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This marijuana-infused coffee pod company makes K-Cup-style coffee with a kick
(Brewbudz launches marijuana-infused coffee pods for the Keurig.Brewbudz)
A startup out of San Diego, California, has made it easy to add a little extra lift to your morning with marijuana-infused coffee pods.
This week, Brewbudz debuted a line of coffees and teas spiked with marijuana flower and encased in single-serve, fully compostable containers. Each pod costs about $7 and is available at select dispensaries in Nevada.
The idea is simple: Sink a pod into your Keurig or Keurig 2.0 brewer, drink, and enjoy a caffeine jolt that comes with a buzz.
Kevin Love, director of product for Brewbudz parent company Cannabiniers, said the company wanted to crack the marijuana edibles market with a low-calorie product that uses a socially accepted delivery mechanism. When they read the stats on coffee consumption, Cannabiniers (whose name combines "cannabinoids" — chemical compounds found in marijuana — and "pioneers") knew they found a match. Nearly two-thirds of Americans drink coffee every day.
Cannabiniers didn't come up with the concept. A K-Cup-styled marijuana coffee product first debuted in Colorado in 2015. Earlier this year, marijuana startup Somatik teamed up with a San Francisco coffee roaster to create a $12 weed-infused cold brew.
What sets Brewbudz apart from its competitors is its packaging. The pods are made from bio-based mesh, skins of roasted coffee beans, and other organic materials. When disposed of correctly, the pod breaks down in as little as five weeks, according to the website. By comparison, Keurig generates billions of pieces of plastics every year.
(Brewbudz retail for about $7 per pod, depending on their potency, and are sold in packs of three.Brewbudz)
The pods come in regular and decaf coffee and tea varieties, and are available in a range of doses from 10 milligrams to 50 milligrams of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana that gets users high). It's a high threshold for a product geared for recreational users, who typically have lower tolerances than medical users. If a 10-milligram cup is the rough equivalent of a shot of espresso and a glass of wine, then a 50-milligram cup would be all that and a Four Loko.
Love told Business Insider that the company hopes to launch a micro-dosed product for recreational users, as well as a large variety of infused marijuana strains, in the future.
Brewbudz are not licensed by Keurig, nor are they officially called K-cups. Keurig did not immediately respond to comment, and Love doesn't expect to hear from the company.
"We have an eco-positive product, [Keurig has] an eco-negative," Love said. "What are they going to say to us?"
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