Where in the World is Hilary

awesome single-cup coffee

Originally uploaded by hilarymason.

As promised, here is the picture. I haven’t been able to find these outside of the UK. Does anyone know where else they can be found?

To answer another question, they were 2 pounds for 10 packs.

My hotel room in Edinburgh has an electric kettle, and is stocked with tea, creamers, and little tubes of instant coffee. Unfortunately, I really don’t care for the instant coffee. They also don’t serve coffee before the opening presentation at this conference, which presents a real problem - I can either buy a cup for two pounds (which is way too many dollars), or go without.

I was determined to find something suitable, so I stopped at a Sainsbury’s (small grocery store) and checked out their coffee selection. Among the stardards and instant things, they had these neat little single-cup, no-machine-necessary coffee packets!

The idea is simple - there’s some ground coffee in a filter, with a cardbord tab on top. When you squish this device into a mug, the tab opens to allow you to pour hot water directly onto the coffee grounds. It runs through the coffee and filter, and creates a cup right there.

I’ve seen similar things that involve pieces of plastic, but this is neat and completely disposable. I’ll have photos as soon as I manage to download them from my camera (I left my cable at home).