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In a bid to do my part in "saving the planet" I've a reusable, insulated coffee mug. We won't go into the energy used in the making of it but being aluminium it is itself recyclable. As well as being reusable, it also doesn't collapse in your hands when picking it up from the cup holder in the car - hot coffee over your legs when driving isn't good!
At a filling station there's one of those automatic vending machines so I make my selection and choose the regular size as I know that this will just fill the mug with a couple of mm spare to the rim. I put my mug on the grill and press "Make it!". The machine has a sensor to differentiate between its own regular and large mugs and decides that my mug is a large so up pops a screen asking if I wish to upgrade to "Large" for 25p. I don't since I know that it won't fit. But there's no option to continue using my mug.
In the end I resorted to grabbing a normal sized mug from the stack, putting that on the grill, making my choice then quickly swapping my mug into place before the pouring began. The cardboard/plastic mug is left forlornly by the side of the machine.
Why is trying to do "the right thing" so hard?
🤣
hot coffee over your legs when driving isn’t good!
Choose a cold drink then - a large G&T is very nice during the summer months and eliminates the scalding risk.
If you're going to the trouble of taking you own cup, why not take a flask from home?
Wait until you get to work and then make a coffee? It'll save you some money and obviate the risk of in-car scalding.
@GlenQuagmire - Gin? Yeuch!
@midlifecrashes - don't drink coffee at home.
@derek_starship - I didn't say this was a commute but "work" is currently off-grid. When I was office based I'd either bike or take the train.
Anyway, all the above are diversions. These are new machines so will have been thought about whilst the reusable vs throwaway cup debate was going on so why not take that into account? The same company offer discounts if you use a reusable cup/mug in-store.
I've experienced exactly the same thing with the newest machines. I normally have a flask, but sometimes need an afternoon pick up too (I'm on the road most days). My cup is "almost" a large, but not quite. So I have the choice of no coffee, doing what you did, or just waiting until its almost full and adding the last milk, and pulling it out quickly letting the rest pour away, getting about 10p's worth of the extra 25p in the cup. Frustrating!
I do find that if there is a Costa rather than a machine, more often than not I get charged for the regular, but the Barista tops it up pretty much to the brim, so maybe it all balances out.