Re Keurig once the novelty wears off you realize it’s just powered instant coffee in different flavors. After a month with our Keurig machine I couldn’t *stand *the taste compared to the fresh brew I get from my local coffee house. I would never get one.
Well, I looked at Costco. $149 for the machine, sixty cups, and a filter so you can use your own grounds.
Or, a Black & Decker programmable drip 12 cup maker for $14.
I went with the B&D. I told my wife that perhaps Santa will bring us a Keurig this year. But I’m not into spending $150 bucks for a coffee maker. I’ll spend the money I saved on a burr grinder and some decent whole-bean coffee.
salinqmind: They’re available at the grocery store, too. Even the “international” supermarket near my house has a big K-cup selection.
Lancia: Yeah, that’s the top of the line (or darned close) for home use from the Keurig brand. My husband and I are used to getting pricey coffee makers, but they last a while typically, so I’m OK with the investment. We just tossed a programmable Cuisinart Grind-and-Brew after it burped out the coffee all over the kitchen floor at 5 am one too many times. I like waking up to hot coffee, but that’s ridiculous.
I’m a coffee snob, and was given a Keurig as a present, and it’s currently gathering dust behind my Aeropress, Hario V60, and French Press. I don’t think it’s terrible or anything, once you find a decent k-cup you like and combine it with the right size. The ease of clean-up and ability to make different flavors/caffeine levels for guests is pretty impressive. But, no, it’ll never make as good a cup as other methods that give you more control over all the important variables that go into making a good cup of coffee.
That said, in the interest of facts, your comment here is simply not correct. A Keurig is based on the same basic principles as any traditional coffee brew method: it forces hot water through ground coffee. It does NOT use “powdered instant coffee”. I’ve seen this mentioned elsewhere, but it can be easily disproved by popping open one of the k-cups. Real ground coffee inside there.
The inside of a k-cup is actually a little more complicated than you might think (certainly more than I initially thought), and a lot of that technology is in interest of keeping the ground coffee as fresh as possible.
As I said above, I’m no fan of Kuerig. But I have learned how to make big cups of coffee with the fancy K-machine in our office. Our model has buttons for brewing 4, 6, 8, & 10oz cups.
Put a large mug under the spout, insert a fresh k-cup, close the lid & brew a 10oz. When it’s done and the display changes to “ready for the next cup”, slightly open the k-cup chamber, just enough so the computer notices. Then close the chamber again. It thinks you’ve dumped that k-cup and put in a fresh one. In reality you’ve left the original one in there. Then push the button for a 4 or 6 oz brew. It only takes a few seconds longer than it would’ve taken to brew 14 or 16 oz all at once had the machine had such a setting.
The net effect is 14 or 16 oz of slightly diluted K-coffee. Which, like that nasty overcooked McBuck’s stuff, is actually better when diluted a bit.
What are you doing to clean it? I dump the liquid dregs into the sink, then over the trash can pull out the press part. Then I bump the carafe & press once or twice against the can liner to knock out 95% of the grounds. Then rinse the two parts for a few seconds under running water. Done. If it takes 15 seconds I must’ve stopped to do something else in the middle.
It doesn’t need to be sterilized between uses. Neither will your sink plumbing clog if a single grain of coffee grounds goes down the pipes. Close enough is plenty good enough. Once every 20 or 30 pots, run the carafe through the dishwasher to keep it all sparkly.
You are correct. Very finely ground coffee sealed in little cups. Whatever they they are using to keep it “fresh” tasting needs to be improved. It still tastes like ass compared to real fresh ground coffee. I’m stunned at the popularity of these machines when the product is so overwhelmingly “meh”. I guess it’s the flavors peope get excited about.
I’m not sure what the size of the grind has to do with it. Espresso is one method that uses a very fine grind. Grind size has nothing to do with the quality of the product; it’s about what’s best for the particular brew technique you’re using.
Look, I’m not disagreeing with you that there are far, far better methods of making coffee. I really am a coffee snob - I roast my own beans. I’m extremely particular about brew methods, and I really like to be in control of all the important factors - water temp, brew time, freshness, amount of coffee, etc. - which you don’t get with a Keurig. I freely admit that. But even as a coffee snob, I’ll admit you can get a perfectly drinkable cup of coffee out of the Keurig. Emeril’s Big Easy Bold k-cup, for one, is actually not bad, and I’m sure would be perfectly fine for someone who isn’t too demanding about their coffee.
