Coffee pod review - Melitta FilterPads

It’s been awhile since I did a coffee review of any kind, but that’s mostly because I’ve been sticking with what I’ve already written about.  I am especially fond of the Gourmet Cafe line of coffee pods, and that’s been my go-to morning cup for months and months now.  When I saw these Melitta FilterPads on a coffee blog I had to try them though...what a premise!

The Melitta FilterPads sound like a single-serve coffee lover’s dream come true.  The theory is that you can buy the best beans in the world (that you can afford), grind them ever so fine - we’re talking espresso/Turkish powder here - and then stuff 6 grams or so into these pads.  You are then supposed to tuck the bottom edge flap into the top edge fold and viola’; you’ve created your very own gourmet coffee pod.

Now here are the problems that should have you running away from these useless things:

1. The filter material is rice-paper thin.  One wrong move, a twitch, and the whole thing is torn.

2. The tabs don’t close well and at the corners of the opening, guess what happens?  That;s right, that powder-fine grind you put in there is making a jailbreak.  Ever seen what a single-serve coffee maker does to loose grounds in that massively-pressurized steam?  Embeds it everywhere or shoots it out at you because the grounds broke the seal and the pressure escaped via the easiest path, which is no longer through your coffee pod and into your cup.

3. The pods cannot be evened out before being inserted into the pod holder.  See number two for why.  Escapees.

4. Given number three, it’s almost impossible to get a seal, so you end up with a cup of brown water.

5. The time it takes to grind and fill two or three of these (depending on the size of your mug) is almost twice what it takes to brew the same amount of coffee using the Aeropress, and three times what it takes to brew using a pod brewer and regular, store-bought pods.  Of course not all coffee making is about speed, but this is ridiculous.

6. The dealbreaker; capacity.  At most, you could maybe shove 7 grams of coffee in here.  But then it really wouldn’t close or make a seal in the brewer.  6 grams is the limit as far as I can tell.  They say 6-8, but I call shenanigans.  The limit is 6 grams.  And that’s one weak cup of joe, pre-supposing you could get it to seal and extract well in the first place.

Big, big two thumbs down to this waste of a product.  Better to use some kind of press or a drip brewer with your good beans, and buy pods from BetterCoffee.com.  You won’t find a better taste-per-dollar value than the Gourmet Cafe line.  In fact, they have a new limited coffee out, the Guatemala Aurora pods, and I’m placing an order right now.

Melitta FilterPads are terrible and not worth your money.

Posted by JimK at 03:56 PM on June 23, 2007
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