Forums >Off the Beaten Path>"K-Cup" Coffee Makers
I love K-Cups. I do stick to the extra bold varieties because those tend to taste better than the regular kinds.
My wife drinks tea and I drink coffee so making a big pot every morning is a waste as I have one cup while getting ready and one cup on my drive to work.
It is more expensive than brewing your own drip coffee but it is a lot cheaper than stopping at a dunkins or starbucks or even a gas station for a cup, which is more likely what I would end up doing if we didn't have it.
Also their customer service is really great. If your brewer craps out on you for any reason you just call them, they walk you through a few trouble shooting steps, like descaling, and if that doesn't fix it they just send you a new brewer for free, even after the warranty expires. They just make you send back one specific part of the brewer so that they know you aren't just getting free brewers.
I'm a member of the Green Mountain Coffee club as well so I get 18% off on all the purchases. If you buy 4 boxes at a time they don't charge shipping.
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I was given one as a gift, and it's very convenient for a single cup in the morning before work. If I'm not going to work, I don't use it. It only makes sense when I want just one cup. If that describes your coffee drinking habits, go for it. If it does not, don't.
Once I get through the several boxes of K-Cups that it came with, I do not intend to buy more of them. They are just okay in terms of taste and make a ton of waste. If you are super anal, you can rip the foil off the top, compost the grounds, trash the foil, and recycle the plastic.
...Not that I have done that. *cough*
However, I have one of the "use your own grounds" things. I will probably keep using this in the morning once I expend my K-Cups. It's far better than the pre-packed ones I've tried. Still makes coffee a bit weak, though. You can also throw loose tea or tea blossoms in that basket, which I do as well.
If you're doing dinner parties, and you have guests who actually like good coffee, a Bunn or a couple French presses is better--both for volume and making better coffee.
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We have one at work but I was disgusted with the wastefulness. So I bought us all a few of these and everyone donates their grounds to my compost pile:
Ex runner
Feeling the growl again
I would never use one at home, the coffee is mediocre, it's expensive, and wasteful.
They don't allow drip coffeemakers at work anymore (or any in your workstation for that matter) but we have K-cup one provided in a central area. I typically bring coffee pre-made from home but if I don't...or run out...I'll use the K-cup as it's still 1/3 the price of going down to the coffee stand and buying it there. I bought a 16-pack a couple months ago, I'm perhaps halfway through it.
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I love the convenience of it. It works great for a travel mug in the morning. And my husband is getting old and weird and likes to drink a cup of coffee at night. Before he was making half a pot and then staying up half the night, now he just makes one (sometimes two) cups.
We still have our old coffee pot and on weekends when we're both home in the morning (which isn't often between my long runs and races, and his group rides and races) we make a full pot.
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I tried off and on throughout the years to become a coffee drinker. It's a much cheaper way to get your caffeine than my Diet Coke vice. I joined the office coffee pot fund several times but I just don't like it at all and it messes up my stomach.
Then some friends started a coffee importing and roasting company and a coffee shop and we had their coffee for a breakfast thing we do every Friday for years. Wow, it was so much better! I found I liked coffee if it was good. I bought their coffee and became a coffee drinker, eventually figuring out the whole bit about grinding and how long it lasts and the like.
A couple years ago my wife bought me a Keurig machine for my office and it's a good compromise. Much better than the office coffee pot. I'm a professor and I invite the students to stop by any time and have a free cup of coffee. That's been a good thing. I found that I like the extra bold varieties much better and they're easier on my stomach.
With online deals, the cost for coffee is pretty low, although I'm sure more than the 20 bucks a year for the office pot. The solid waste of a couple tiny K-cups a day is insignificant.
I'd never heard of the thing when my wife gave it to me, but I've become a convert to the K-cup thing.
rectumdamnnearkilledem
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I love my Keurig. Since I get up at the crack of dawn to run in the morning, it's nice to have coffee that's ready pretty much immediately. Plus, DH can have fresh coffee for when he gets up later on. Also, on the weekends, we don't program the drip coffee maker to start at a particular time, and that take 9 minutes to brew. That's WAY too long wait for coffee, IMHO, so I quick brew a Keurig and drink that while I'm waiting. lol
Also, on the weekends, we don't program the drip coffee maker to start at a particular time, and that take 9 minutes to brew. That's WAY too long wait for coffee, IMHO, so I quick brew a Keurig and drink that while I'm waiting. lol
That is pretty funny, to have a backup coffeemaker so you can have a cup of coffee while you're waiting for your coffee.
And when I say funny, I mean brilliant.
Dave
A Saucy Wench
I dont ever see myself making the leap. I fresh grind and brew a pot of coffee and pretty much drink the whole thing. I drink way too much coffee (although I have switched to half-caff most days) to ever make it one at a time and I DETEST flavored coffees.
And the packaging makes me shudder although I know there are refillables where you can use your own coffee. But, I am clumsy. I have a grind and brew so that I only spill whole beans all over the place when I make coffee. If I had to work with grounds each time I would make SUCH a mess.
The advantages I can see is for my friends who drink one cup at a time and who really like variety. But I could never justify the environmental disaster or the $$$ that the pre-filled pods are.
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I have a grind and brew so that I only spill whole beans all over the place when I make coffee. If I had to work with grounds each time I would make SUCH a mess.
I think our next machine will be a grind-n-brew model. Grinding in our separate grinder kinda makes a mess every time.
+1
I would really like our current machine to break down so we have an excuse. Plus the spout on the carafe was designed by idiots, and you cannot pour without spilling. (You had one job to do!!!) But the damn thing will probably last forever.Like when I was waiting for our remaining tube TVs to break down so we could replace them with flat screens. Of course they kept working & the flat screen we already had broke down first.
Never in a million years would I buy one - way too wasteful of packaging, don't care how good the coffee might or might not be it just goes against my being to thow away plastic and foil for each cup I drink. I'm a coffee-achiever (remember those commercials?!) and use a full-blown espresso machine with fresh ground beans that I use within a few days of roasting. Costs a lot but byGawd you'd spit out any drip coffee after you've had this. After my second trip to Europe I came back and found I just couldn't stomach the drip muddy water anymore.
+1. These are awesome and no waste.
Eric
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FWIW everybody I have known who had grind-and-brews hated them (the online reviews were pretty bad when I looked at them last year). They don't seem to last long at all before the grinder quite (less than a year for both friends who had them).
My wife tried to buy me one last year but clicked on the wrong thing and I ended up with a high end grinder-only instead. It was a pricey oops at first, but actually it is really nice ad it holds a whole bag of beans in a sealed hopper and the grind is really adjustable.
The grounds are deposited in a tidy container for transfer to the brewer...so easy even Ennay couldn't make a mess with it.
I don't know what brand/model it is without looking; I do recall thinking at the time that it was assinine to spend that much on a coffee machine, especially when we realized it didn't even brew the coffee.