rampant consumerism question of the day

[rmd]

so, aside from being wasteful because single serving extra packaging etc, any opinions on k-cup type keurig coffee pod systems? someone i know who lives alone and has started drinking more coffee is potentially interested. and the single-servingness appeals, as does the variety of available flavors and such.

also, where are k-cup pods available for retail purchase? or is it all mail-order?

Comments

[miss-bowtruckle.livejournal.com]

My neighbour has Keurig, buys her pods through the mail, and loves it. To me, if I can get the same strength coffee for a tall cup and a short cup, it seems like I must be wasting half the damn thing, and I'm not sure if it lets you get more than one cup from one pod. And I've seen the boxes she buys them in, like...50 of one flavour. Not sure if they come in smaller sizes, if you want more variety, or if you're stuck buying huge.

It's also got tea flavours too. The Earl Grey is nice.

Sorry, not much help, am I? Well...that's nothing new. ;)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i know they have variety packs available, too, with a bunch of different flavors in it.

[totient]

There are a bunch of variations on this, the best of which are equivalent in taste and hassle to an Aeropress. Of course the Aeropress is much cheaper, and easier to use your own coffee in.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

she likes the weird flavored coffee, tho, which is why i had suggested a k-cup system, since you can get everything from a normal dark roast to german chocolate cake flavored.

[cutieperson]

this site has a staggering array of flavors, and a handy list of pod compatibility.

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

Hell, they sell Keurig k-cups at the convenience store down the street from us on Main Street in Medford.

We use them at work and I love the tea flavors it comes in.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i have them at work, too, but they're delivered regularly, which is one reason i was curious about retail outlets for the cups.

i hadn't noticed them in convenience stores. cool to know.

thanks!

[cutieperson]

not sure about k-cup pods, but i'm quite thrilled with my Melitta pod machine. a bit less waste since there's less packaging, and all around less expensive.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

huh. i hadn't heard of the melitta system. do they have much in the way of flavored coffees?

[cutieperson]

yup. you can also use pretty much any non-k-cup pod in them. same for Senseo. i'm pretty sure you can also get permanent filters & do ground coffee, but then you have to deal with grinding & such.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

We have a Keurig machine here at work, it's quite nice. Machines and K-Cups are available at Bed, Bath & Beyond as well as online.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, we've got one at work. i didnt' know BB&B sold them. good to know. thanks!

[johnromkey.livejournal.com]

You can buy k-cups on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=k-cups&tag=shinythings-20&index=grocery&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325), which is still mail order. I've seen them at BJs. You may even be able to get them at some grocery stores. Green Mountain Coffee actually offers a pretty good deal with free shipping if you buy a certain amount.

We had a K-Cup machine for a while. If you like flat diner coffee, you'll like K-Cup coffee. It's not really bad... it just doesn't have much depth of flavor. I was pretty disappointed by it, but then I also roast my own coffee now. They do offer a basket that you can use with your own ground coffee but I didn't find that it tasted better than the usual K-Cups. They have a line of "extra bold" flavors which were better but still disappointing. Eventually we replaced the K-Cup machine with a Jura-Capresso (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Jura-Capresso&tag=shinythings-20&index=garden&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) automatic espresso machine, which makes much, much better tasting coffee but obviously costs quite a bit more too.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

this is my stepmother, who is currently drinking the flavored instant coffee stuff, so k-cups would be a step up. and there's a variety of different flavors available.

[johnromkey.livejournal.com]

Yeah, K-Cups are definitely a step up from instant!

[penk.livejournal.com]

We ended up with some awesome extra bold coffee - I'll have to ask catya about which one it was - the normal flavors are, as you say, pretty bland, but she found (she says "tiger coffee or something like that") which was awesome.

Unfortunately, at work they don't have these super-yummy flavors (we have a keurig there too), so we're in bland land. Alas!

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

we love our Keurig, best present i ever got Mark. I chose that kind of single serve over the others(tassimo, etc)because of the incredible variety There are at least 7 companies making kcups,which can bought from Amazon(we do this because we get free shipping),other online,Costco,our local grocery store. feste_sylvain has 2 regular and 2 decaf, one dark and one medium of each. If you like your coffee really strong you get "extra bold" cups,which have more coffee in them.The girls love the teas and hot cocoa. I use it as a quick kettle. Costco has a good deal on the machine,which we got, comes with 90 cups of a wide variety, so even if it doesn't work out long term you get good value there.

[unclebooboo.livejournal.com]

There are about as many single serving coffee formats as there are flash card formats for digital cameras.

I prefer espresso/capucino, so I've got an espresso maker that can take loose coffee or ESE (easy serving espresso) standard pods. It uses high pressure (15 bars) steam to make the espresso. I use the pods since I don't make enough coffee to keep fresh ground coffee around. I'm very happy with this approach.

Sue doesn't like espresso- she prefers brewed coffee. She thought that she might like the coffee made by a Senseo pod coffee maker, so I bought her one. These machines use steam pressure, but not as much as real espresso requires. I find the taste acceptable, but Sue decided that "it's too fancy for me", and went back to brewing pots of coffee. I'll probably run through the Senseo pods and then sell the machine at a garage sale.

From what I've heard, the k-cup system produces similar results.

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

I've seen the k-cups at Costco

[ramurphy.livejournal.com]

I make my own single servings using a Melitta single-serving cone and a coffee filter. Coffee freezes well, so there's no reason one couldn't buy a variety of flavored coffees and make a cup at a time. Just scoop out a scoop of whatever kind of coffee one wants, dump it in the filter which has been placed over a cup, and pour in boiling water. Cheaper, less wasteful, easy to do.

[cz_unit]

A small Krupps espresso machine works for my single-use coffee. Load it with water, little bit of fine-grind coffee and instant espresso+steamed milk.

CZ

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I liked the quality of the coffee through K-cups, a lot. And I've seen the cups at Target.