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​The single-serve coffee maker: Incredible convenience, or threat to life, limb and pocketbook? If the news this week is any indication, the latter seems more likely than the former.

First, the New York Times looked at how much you're actually paying when you buy those pods that these single-serve coffee makers use.

...the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound.

As the Times article points out, all but the most exclusive varities of coffee will run you less than $20 a pound -- and in Gut Check's admittedly limited experience, the stuff that comes out of those pods is far closer to those giant cans of cheap coffee than $20-a-pound gourmet beans.

Is the convenience still worth the extra dollars per pound to you? What if we told you there was a risk of being scalded.

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Screenshot: www.starbucks.com

​Oh, Starbucks, sometimes you make it too easy.

The java behemoth has introduced a new series of light-roast coffee blends called Blonde. Not really that interesting, unless you're one of the seven people left in America who hasn't formed an opinion about Starbucks coffee.

Except! From the main Starbucks gossip website -- yes, such a thing exists -- (via Gawker) comes reports of Starbucks managers forbidding employees, on the threat of written sanctions, from making Blonde jokes in front of customers.

A Blonde joke? Like: What do you call a Blonde roast standing on its head?

A dark roast!

Can you top that? Leave your best Blonde joke in the comments over the three-day weekend. Gut Check will judge the entries on Tuesday morning, and the winner will receive gift certificates to La Tejana Taqueria and Taqueria Durango.

Rules: To be eligible, you must leave a valid e-mail address (or Twitter handle or Facebook profile URL) in the comment-entry field. One guess per e-mail address. Employees of the restaurant in question and Riverfront Times are not eligible.

WINNER: After furious debate here at Gut Check International Headquarters, the winner is...Fendi Hotdogbun. We'll be in touch. An honorable mention to Bunny, whose joke didn't have anything to do with coffee, but made us laugh. Thanks to everyone who played!

Last fall, Ian reported on a new coffeehouse coming to south city, Sump Coffee. Gut Check followed up after the opening to get a closer look into the cafe's offerings.

Mabel Suen

Scott Carey, the man behind the plan at Sump Coffee, with a Kyoto drip brewer.

​Scott Carey says he just might be obsessed with coffee; however, his fascination isn't that of the typical everyday caffeine junkie. At Sump Coffee (3700 South Jefferson Avenue; 917-412-5670), which opened last month in south city, he represents what's known as the "third-wave"coffee movement: artisanal beans, exacting brewing methods and an appreciation for the subtleties in each coffee experience.

Inspired by java mantras in New York City, where he resided for a dozen years working as a patent attorney, Carey sought to build a space in his hometown of St. Louis where coffee is treated like wine or a high-end single-origin chocolate, rather than merely as a caffeine-dosing mechanism. He strives to showcase different coffee varietals and origins through a number of brew methods.

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Ian Froeb

Sump Coffee in south city

​Sump Coffee will open at 3700 South Jefferson Avenue this Thursday, December 1. The south city coffee house's regular hours will be 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and closed on Sunday.

As Gut Check learned during a discussion with owner Scott Carey in October, Sump will use a Slayer espresso machine, a rare and very expensive item -- "a cult item," in Carey's words -- that lets a barista to extract the espresso at varying levels of pressure, allowing for a greater range of flavor profiles.

Ian Froeb

Sump Coffee in south city

​I noted last week that a new coffeehouse called Sump Coffee will be opening at 3700 South Jefferson Avenue in south city. Today, I had a chance to speak with owner Scott Carey, who returned to his hometown of St. Louis last year after spending time in both Berkeley, California, and New York City.

Carey sought a coffee experience in St. Louis similar to what he'd found in Berkeley and New York.

"What I discovered," he says, is that "every [coffee] place wants to be a brunch place."

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​Yesterday, Eater reported that Starbucks has finally caved and is making a weaker, lighter brew. For "pussies."

Several of us at Gut Check International Headquarters have spent time as Starbucks baristas, and maybe that's why at this point you couldn't pay us to drink that swill. Give me a 'Bucks wet cappuccino, give me espresso, sure. But that "coffee" tastes like it was brewed from dark-roasted dirt and toilet water.

We'll bet you our Chemex that no one actually likes the stuff -- they just give in to middle-class peer pressure, thinking it's the good stuff, the strong stuff, and that they're a weakling if they don't like it. This is why there's inevitably a line for the condiment bar at Starbucks, as weary, sleepy-eyed sheep (yes, SHEEP!) fill their cups to the brim with Sugar in the Raw or two-and-a-half Splendas with an inch of half and half.

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Ian Froeb

Sump Coffee in south city

​- A new coffeehouse called Sump Coffee is slated to open at 3700 South Jefferson Avenue in the city's Marine Villa neighborhood.

Michael Carey and Marlene Akemi Yamaguchi registered Sump with the Missouri Secretary of State last October. Carey and Yamaguchi also own the building at 3700 South Jefferson, according to city property records.

Sump does have a Facebook page, though it doesn't have much information besides a projected (and apparently unmet) August opening date. There is a phone number, which I called. I'll let you know what I hear back.

- Dao Tien Vietnamese Bistro opened this weekend at 8600 Olive Boulevard in University City. Thanks to the commenters on our previous update for the heads up. For more on Dao Tien, check out this post from September.

Gut Check International Headquarters is fueled entirely by coffee. Fun fact: Many of us have served time as baristas. Therefore, the piping-hot cups of wonderful hold a special place in our hearts, in addition to allowing us to function as reasonably normal and productive members of society.

But because of our intimate relationship with the stuff, we actually kinda empathize with these profound assholes:

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Jennifer Silverberg

Coffee mugs at Half & Half in Clayton

​Today is National Coffee Day. Of course, at Gut Check International Headquarters, every day is coffee day, but if we must dedicate this one gorgeous September Thursday to the beverage that fuels our work, then so be it.

Already this week, we honored Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company in the Riverfront Times Best of St. Louis 2011 as having the Best Coffee. Today, we celebrate the five best places in St. Louis to have a cup of coffee. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean the coffee itself is outstanding -- though in all but one case, it is. In fact, in three of the five spots on our list, the coffee is Kaldi's.

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7-Eleven

Free 7-Eleven coffee and exacting online revenge? Oh, thank heaven!

​7-Eleven's giving away free stuff, and it's not even on a date that has a seven or eleven in it! This Thursday, from 7 to 11 a.m. -- ah, there it is -- 7-Eleven stores will be giving away free medium cups of coffee in its Coffree! promotion.

It's part of a larger coffee event that involves dropping people you don't like into near-boiling liquids. The company allowed fans to vote on Facebook on what "drips" they'd most like to see in a dunking booth of hot java. Yesterday the announced the doomed future burn victims: the Snob, the Know-it-All and the Over-Sharer. The online dunking begins on Wednesday.

Inflicting third-degree burns on nameless stereotypes doesn't seem that satisfying. Although we were tardy to the voting, Gut Check has its own list of three people we'd like to dunk.

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