Good old Earth Day is rapidly approaching, and in our opinion, it totally deserves more than just one day of celebration a year. If we had it our way, it’d be Earth Day every day. That aside, there are numerous ways we can change how we live our lives day to day while also minimizing our footprint on the planet. You may be thinking that food has a large impact, but guess what else does? Coffee.

It’s easy to do something small. It may not seem like much, but when you think about it, your coffee routine can have a significant impact on our planet. Where do you buy it? How do you brew it? What are you drinking out of? But okay, enough of that. Let’s get to the good stuff! Here are a few tips on how to green your coffee routine.

• Brew at home in ways that limit waste: Skip the line, and brew at home. Not only will you save money, but you’ll reduce your footprint too. If you want to take it a step further and use a manual brewing method like a French press, pour-over, or Chemex to cut back on electricity. You’ll have a delicious cup you can feel good about!Of course, not everyone has time to use a more traditional coffee brewing method. We get it. If you can’t make traditional methods work for you, you can reduce your impact with an Ekobrew reusable filter for your coffee machine. Instead of piling up landfills with wasteful coffee pods, you can be satisfied knowing you have reduced your impact while you sip!

• Re-use your coffee grounds: Inevitably, you will end up with coffee grounds when you brew at home, and they can most certainly be re-purposed in a variety of ways. They will work great for composting because they are rich in nitrogen. You can use them to exfoliate your skin, clean dishes, deodorize your refrigerator, and even fix furniture in your home. Behold the power of coffee!

• Get a mug: This one goes without saying: get a re-usable mug! Not only will you help reduce the 50 billion discarded cups every year, but you will get cool points. Mugs are super customizable, and the choices are endless.

We hope these tips help you feel a bit better about doing your part to help make our planet a cleaner place. Have any tips of your own to share? Leave us a comment below!

Ekobrew and Coffee Bundles

You may have noticed that we’re getting a little obsessed with our Ekobrew Reusable Filters for Keurig Single Cup Brewers. We blog about them, Facebook about them, and spotlight them in almost every newsletter with no sign of stopping anytime soon. That’s because the response to these nifty, cost effective, and environmentally friendly filters has been overwhelming! To keep the pace going strong, we have decided to add product bundles to the website; Ekobrew filter and coffee combos that will save you money and help you decide which varieties of coffee to use in your Keurig machine.

We looked closely at what coffee varieties our fans have been ordering when they buy their Ekobrew filters. We used this information to hand pick coffee for the best bundles possible. After much deliberation we settled on 3 unique bundles:

Ekobrew Bundle #1 – Flavor:

1 lb Hazelnut flavored coffee

1 lb Jamaican Me Crazy flavored coffee

1 Ekobrew Reusable Filter

Hazelnut and Jamaican Me Crazy are our 2 most popular flavors. They are sure to please any fan of flavored coffee. Can’t decide which one to try first? Using your Ekobrew in your Keurig brewer is so easy you can treat yourself to a cup of both.

Ekobrew Bundle #2 – Greatest Hits:

1 lb Italian Roast Espresso coffee

1 lb Colombian Supremo coffee

1 Ekobrew Reusable Filter

Many households are split when it comes to coffee preferences: Dark, rich coffees versus lighter roasted coffees with more subtle flavors. No more arguing over which coffee to make a full pot of every morning. Our Greatest Hits bundle matches the Ekobrew filter with a pair of our most popular dark and light roast.

Ekobrew Bundle #3 – Double Bundle:

1 lb French Roast coffee

1 lb Breakfast Blend coffee

2 Ekobrew Reusable Filters

We were surprised at how many of our fans have been buying more than one Ekobrew Reusable filter at a time. It makes sense when you think about it though… People love their Keurigs because they are quick and convenient. With two Ekobrews, you can have your next cup ready for brewing before your first one is even finished. The Double Bundle comes with French Roast and Breakfast Blend, 2 extremely popular blends that are sure to please any palate.

Whether you are buying them as a gift or for yourself, we are sure you will love all 3 bundles. As always, we love comments and feedback. Feel free to comment on other products you would like bundled with your Ekobrew filter. Maybe a 3-pack? How about one of our popular sampler packs with an Ekobrew? You tell us.

Many of our Facebook friends have been asking about the Ekobrew K-Cup reusable filter.  One of the big questions is whether or not they’re easy to clean.  The makers of Ekobrew use its ability to be quickly cleaned as one of its main selling points, but we weren’t going to simply take their word for it — We put it to the test.

The first thing we noticed is that the bottom of the Ekobrew has no cracks, crevices or smalls spaces for wet grinds to get crammed in, trapped forever.  This is very different from other brands we tested – brands that left us rinsing, re-rinsing, and rinsing some more.  After all, the little cups are too small to scrub so we had to scrape the grinds out of the cracks with a fork like some sorta early primate that just learned to use tools.

Next we filled our Ekobrew and made a quick cup of coffee on our office Keurig (yes, even we have a Keurig but if you call us out on it we will claim it’s only for research purposes).  The photo below is the Ekobrew immediately after brewing, filled with wet grinds.

Step 1 to cleaning the Ekobrew: 1 quick tap over the trash (or storage container if you reuse your spent grinds for  composting) to get the majority of the grinds out.

As you can see, there is a layer of grinds still on the bottom.  Worried?  Don’t be…

Step 2: Rinse.  I held the Ekobrew under the faucet while Marcie timed me.  I let the water fall down into the cup first, then turned it around a few times letting the water flow through the mesh on the sides and bottom of the cup.  The filter was completely clean after 25.5 seconds.

Completely clean in under 30 seconds with no scrubbing or scraping with make-shift tools necessary.  That’s not too bad, especially if you’re like me in the morning –  Before I get that first cup of coffee I make early primates look like Einstein.

Here at CBD we wanted to show you what the convenience of K-cups is really costing you, and what better way of doing that than a handy dandy infographic!

Now don’t get us wrong we really like the Keurig machine we are just not fans of the stale coffee, the high cost and the trash associated with the K-cups. We use our Keurig regularly here at the CBD offices, it sits right next to our French Press and auto drip machines. The only difference is we brew our coffee in it using a Ekobrew. Now, thanks to the Ekobrew Reusable Filter, your Keurig can have the freedom it deserves. Choose any coffee you want – it’s finally up to you! We love it so much that we are offering $5 off your order of $35 or more with the purchase of an Ekobrew.