Ok, I just bought three Keurig machines in about three weeks during January. I bought one for my MIL, but accidentally had it shipped to my house. When I saw how big the box was, I decided just to order her a new one and keep the old one. We fell in love with it! My husband and I love radically different kinds of coffee. The coffee it makes is really good, and I can keep a variety of decafs on hand for visitors. I liked it so much I promptly bought bought one more for work.
So list your fave K-cups and why:
Spicy Mayan Chocolate: doesn’t taste chocolaty at all, but very light with just a hint of spice. Great in the evening.
Timothy’s Breakfast: Mild taste, not too acidic for first thing in the morning.
Gloria Jean’s Cappuccino: Does not attempt to be a Cappuccino, but has a creamy flavor with a hint of cinnamon.
Newman’s Extra Bold: Not for me, but husband swears by it. We can get at Costco, too.
I use these at work and I get kind of guilty, I mean they are an environmental disaster. Kind of like adult juice boxes. Nonetheless, I still use about two a day. Just the straight Columbian for me.
We have one of these machines at work. It does one thing well, that being, it got me to switch from coffee to tea (from tea bags, not from the Keurig machine) because the coffee it makes is astonishingly weak and over-extracted, like those K-cups have about a third the coffee they should. I don’t know if that’s just the coffee they order at work, or if it’s universal with those Keurig machines, but weak, over-extracted coffee makes me want to gag.
We have one at work. The Keurig machines are full of novelty and wonder at the beginning, but after awhile the coffee becomes … well… kind of “meh” as it becomes evident that you’re not really getting “fresh brewed” coffee, but sort of a hybrid beast that’s closer to instant coffee than fresh brewed. The pity of it is that I switched to tea too, but you can’t use the Keurig hot water dispenser because the water it delivers is tinged by coffee flavor. The only Keurig beverage I drink these days is occasionally the cocoa.
Well, I’ve enjoyed ours and find the variety fun. for my tastes the coffee is very nice, though I do not really enjoy the tea or cocoas. I also use it for hot water all the time and dont detect coffee flavor.
I know some people don’t like these machines, which was why I shouted out to people who do.
Actually, I was hoping for someone to chime in and say “Oh, yeah a lot of K cups are like that, get your company to buy Coffee Bob’s Extra Extra Strong which has three times the coffee” or “That happened to me too, turns out your water’s not set hot enough, twiddle a secret knob and it’ll fix it.” The machine itself is pretty nifty and I’d like to like it, but I’ve sampled the full selection at work (bunch of Gloria Jean’s varieties, and a couple others whose brand I can’t remember at the moment) and all of them end up over-extracted. I’ve considered splitting my mug between two K-cups (hit the 4 button on one and 6 on the other, instead of hitting 10 on one K-cup), but I’m not sure how popular that’d make me, hogging the coffee machine and all.
I like the Coffee People extra bold line. Jet Fuel, Wake-Up Call, and Black Tiger. They supposedly have more coffee in them than a regular K-Cup and make a stronger cup without the over-extraction. I’m a recovering coffee snob and find them to be quite acceptable. I don’t know how your machine works, but I have five size options and anything over medium is just too much water and too little grounds on any K-Cup.
Also, the secret is to buy them from Amazon. 21 bucks for 50 K-Cups. Best deal I’ve found so far.
Amazon prices are all over the place. If you happen to like the flavors they have on sale (I don’t), then yeah, it’s $21 for 50 K-cups. For other flavors (e.g. Newman’s own or Green Mountain) you can find it cheaper elsewhere.
We have a home machine with the 3 different sized settings. Extra Bold Tully’s variety for the middle setting is perfect for me. The breakfast type blends are too weak for my taste, but it is how my mother drinks her coffee.
There’s one we have at work, I think it’s called Black Diamond, that’s really good and strong.
I have one here at home, too; I sort of lost patience with the French press, for various reasons revolving around a tiny kitchen. Anyway, I’ve “subscribed” to Diedrich French Roaston Amazon; if you get it on a recurrent basis it’s $17 for 50 cups, which is about as economical as these things get. Unfortunately, I’m getting a little bored of it.
We have one at my RN job and I loved it so much, I bought one for myself for Xmas. I like the English Breakfast Tea at work (the Earl Grey is also good).
For home, not wanting to pay for the K-cups (and finding decaf tea hard to find), I bought a plastic K-cup with the filters. It took me abut 2 weeks to cotton onto the fact that all I really need is the plastic K-cup. I rip off the string and tag from my decaf Irish Breakfast Tea bag (or any other flavor), stuff it into the K-cup and get my tea that way. I also have overlarge mugs, so I use the same tea-bag and do an 8 oz, then a 10 oz “fill”. Makes a perfect cup, every time.
I do have paper filters for people who want to make their own coffee and I have some K-cup coffee flavors for company.
I’d really like one for my library job, but there’s no $ in the budget for it.