It was a bad idea from the start.. “Hey, it’s Saturday and we need to get out of the house.. let’s go to Walmart or something”.
Yeah, great idea.. 4 stores and $200+ later we’re heading home with a brand new Keurig coffee machine. Talk about your impulse purchase eh?
Ok, truth be told I love the coffee maker so I wanted to let you know why we bought one of those instead of the others.. as they all had advantages and disadvantages over the other – but what really separates them all is what you plan on doing with it.
The Coffee Machine Comparison
My original thought was to go with the Tassimo. Of course, it also helps that we were at Walmart and I believe that’s the only one that they sell there. Standing in the isle of the coffee section I looked like a big moron using my iPhone to look up the reviews online and some of the benefits and drawbacks of the Tassimo. The advantages? Well.. one glaring benefit – cappuccinos, espressos and lattes. At first this sounded like a no-brainer, I love those specialty coffee drinks every so often, and the Keurig doesn’t do that.. let’s get it! Well, Liz wanted to do some price checking, so off to Sears we went.
Sears is pretty good in their coffee maker selection and had all three of the top brands in front of us to try to decide. I believe we spent at least 45 minutes going back and forth and reading, checking out, price checking, etc..etc.. This was our first look at the different Keurig and Dolce Gusto machines.
The Keurig machine was the one I’ve seen most often, we head to “Timothy’s” on University avenue every so often and I see all the different types of coffees that they sell for the Keurig in there, and I’ve just generally seen them all over the place. “So what’s the benefit?” I thought.. well, one HUGE benefit which ended up winning me over by a long margin. The ability to brew your own coffee.
Sure, you needed to purchase another product called “My K-cup” which was $15-ish dollars, but that was small beans compared to the fact that I’d be able to continue purchasing my Tim Hortons or Robins grinds for $6. This also meant that after the initial cost of the machine, my “cost per cup” would only increase very slightly due to the fact that I likely would be using a bit more coffee with the “My K-Cup” filling it up every day.. perhaps I wouldn’t use more, I’m really not sure. In the end however, this feature won me over any of the others. Truthfully, I’d have gone with one of the other machines if they offered this feature.
The Dolce Gusto from Nescafe was the new kid on the block and looked pretty funky from a design perspective. The benefits to it were the fact it could do certain cold drinks, plus something about the pressure that it produced in compared to the others. Unfortunately, no brewing my own coffee – so I really never gave it a second thought.
My Coffee Maker
So, I’ve had the Keurig for a few days now. I have to admit that I was almost as excited to use this sucker than I was for the iPad I purchased a few weeks ago.. isn’t that nuts? I’m not sure why.. but I can tell you that I’m still excited to use it.
The version we purchased was the B60 Special Edition. This version had 3 choices of cup sizes (although all of them seem small to me), but I’ll go into that in a minute.
Drawbacks
There are some drawbacks to the Keurig that I have come across:
- Largest cup size is too damn small. I’m used to filling up my ‘togo’ cup in the morning, however I figured out a workaround, simply brew a medium and a small one after the other. Seems to give me the same amount of coffee I’m used to without too much taste compromise.
- Waste. I think I’ve been recycling too long, but all those K-Cups seem very wasteful to me. Fortunately I’m using the my My K-Cup which reduces any plastic waste – but let’s face it, I’m going to use a lot of those K-Cups as well.. c’mon, let’s get a recyclable product for this.
- Cost. This holds true with any of the coffee makers. Obviously when I did the math with how much I was paying per cup before with the French press, it was pennies.. maybe $0.10 a cup. With the Keurig, most of the 18 packs are around $12.. so not even taking taxes into account, it’s increasing the cost to about $0.66 a cup.. which can get pricey if not using the My K-Cup, which barely increases existing costs.
- Addiction. I just thought of this, but man have I drank a lot of coffee since we bought this machine, it’s not such a bad thing as I’m sure there are worse vices out there – but yeah, convenience is there, so I take advantage.. touching up photos in the evening, you can bet there’s a cup of joe right next to me. Perhaps this should be in the benefits column as well?
Benefits
- My version has a timer. What that means is that I can set it to start heating up the hot water at 7AM and when I get to the machine, it’s ready to go. It also shuts down at 8AM so Liz has a chance to get her coffee as well. This saves energy and is a great feature.
- Quick. From press of a button to steaming cup of coffee in less than a minute. Yes, really. I LOVE this about the coffee maker.. no waiting, I think this is one feature everyone else also loves a lot about it.
- Variety. Seems that Keurig is the dominant player in the market, so there are a LOT of coffee choices out there for it, as well as hot chocolate and some other specialty drinks. Liz loves the Kahlua flavored coffee, and truthfully.. I don’t blame her.. some of these coffees smell unreal!
- Company. “Want a coffee”? Most people would say now immediately as they know the hassle of getting the filter, waiting for it to perk, etc..etc.. with this machine, it almost becomes a topic of discussion as you can ask what kind they want, and not have to worry about how long it takes to brew.. it only takes one minute (when the water is heated).
Conclusion
Ok I have to wrap this up – but I just wanted to put it out there that I love this machine right now, and judging by the amount of responses I received on my Facebook page once I posted that I purchased one, there are a LOT of people out there whom also love theirs. It’s almost like a little club of “closet” Keurig lovers… who knew?
I for one.. am very glad to join the club.. coffee anyone?
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I have a Keurig (and a Tassimo, too, but that's a whole other story) as well, but have never been successful at getting my at home Tims to work in the "My K Cup". I will admit I gave up pretty easily–the ability to pop in a Kcup and have coffee in a minute made messing around with it less than tempting–but would love to know if you have had any successes you'd care to share. I have tried both grinds and ended up with a "residue" in the bottom of my coffee mug with each, not to mention the strength was always "off'".
