What Are ESE Coffee Pods?

There are any number of different coffee pods for different machines, in this day and age of convenience and good coffee! You may be wondering what are ESE coffee pods – well, let’s have a look at the answer to this question together.

Can You Use ESE Pods In Any Espresso Machine?

Can You Use ESE Pods In Any Espresso Machine

ESE pods are not a brand or a make, but stand for “Easy Serving Espresso”. This is an industry standard for coffee pods, and they are all 44mm and contain between 6.7 and 7.5 grams of coffee.

Because ESE is a standard that all coffee pods should aspire to, they can be used in any machine that is ESE compatible.

Not all the coffee machines are ESE compatible, so you may have to shop around a little before you find one that suits these pods.

Many coffee machines will accept ESE pods however, especially those that are ESE compatible. If you are interested in sustainability, go for an ESE compatible coffee machine!

ESE pods are much less wasteful than many other types of coffee pod, and you will find that you are throwing away only compostable material.

Luckily, the great taste of the coffee is still the same with ESE pods, with the added bonus of being great for the environment!

Here is a short video on ESE compatible machines:

Do All Coffee Pods Fit All Machines?

There are a great many coffee pods that don’t fit in all coffee machines, sadly. This is because the manufacturers want you to only use their products.

Many of the larger, more common coffee makers will not produce pods that work in any other machine than their own.

If you aren’t sure what pods your machine is compatible with, you don’t have to go out and buy all the pods on the market and test them all!

It should be fairly easy to find out what is compatible – manufacturer’s instructions will explain what you should buy.

If you have lost the instructions or purchased your machine second hand, a quick internet search will tell you what pods are compatible.

Are Ese Pods Compostable?

Unlike many other coffee pods, ESE pods are fully compostable. They do not contain any materials that need to be recycled or end up in landfill.

You can either place your used pods in your green waste which gets collected by the council, or put it in your own compost bin.

The biodegradable paper will completely break down,and the used coffee grounds are great for the garden.

Coffee grounds are useful to deter slugs from around your precious vegetables, and can be added into the bulk of your main compost too.

The waste from standard plastic or metal coffee pods is astronomical. They all have to be thrown away somewhere, and as they are small and fiddly many people don’t bother to recycle them.

This leads to a great amount of unnecessary waste finding its way into landfill, simply because we want the taste and convenience of good coffee.

Good coffee is a must, in my opinion – but saving the environment is even more important!

An experiment was carried out, comparing the volume of spent coffee pods to the volume of spent ESE pods.

5 standard coffee pods equal the volume of a whopping 150 ESE pods. You will not only save space and waste, but you will be protecting the environment if you use ESE pods.

Switching to ESE pods will drastically reduce the amount of waste you throw away – and you will still get great tasting coffee for a fraction of the price of cafe coffee.

Here is an interesting article on the life cycle of coffee pods.

Are Coffee Pods Bad For You?

Coffee, despite what we may have heard, is not actually all that bad for us, and can actually give a few health benefits.

However, drinking your coffee from coffee pods can carry a few worrying side effects – for both us and for the environment. Read on…

Furan is a chemical that arises during the roasting of the coffee beans, and is a potential carcinogen as well as being bad for the liver.

Although this chemical is present in all roasted coffee, the levels are higher in coffee pods as they are sealed and the chemical cannot be released.

Microplastics can be another problem with your coffee pods, as heating plastic can cause them to release tiny particles which find their way into your body.

Plastic also takes hundreds of years to break down, so throwing them away is bad for the environment too.

Aluminium is another material that is often used to make coffee pods, and the release of chemicals from this material can cause all sorts of health issues.

Aluminium is also quite harmful when placed into landfill, as it takes forever to decompose, and can release harmful toxins.

You don’t have to throw away your coffee machine; the current advice is to limit yourself to no more than 4 cups a day.

Also, you can look into safer and healthier options to enjoy your morning cup of joe – this is simpler and easier than you might think!

If you like your morning coffee from coffee pods, there are a couple of ways you can do this to make it safer for yourself and for the world itself:

  • Use reusable coffee pods. These are becoming more widely available and are easy to use and keep clean.
  • Use paper coffee pods. ESE coffee pods are more like a tea bag in structure than a coffee pod, and they are completely compostable.
  • Don’t drink more than 5 cups a day. 4-5 coffees a day is plenty to get the health benefits without overloading your body.

Pod coffee machines are  great and convenient way to get your caffeine fix in the comfort of your own home.

Whatever machine you have will depend on which type of pod you can use – hopefully now you have a bit more of an idea about your Ese coffee pods; how to use them, where to use them, and how to enjoy them to their fullest potential.

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