the machine that produces a good coffee (at least I hope you did, because some of them are awful), and you have been using it for a while now.

But you have come to conclude a couple of things:

1. The pods get expensive after a while, and because they are so easy to make, you are using heaps, and its costing you a fortune

2. The coffee isn't bad, but if you are honest, it's not as good as you used to get on your stovetop, or even plunger perhaps, and certainly not up there with espresso or an aeropress. 

So, what do you do? Do you stick to your pod machine, keep paying the bucks and settle for an average coffee? Or do you decide to retire the machine early, and go back to buying good fresh beans from a reputable roaster (if only you knew one), and save some bucks and drink some great coffee? 

You know, those pods hold a lot of oxygen inside them, and given that the beans are already ground, and that oxygen is the biggest killer to freshness, they're not all that much chop. 

Why not think about buying an Aeropress for $48, which will be better than a plunger hands down, get some good fresh beans, and if you can stretch the budget, buy yourself a little hand grinder, and enjoy some coffee bliss. 

Dilemma? No way. Beans for sure. 

In Espresso, 

Ben