Interesting, found lots of articles on the my k-cup leaking:
http://www.ehow.com/how_7484257_stop-keurig-kcup-…
my current grinds aren't course.. I'll have to do that next..
Hmm.. also found an alternative to the My K-Cup..
http://www.solofill.com/order/
If I can't stop the leaking.. going to order that
Gee, you're prompt. I like that when de-lurking! Seriously, though…
I have tried the coarse grind Tims. Bought a whole can just for this purpose but, like you, find it so much easier to pop in the kcup and have my freshly brewed fix in two minutes ( bought the smaller model where you put the water in each time you want a coffee, thinking I wouldn't use the Keurig very much as it's not my "main" coffee maker–that's a Cuisinart that my dh uses to brew Tims) Surprsingly, I find the Timothy's Breakfast Blend to be more to my liking most days.
I did check out the links you posted. The Solofil looks to be of a much better design than the My Kcup, but I don't really want to spend more money on something that may, or may not, solve my problem. I will have to try the tin foil and look into the washer. Though, quite honestly, it sounds like a lot of work when I can just put in my prepackaged Kcup (wasteful plastic each time, and all) and push a button.
Thanks for the help. It's great to find an interesting, Island blogger to follow.
Aha! I'm not sure if you are having the leaking problem I have.. but I found the answer and it was so simple it's almost stupid.. (I just brewed a non-leaking cup 20 seconds ago
)
http://tinyurl.com/3lyvcff
So that one is now in the books as complete
now tomorrow I'm going to pack the coffee in a bit more as I don't find it quite strong enough just yet.. (and thought previously that the leaking was due to me packing it in.. )
We'll figure this out!! ha ha ha. I agree with your solofil idea.. personally I wouldn't mind paying the price as I know it doesn't take long for it to pay for itself when you consider the cost (both in the wallet and environment) of the k-cups. That said, there are other products out there which also claim to do the same, including re-usable regular k-cup lids.. (k-caps).
I really haven't had any leakage, per se, that I've noticed, more the brown residie in the bottom of my cup. But it's also been so long since I've tried that I may have forgotten the leakage and have just been focusing on the grinds.. How much coffee and what type of grind are you using?.
And you are decidedly right about the cost of the Solofil being easily recooped in terms of environmental and economic outpput. It's just darn easy to get caught up in the convenience trap that early in the morning, especially when your first half dozen ventures were a collosal failure.
well.. now that I have the leak fixed.. or pretty much.. it's time to concentrate on getting the coffee taste better.. just found the following which actually looks like it may work..
http://www.coffeedetective.com/keurig-b60-leaking…
"The second fix to improve coffee taste is the take a discard K-cup (has the hole in the bottom), cup off the plactic flange, remove the old coffee and paper filter, rub off all the glue on the inside of the K cup that is used to hold the paper filter in place(is this glue made of safe compounds?).
Now drop the K-cup shell inside the My K-Cup, install the wire screen, fill with coffee and try it. The K-cup shell slows down the water flow and allows the coffee to mix better like a regular k-cup.
Let us know how this works for you!"
Going to try that tonight
It also has a tip on using an elastic band around the body of the my-k-cup shell to keep it a bit higher when it sits in the machine.. makes sense (this was to eliminate leaking which is no longer an issue for me anyhow)
Right now I'm using Robins coffee.. but I'm going to switch back to Tims Coarse Grind for my next one.. or at least I think.. depends on how this next experiment goes
I agree, it would be quite the benefit for Dolce Gusto and Tassimo to have a refillable pod. I need to deviate a little here from the discussion of Keurig. I own 2 top of the line Tassimo(s). The coffees have been quite good, if not smaller portions. The T specialty milk based drinks are well, Ok or subpar, nothing special. The T Customer Service is a force to be reckoned with according to a lot of reviews. And coffee choices have been dwindling, especially with the loss of SBuxs and Seattle's Best or very hard to obtain. Ok, now it appears more choices in T-discs are on the horizon, all Gevalia, which I don't care for. But then again, Tassimo brewers are aka Gevalia Hot Beverage Systems. I'm wondering if eventually all the offerings will be subscription only. As it is, Kraft just doesn't cater to the USA like they do European countries. _However, I think this is going to be an exciting time for single serve brewers in the next few years. I read about the upcoming partnership between Keurig and Lavazza to co-develope the unique machine that will provide regular coffees as well as specialty milk based drinks
I found Dolce Gusto Creativa top of the line model online for the same price of the DG lower model Piccolo, including free shipping. The Creativa is a really nice machine, well built and quick, and produces yummy specialty drinks. I like that it can brew hot or cold beverages. I can find all the capsules, as limited as the supply is, in stores locally. I have to say I love love love the caps and lattes, the chococino, the mocha, the iced caps, and the Peach tea. That's what I bought it for. And although there aren't alot of coffee drinks, the specialty drinks can be mixed and matched for a wider variety. Ie, I recently made a Mocha Caramel latte, but using the Mocha capsules and the Caramel latte capsules for a huge mugful ; ) If DG expanded their inventory even by a smaller margin, they would be extremely competitive in the current market.
Waiting for the ultimate brewer that is sure to be introduced to our market in a few years, I bought the DG Creativa for the interim for my specialty drinks, and am depending on my Grind and Brew for regular joes. Can't wait for the Keurig Lavazza brewer to hit those shelves ; )
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