Do you think the popularity of the Keurig coffee makers has people making and drinking more coffee or less coffee than before?

Speaking strictly for myself, a resounding yes. I never used to drink more than a few coffees a week—if that. Since I got my Keurig last October, I drink one and sometimes two cups per day. The weird thing is, I don’t think any of the K-cup coffee brands I’ve made with it are as good as fresh brewed anything and they’re certainly not cheap. Yet I keep drinking the stuff because it’s so easy to make.

No, I don’t think it has made much impact on the amount of coffee people drink. With a single serving Keurig, it’s easy to get one quick cup, but a hassle to get a full mug, and to get a refill, or to have coffee with a friend or two.

It’s just made more of an impact on the waste stream.

I’ve watched my two suburbanite sisters buy every new kitchen fad over the past twenty years. The cycle is pretty much:

Don’t need product X
See X rise in popularity
Get all excited about choosing the specific X for their kitchen
Buy X and talk about X in every phone conversation for the next 2 weeks
Use X intensively for a couple of months to justify purchase of X and as a conversation point before, during, and after family dinners.
Slowly forget why it was so important to acquire X in the first place
Start complaining about the amount of counter space devoted to X
Restart cycle with product Y

So yes, I expect people will drink more coffee after buying their Keurigs. But eventually, they’ll lose interest.

I wonder what the actual stats really are? I don’t drink coffee, but my husband does. We didn’t even have a coffee machine in the house until we were in our tenth year of marriage more or less. He just drank coffee at work. A few years ago he bought a Keurig. I don’t think it has affected how much coffee he drinks. It just affects where he drinks it. Now he daily drinks coffee at home or from home.

@Pachy We use the reusable K-cups for two reasons: one, we’re cheap; two, the Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts coffee is much better than any Green Mountain coffees my husband has tried.

I got one as a present. It sits lifeless as a dust collector ironically, come to think of it, in an old wicker waste basket (on purpose? :/ maybe? maybe not? Idk.) in my storage room on my basement floor.

I was never a coffee person but when I worked at a bank, someone brought in a Keurig and I found that I was making a couple cups a day. Now I work at a doctor office with a regular coffee pot and although I loved the aroma of it, I never drink it.

Thanks for the tip, @JLeslie. I didn’t know there were reusables.

@Pachy Here is a link.

I use a regular coffee maker and have always needed about 3–4 cups to launch into my day.
I drink half caff so I can have more for less. lol
Never used a Keurig, yet so can’t say it has effected my coffee drinking habit.

Not really more but it has made making coffee easier.

@Pachy: my Keurig came with that “basket” thing. You could get one cheaper than the BB&B one that @JLeslie linked, but then again, you can get BB&B coupons for 20% off which help defray that cost.

@glacial: I remember when the Keurig first became popular, when my daughter was a baby, 6 years ago. I thought it was just a trend but it’s been around at least those 6 years, and now I see it more and more, with most coffee brands having their own K-cups. I am not one to buy trends either, but I wanted the Keurig after seeing that it does not seem to be going away, and it’s so convenient. I agree with @zenvelo that it does generate waste, which is not a good thing.

Keurig tastes like moldy ass, but I guess it’s a convenient alternative to Starbucks (bitter ass) or something.

I don’t know why so many think Starbucks is good coffee. It’s a quick hot roast which means it’s burnt like hell on the outside and nearly a green bean in the center. That familiar “charred bitter” taste sucks. The best coffee I have ever had was made with slow roasted beans from Kauai out of a French press. Keurig is better than that (starbucks) but not too much.

@ARE_you_kidding_me: wouldn’t say it’s good, but it is at least fairly strong and, more more importantly to its commercial success, mostly consistent no matter where you go. I like strong, but not so bitter. Keurig is like wastewater to me.

@jca I have to admit, I don’t understand why people find the Keurig a convenience. Making coffee, regardless of the type of machine being used, is simply a matter of measuring water and measuring coffee grounds (whether or not they’re being ground at home). It should take only a little experimentation for an individual to find the right balance for them. Is that not worth the elimination of so much waste? (Not talking about the reusable cups)

@bolwerk Oh I agree, but for quick cheap options it gets the job done in the morning.
@jca Depends on your household. My wife likes it watered down and I don’t. No need to make two pots that neither of us will drink all of.

Hooray… Thanks to @JLeslie, I’m drinking Dunkin Donut coffee in the morning!

We’ve had a Keurig for a little over a year now.

The thing came with a 20 pack of K-Cups, and I think I bought two 50-pack boxes for $19.99 each when we first got it.

Since then, we’ve used an eko-Brew filter that I got on Amazon. One has been enough – haven’t needed to replace it yet.

My husband prefers the Keurig, since he doesn’t have to wait for a whole pot to brew in order to make his coffee, or remember what the ratio is of water to grounds. He just fills the ekoBrew up to the line and hits the blinky-blue button. It’s also convenient for hot chocolate and instant oatmeal and Cup-o-Noodle soup.

I’m a little more of a coffee snob, and I prefer to go through the ritual of the French press.

Using the Keurig made me drink less coffee, because I didn’t want to pour it down the drain when there was a whole pot. Making one cup at a time, I chose exactly how much I wanted.

Using the French Press makes me drink more coffee, because it’s so gorram delicious.

At work, yes. I refuse to have one at home because it’s so wasteful. At home, I only drink about 2 cups a day on the weekend. At work, it’s more like 4 cups.

For me, far less.

When I used a drip coffeemaker, it brewed 4 cups. I ended up drinking 4 cups every day. Waste not want not.

With a Keurig, I use one container each day. One cup. Never more than that. So my consumption is down 75%.

I never heard of Keurig. My (seldom used) coffee maker only makes two cups.

