You might always be in a rush during mornings but cannot miss that single cup of coffee. Or maybe you just don’t have the patience to grind some coffee beans, scoop them, and boil water before you can even drink that cup. The world has provided you with an amazing solution! A coffee pod. It brews a single cup of instant coffee through a machine called pod brewer. You won’t need to go through the entire process, you just need to brew coffee straight from that pod. Exciting? Yes, it is!




Holding 7 to 10 grams of ground coffee, pods are biodegradable pouches of paper rounding at a standard 61 millimeters. They are sealed and stored in boxes before shipped out to warehouses. The idea of single-serve coffee is getting more customary and popular so more and more companies and manufacturers are considering the concept. These coffee pods typically vary in weight, flavor, coffee type, amount of coffee, and sometimes, in size.

Types of Coffee Grind
Basically, there are three primary types of how coffee is ground - which you need to know. It is very obvious that they are different in size, but here’s a quick explanation to fully understand each of them:

Whole Coffee Beans
When coffee cherries are harvested, they go through processes such as sorting, pulping, fermentation, drying, storage and milling, grading and distribution, until they finally arrive at roasting. Whole coffee beans are straightly packaged and retailed after. You can read more information here leascoffee.com.

Ground Coffee
The next type though, picking up on the whole bean form, they are now darkened and hardened. By then, the beans are ground into three kinds: the coarse grind - irregular, rough, and much heavier than the rest; the filter coffee grind - medium level of roughness; the espresso grind - very fine and milled.
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Instant Coffee
Instant coffee is derived from roasted, then ground coffee beans. In order to make the coffee, water is added unto the ground beans, and it is brewed. Spray-drying or freeze-drying is carried out so the liquid phase could evaporate. The process is selected depending on the desired attributes of the manufacturer, medium-quality or high-quality instant coffee.
The Manufacturing Process



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To completely grasp what coffee pods are, let’s discover how they are being made. Of course, coffee cherries undergo food processing operations to produce the coffee beans which are the main ingredient for coffee pods. From there, they still go through a series of steps, more importantly, the packaging phase. It determines the physical appearance of the pods, which should fit the machines where they will be brewed by coffee drinkers.

The procedure is pretty quick and easy. Especially with the help of coffee packaging and sealing machines from AFPAK.

Uniform Grinding
They say the coffee grind greatly affects the quality and taste of your coffee present in pods. Above, grind types have been mentioned and among the three, the finest ground is proven to have the best taste after brewed. To start the coffee pod manufacturing, grinding is performed, depending on the target size of the particles. This should be performed uniformly. Ginhong’s high shear mixers are a good choice when picking the right equipment for this process. 

Preparation of Paper Pouches
For coffee capsules equivalent to pods’ paper pouches, capsules will be prepared and placed on the filling machine. So, for coffee pods, the pouches will be made ready and set on the equipment.

Filling of Pre-Ground Coffee
Next, is the filling of pre-ground coffee. Among the assembly line of paper pouches, the machine starts to work and fill them with the 7-gram variants of coffee which can differ in weight one by one. The process continues until the last pouch is packed with the pre-ground coffee.

Sealing of Pouches
Once the pouches are charged with coffee, sealing is important for safety and preservation purposes. If this step will be skipped, the coffee content might be contaminated and microorganisms and foreign elements can adhere to the product. Also, this is a way to ensure the merchandisers and customers that the coffee pods are fresh, clean, and were carefully handled during manufacturing.

Quality Evaluation
Most manufacturers perform the quality check of the finished products. Actually, this is a final standard operating procedure. The items should undergo a quality assessment to guarantee that they meet the requirements set for them. If the coffee pods pass this, they are good to go!

Packaging and Distribution
Lastly, the packaging and distribution step. Coffee pods are stored in boxes which are also sealed afterward. Labels are added and once everything is set, bulks of boxes are shipped to the distributors and warehouses before they reach the actual marketplaces or coffee shops.

Conclusion
Single-serve coffee has been helpful for everybody since its launch in 2001. Mostly, for professionals who are too busy to make their own coffee before leaving the house or at the office while they work. Coffee pods come very handily and are convenient to consume with the right coffee machines. Just be cautious about your coffee intake - we know coffee can be very addictive but be reminded that drinking moderately is still the best coffee advice there is!