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With the price of everything rising these days you might be looking for ways to save more money. Eating out less, walking instead of driving, making coffee at home instead of buying a cup at your local coffee shop. These are all things you can do to help save a bit of money while the costs of goods and services continues to rise.
When it comes to coffee, sometimes just making coffee at home isn’t enough to help your wallet, but what if we told you there was a little-known secret to coffee grounds you might be able to take advantage of.
You can reuse your coffee grounds a second time after brewing a pot of coffee!
Yes, that’s right, you can save those used coffee grounds from the morning and use them again to brew another cup or pot of coffee in the afternoon to get you through the rest of the day. However, there are some caveats to doing so, so if you’re a seasoned coffee drinker who loves the taste of fresh coffee, then this trick might not be for you.
Using Your Coffee Grounds a Second Time
Reusing your old coffee grounds a second time can be done, but should it be?
You’re not going to get sick if you reuse your coffee grounds, however if you’re a coffee connoisseur or just like a really good cup of coffee, you’re probably not going to want to reuse them. If you’re the type of person that loads up your coffee with cream and sugar, then you may not really notice that much of a difference between the two cups.
Once you brew a cup of coffee using fresh grounds, most of the flavor is going to end up in that first cup or pot. This means that using your used coffee grounds is going to produce less flavorful, possibly bitter, coffee, but you still have to put in the same amount of effort.
The other problem with reusing coffee grounds is that bacteria can grow if the grounds are left out too long. You’ll want to make sure that you’re only reusing coffee grounds in the same day if you don’t plan on drying them out.
If you really want to reuse coffee grounds days after you’ve initially brewed your coffee, you’ll want to make sure the coffee grounds dry out completely and are stored in a dark place to help inhibit the growth of bacteria.
What About the Caffeine?
When most people drink a cup of coffee they are looking to get that extra boost from the elevated levels of caffeine. By brewing a cup of coffee you’re essentially sucking the caffeine out of the coffee grounds and into your cup, so it would make sense that if you reused coffee grounds to make another cup of coffee you would receive less caffeine.
If you’re looking to get the same caffeine boost from your second cup of coffee as your first, then you may not want to reuse those used coffee grounds. However, there is still some caffeine left in those grounds so you will still get a little bit of a pick-me-up from the second cup.
Typical coffee grounds contain a caffeine concentrate of between 10-12mg, while reused coffee grounds will contain only 3.6-8mg of caffeine. The amount of caffeine is clearly less in the second round of using the same coffee grounds, but you’re still going to get a little bit of a jolt from that second batch.
Our Opinion… Don’t Reuse Coffee Grounds
Overall, we don’t normally recommend reusing coffee grounds to make another cup or pot of coffee as it dilutes the flavor and can make the coffee taste more bitter than what is intended.
Our coffee, and many other growers, are designed to be tasted after brewing once and as soon as you brew another bath using the old, diluted, coffee grounds, you’re moving further away from what the coffeemaker intended.
If you are really in a bind and looking for a way to save some money, this is definitely an option, but don’t waste your good coffee beans or coffee grounds if you know you’re going to be reusing the coffee beans.
You’re always going to get the best taste and flavor from a fresh batch of coffee grounds as opposed to a used one, but if you really want to reuse your coffee grounds there are other ways that you can do so.