I bought a Keurig mainly because it was on one of my Deal websites for only $50 (they’re normally over $100) so I figured it was worth trying.

But I found that any brand of the K cups tastes pretty awful and when I used the make your own, it was far more trouble than just using a Melitta drip cone.

Plus the Keurig I got only holds 10 oz. of water and I’m used to a 16 oz. mug full. So I had to run the thing twice.

All in all, using the Keurig ended up being far more trouble and time consuming than it was worth.

So, I found myself a little 4 cup auto drip from Melitta which isn’t made anymore but available on EBay for around $20. These were custom made for Gevalia and offered as a premium for ordering their coffee. Its so much better than the Chinese crap made by Mr. Coffee. And it gets the water hot enough for maximum flavor extraction and keeps it hot due to its closed-type design.
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http://ebay.com/itm/390606976396
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That’s what I should have done in the first place instead of bothering with the whole Keurig nonsense.

I can just put in a half liter bottle of water (approx. 16 oz. )along with a few TBS. of coffee, turn it on and have coffee in about 3 mins. Less trouble than the Keurig and makes much better tasting coffee which I grind fresh from whole beans every few days

So, I’m now drinking more coffee than I did with the Keurig. Had I not seen it on sale, I never would have bought one; lesson learned.

@Buttonstc I gave you a GA for the ending: “Had I not seen it on sale, I never would have bought one; lesson learned.”

Lesson learned and learned again.

Ha ha. So true.

But, there’s always Craigslist (the repository of everyone’s mistakes.)

And fortunately for me there are enough people who are relatively undemanding of maximum taste quality from their coffee makers and willing to settle for the crap coffee in those K cups that I shouldn’t have a problem selling it.

The taste problem really isn’t with the machine itself but with the pre ground coffee in those K cups.

But if you’re going to the trouble of putting your own coffee into those reusable ones, that has just eliminated the basic raison d’être of the entire Keurig concept: namely the appeal to speed and convenience.

Filling ones own reusableK cup thingies is neither. Might as well use a smallish electric drip maker. (But most of the current ones available are crap. They just don’t make em like they used to.)

Ironic, isn’t it ?

I think you might have gotten one of the tiny personal use Keurigs. I agree those are pretty pointless.

The one I have – that $119 model – keeps a hot reservoir of water ready at all times. If I’m making a packet of oatmeal for my son, I set the bowl under the machine, flip it open and closed, then push the 4-ounce button. Less than 20 seconds total for a quick morning breakfast. I couldn’t do it faster in the microwave.

When I put together my husband’s lunch each night, I fill up the ekoBrew with fresh grounds and set it in the machine. When he wakes up, he just closes it and hits the 12 ounce button for his morning cup of coffee. About 40 seconds total. No muss, no fuss, no wasted coffee, and no waiting for water to heat up.

I add water to the machine about once a day, maybe skip a day once in a while.

@Seek

Yeah, you’re right. Mine doesn’t keep a batch of water constantly hot. As a matter of fact, you can’t put in any more than 10 ozs. as it will just run all over the counter. I think it was designed for motel room use where its mostly one person wanting a cup of coffee and they can put out a selection of different K cups.

I can see how the larger (and more expensive) one that you have has its conveniences, especially with a hubby and kid(s).

I’m just not usually in that much of a rush for oatmeal that a microwave won’t suffice :)

That reminds me of one of Steven Wright’s weirdo observational jokes about our culture’s need for speed, namely :

“If I make my instant coffee in a microwave, will I go back in time?”

:D

@Seek_Kolinahr gives me good ideas for oatmeal. I don’t have a microwave so the Keurig will make things very convenient.

I got K cups at Costco. Green Mountain brand, 80 for about $35 and Kirkland brand (Costco brand), 100 for $35. Walmart had them, 12 for $11 or something similar, so Costco, although requiring an outlay of some bucks, comes out to be way cheaper.

Where I live, there are a lot of minerals in the water, so I am using bottled water in the Keurig so as not to clog it up. There are instructions for how to unclog it, in case it happens.

The model I have, the deluxe model from Costco, came with 60 K-cups plus the eco-cup thing that @JLeslie linked.

@jca My husband fills his Keurig with filtered water, we have a Brita now because we don’t have a filter on the fridge. The Brita removes some minerals, not all. And, he changes the filter on the Keurig machine itself pretty regularly. He also does some sort of recommended cleaning, which must be the process you referenced.

Do you use distilled water? Doesn’t most bottled water have some minerals in it? I don’t know that much about water and filtering etc.

@JLeslie: I use Poland Spring mostly, which I usually have on hand because I have fish tanks and I usually have a few bottles in the house.

If you drink a lot of coffee (hot water) just look for a second hand Bunn. $270 retail, they can be bought for around $30 here, and have a full pot of hot water constantly at the ready.

Perfect for iced tea, too. Just run a pot of hot water and drop your teabags in.

@ibstubro – I drink iced tea like it’s water (well, it IS water!!) – the idea of a used Bunn never occurred to me. But that’s brilliant. I’m going to check out Craigslist.

@elbanditoroso If you’re willing to run a water line to a Bunn coffee maker, the cost of the appliance is even cheaper. We recently left dedicated Bunns in a restaurant rather than bother unhooking them. (You know I have an auction house.)

If you want a Bunn, keep at it. I could probably send you one for scrap price plus shipping, but I’m certain you could buy one where you are cheaper if you try. Restaurant liquidation auction is a notorious give-a-way!

@ibstubro: The Bunn sounds great, but isn’t it a big appliance for the average residential kitchen, since it’s really made for institutional/retail?

Usually about twice as big as a conventional coffee maker, @jca. But well worth it it if you’re a coffee (hot water) lover. Double decker, so you can have multiple pots going at once, if you like.