Lavazza invented coffee tablets. Not pills. Tablets. They're called Tablì because nothing says "sustainability" like adding an accent mark to a word that didn't need one.
The company believes Americans care about sustainability when they drink espresso. This is the same country where people idle their SUVs in the Starbucks drive-through for twenty minutes to get a venti caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream. But sure. Sustainability.
Single-serve coffee already exists. It's called Keurig. It generates enough plastic waste to build a bridge to the moon. Lavazza looked at that disaster and thought "we can make this Italian."
The tablets dissolve in water to make espresso. You know what else dissolves in water to make espresso? Coffee grounds. Been working fine since the 1800s. Didn't need an Italian redesign.
Lavazza's pitch is that tablets create less waste than pods. They're technically correct. A tablet creates less waste than a plastic pod the same way getting punched in the face creates less damage than getting hit by a car. You're still getting punched in the face.
The real sustainability move would be buying a bag of coffee beans and a grinder. Costs forty bucks. Lasts for years. Makes better espresso than any tablet ever will. But that requires effort. Americans don't do effort before 9 AM.
Lavazza is betting on guilt-ridden consumers who want to feel good about their coffee choices without actually changing anything meaningful. They identified their target market perfectly. Congratulations to everyone who'll pay extra to dissolve their espresso like an Alka-Seltzer while telling themselves they saved the planet.
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