In the office I’m known to some as “Mr Shade-Grown,” based on my advocacy for certain varieties of fair-trade coffee. Don’t mistake me for Mr Green though, I’m filled with imperfections and contradictions.

A year or so ago I switched to brewing coffee with a french press. Part of me just wanted to play around with different methods of coffee brewing, but another aspect of the french press method appealed to me: no more disposable paper filters. Yeah, I know there are reusable filters you can buy for drip coffee makers, but there was something elegant about a french press I couldn’t pass up.

Well, by now you know I’ve been having trouble getting good sleep, and that’s led to a brutal caffeine jones. My thermos of home brew just isn’t hacking it anymore. (Speaking here of quantity, not quality.) That’s how I came to putting in with the coffee club at the office – buying into a share of a Keurig machine, despite my misgivings about its wasteful nature (it’s landfill machine – responsible for a ton of little plastic Keurig cups). Ah, but there’s something else I’ve noticed about the little brewer – something I think tarnishes its “gourmet” claim: compared to the pure flavor from the glass beaker of my french press (and the glass teapot I use to heat up the water in microwave), the stuff that comes out of the Keurig machine seems to have a distinct bouquet of plastic and paper.

It’s official: I’m a coffee snob.