"single serving" news and stories

By and large, commercial coffee pods do not produce the best brews, not by a long shot. At their best they taste flat and one-dimensional, while at their worst they taste, sour, stale, bitter and just generally bad. The pods seem like a good idea because they are so convenient, but it really just isn't worth it if you actually want something drinkable. Your best bet for a quality brew is to stick with freshly ground coffee, but even pre-ground and packed coffee (e.g. Folgers) will turn out a better end result in most cases.

If you are set on using a pod for the convenience factor, however, there are some options besides the pre-made, pre-packed disasters. For example, you can attempt to make some by hand, but why expend all that effort when you could get a Perfect Pod to do it for you. The gadget uses pre-cut pod papers and heat-seals them once you have filled them up with just the right amount of your favorite (fresh!) coffee to brew the perfect cup. The pods work with most pod-using machines and paper refills are sold separately. The Perfect Pod retails for about $40.

[via popgadget]

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Apparently flasks and miniature bottles of booze are just too bulky for some folks to carry around. For them, there's the ShotPak, little plastic pouches that hold 50ml cocktails like lemon drops or kamikazes. It's like a packet of ketchup, but it costs two bucks and it's 17.5 percent alcohol. Come to think of it, at a little over an ounce and a half and only 35 proof, you'd better pack a couple of those in your purse if you're looking to get a buzz on.

[Via Bottle Watch]

Strangely enough, I always thought that bananas were the ultimate single-serve food. They're conveniently packaged in their own skin and fit easily in your hand. The waste is minimal, not to mention biodegradable, and the fruit is filling and tasty. Chiquita is rolling out a new line of single-serving bananas for convenience stores, presumably to compete with packaged snack foods. Not only will the bananas be retailing at much higher prices than they do at the grocery store, but they will be packaged. A single serving, packaged banana is a concept that is so unnecessary it is difficult to find words to describe it further. Fortunately, only one word is needed: ridiculous.

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