For all that is good and holy, NO!!
you know how much waste there is in those?
just get a $10 drip machine, MUCH less to go in the landfill!
The thing about those things is you are locked into their selection (once you start grinding your own you might as just bought the $10 auto drip).
They do have coffee makers where it grinds and brews automatically (set on a timer), which may be a alternative route.
I think it depends on your habits. My family drinks 3 cups of coffee per day. My husband and I drink one in the morning and he will drink one in the evening. Keurig is perfect for us. It took a while to find a coffee that we both liked but I now get the Timothy’s World k-cup box of 50 from amazon for 29.95. Costcos seems a lot cheaper but we don’t have a membership and I doubt it would be worth it to just go for coffee anyway. Our local grocery store is selling ten for 9.99 which seems like quite the rip off to me.
Because I like lighter coffee, I choose the smallest setting twice and get a large cup of perfect coffee. Best of all about the Keurig is we aren’t dumping so much coffee down the drain as we did in the past with our drip machine.
I love my Keurig. It makes great coffee.
Also, we got our for Christmas 2009. Sometime around March 2011 it broke. It just wouldn’t brew coffee no matter how good I cleaned it, no matter how much vinegar I ran through it. It was useless and it was less than a year and a half old.
At this point I was pretty disatisfied with thier product and called them to let them now, thinking maybe they would give me a coupon for a few bucks off a new one.
Instead they asked for the serial number on the broken one and said they would ship me a brand new one, no charge. It arrived 2 days later. They have a lifetime customer now.
Perhaps they knew of some problems with certain models, but whatever the case, that is fine customer service.
Can anyone comment on the difference between Keurig and Senseo?
I am a coffee lover, and bought a Senseo a few years back. I put it on my desk in the office and used it for about a year, before admitting to myself: 1) I don’t really like this coffee. It’s not terrible, but it’s still no proper brew and 2) It’s more expensive on a per cup basis than the office coffee and the cost doesn’t justify it (I dislike them both in different ways)
I’d love a good cup of coffee at the office, but I’m thinking I’m just gonna have to break down and get an electric kettle and a french press for my desk.
While Lancia has reached a decision, perhaps this info will help GameHat.
Speaking as someone who has a Senseo at home, a Tassimo at work, and has given a Keurig as a present - I’ll list what I think are the good and bad of each.
Senseo: +easy to use, easy to use your own coffee (either with a reusable pod or by using paper basket-style filters), easy to clean up. -pods are basically coffee in paper filters so you have to be more careful when you store them, doesn’t seem as popular so finding a decent variety in the stores can be iffy and the ones they have may have been there a bit.
Tassimo: +bar code means the machine adjusts the amount and temp of the water to match what you’re making, decent selection of coffee, tea, and hot cocoa, plus it has milk discs to do lattes, etc., with. -costs of discs, I haven’t found a way to use my own coffee, discs are plastic so there’s more stuff to go into the trash/recycle bin, amount of coffee from a disc can be on the small side.
Keurig: +easy to find k-cups for, fairly easy to use your own coffee with (using a reusable k-cup), has a wide variety of coffee, tea, hot cocoa, cider, etc. -the machines tend to be a bit temperamental, and to me they seem a bit bulky (when comparing single-serve machines of similar water tank capacity), plus the k-cups are plastic.
None of these are good if you like to drink a lot of coffee, or are more particular about what you drink and how its made. The Tassimo with its bar codes comes the closest though. All of them are fine if most of the time you’re lobbing in flavored creamers, using the coffee in drinks, etc. Costs of the machines can vary greatly, depending on how fancy it is and the size of the water tank. Truthfully, if I needed to get a new single-serve for use at home, I’d stick with the Senseo, and for work, I’d get another Tassimo as for what I like, it’s more convenient. (At home, I don’t care about lugging in milk for my coffee.)
There have been some other single-serve coffee makers (Nespresso I think is one) that have come into the market in the past couple of years, but beyond seeing them in stores I haven’t had any first-hand experience with them.
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Hmm, thanks for the post, lots of good info here.
It still sounds like none of the “single-cup” brewers can do a great cup of coffee.
I’m still leaning towards a french press for my desk.