Pros: Reliable machine, easy-to-use, convenient timer, ample water reservoir, large K-cup variety,
Cons: Pricey machine, K-Cups not available at the grocery store.
The Bottom Line: Keurig's are pricey but the variety of coffees and teas, along with the quality of the machine and its reliability make it worth the few extra bucks.
mrs-j's Full Review: Keurig Ultra B50 1-Cup Coffee Maker
My husband adores coffee, no two ways about it. And I've discovered that in fact, I sometimes like coffee as well, especially the flavored decaf kinds for dessert after dinner. There are only two problems with this: 1) I don't know how to make coffee with a regular coffeemaker and 2) My husband is not nearly as fond of flavored, light coffees as I am. So, a conventional drip coffee maker with coffee pot just never worked very well in our household.
Suddenly, single cup coffee makers began to appear on the market. We leapt at the opportunity to purchase one, selecting the Black and Decker HCC100 Home Cafe machine. Click on the link and you will read that B&D's single serving coffee maker is flat out one of the shoddiest pieces of junk that's ever disgraced our kitchen. After the second one died on us inside of six months, we were back to square one.
We purchased the B&D coffee maker without ever checking Epinions. In fact, my review of that coffee maker was the first one on Epinions. This time around we decided to check Epinions before buying our next one. At Epinions we read review after review of the competing model, the Phillips Senseo coffee machine. We were intrigued by the machine's design and the crema topped coffee that it provides, but at only four ounces of coffee per pod, my husband just couldn't get behind it. He likes his cups of coffee deep enough to have an undertow. And so, the search continued.
Finally we ended up at some elite coffee review site, reading about the Keurig B50 Gourmet Single Cup coffee brewing system.
About Keurig and the B50
This little coffee maker seemed familiar to me, and then I realized why. In my last incarnation as a tech manager, I visited the sites of newly acquired companies and reviewed their network infrastructure. One of our new acquisitions in New Hampshire had a large, behemoth industrial Keurig coffee maker in their break room. This was a couple of years before the first single serve systems became really popular for consumers. And coming from the land of stale coffee in color coded pots that graced our break room back at my office, I was in awe of this little system that used tiny sealed cups called "K-Cups" to make coffee. I now know that I was fascinated by a Keurig, which was introduced in the U.S. for office use in the late 1990's.
Keurig only makes a few coffee makers, and they are expensive, costing more than twice as much as leading single cup brands. Our Keurig B50 retails for around $169. My husband did a lot of research before shelling out the money to buy this coffee maker. Researching the company and the coffee we found two things that really intrigued us. First off, even the home coffee maker is solid. Review after review, written by coffee enthusiasts, remarked on how well-made the B50 was, and how easy it was to set up initially.
The other thing that intrigued my husband especially, and caused us to stop considering any other pod-specific coffee maker, was the wide variety of K-Cups, the little plastic, foil-topped cups made for this coffee maker, available. Keurig contracted with Green Mountain Coffee to create their first set of K-Cups and as an industrial coffee maker supplier, there are more kinds of coffee available for the Keurig than there are for the Senseo, the Home Cafe, or other home pod-style machines.
Unpacking the Keurig
Our Keurig arrived shortly after the holidays and my husband couldn't wait to set it up. When we opened the box, we found unpacking instructions printed on the inner flap of the lid. The hefty coffee maker was packed inside form-fitting styrofoam. We had it out of the box and set up in under a few minutes.
Having only owned a flimsy, junk single-serving coffee maker before I was seriously impressed by the quality of the Keurig. It's extremely well-made. The unit is also much more attractive than the B&D Home Cafe' unit, which just looked plain cheap by comparison. The Keurig B50 comes in any color you want, so long as it's black. Lucky for us, black goes perfectly with our kitchen decor that includes black appliances.
Using the Keurig
The water reservoir is located on the left side as you're facing the Keurig B50. At 48 ounces, it holds plenty of water for several days' worth of coffee making. You can either remove the reservoir to fill it, or you can simply lift the lid off of it and easily fill it using a pitcher. This is how I prefer to fill it. Because the reservoir is on the side of the maker, and not in the back as it is on other single-serve coffee makers, it's easy to notice when it needs filling. I usually fill the water reservoir when I clean up the kitchen every night, and so we never find ourselves without water when we want a cup of coffee. The unit will not run with an empty water reservoir, which is a handy little safety feature.
The unit is much more complex than most single-serve home systems. There's a small LCD on the top right side of the coffee maker. After priming the machine initially (simply press the button under the word PRIME on the LCD) you're ready to go. To brew a cup you simply put in a K-Cup, put a mug under the unit and press the button under either the small cup (5.25 oz.) or large cup (7.25 oz.) icon on the LCD.
One feature that I love about this Keurig is that you can put it on a timer. It only actively heats the water when the timer is on, so it shuts down at night when we aren't using it.
K-Cups
Each K-Cup is a tiny plastic cup with a foil seal on top. Inside is a miniature cone-shaped paper filter that holds just the right amount of ground coffee for a single cup. K-Cups are self contained; there is no unwrapping or handling of soggy grounds involved like there are with paper pods. You simply pull a K-Cup from your box, plop it into the Keurig's flip-up top, close the top, and the Keurig pierces the top and bottom of the K-Cup, sending water streaming through the foil top, the coffee and filter, and out the hole in the bottom. When your cup is brewed, simply flip up the top, pull out the intact K-Cup, and toss it. You don't see the coffee grounds and you don't smell the stale grounds in the trash either.
More than half a dozen brands manufacture K-Cups, both for coffee and tea. They are:
Each manufacturer has offers at least a half dozen blends of tea, coffee, or both. In fact, Green Mountain and Timothy's offer more than a dozen coffee varieties. My husband loves the variety, and every time we order coffee he orders a new blend to try, as well as his old favorites.
Once you've finished brewing a cup, just remove the K-cup, toss it in the trash and you're good to go. Unlike our B&D Home Cafe', the Keurig does NOT leak a few extra drips once the coffee's through. I love that. And tall travel mugs fit nicely under the spout. If you have an insanely tall cup, you can even remove the base plate (which removes easily for cleaning) to fill it.
Finally, having the Keurig means that hot water is available whenever you want it. My in-laws have a hot water dispenser that they added to their sink after buying their house. We don't need that. If I want to make some hot chocolate from a mix I just add it to a cup, make sure the Keurig is empty of K-Cups, and press the large cup icon to dispense 7.25 ounces of piping hot water into my cup. Thanks to the K-Cup design, there are never any leftover stale flavors in the coffee maker after a cup of coffee has been brewed.
Cleaning and Maintenance
We've owned this coffee maker for several months and it is so much easier to clean than the B&D Home Cafe' ever was. To clean it I just wipe down the plastic outer parts and remove the base plate to rinse it. When the unit needs to be descaled the LCD flashes "DESCALE" so there's never a worry that the unit is not being well maintained.
Price & Purchasing Pods
Keurig's coffee maker is premium priced, without a doubt. The K-Cups are more reasonable, costing between .35 and .50 cents for a K-Cup that can brew a full cup of coffee.
You can't buy K-Cups in grocery stores (yet), but this is actually not an inconvenience for us at all. Back when we were buying pods at the grocery store, it seemed we would always run out. Now my husband buys several boxes of K-Cups about once a month online, at various online retailers. Each month he surprises me with a new flavored coffee or tea that I might like, and so far I've been pretty happy with the selection.
Quality
I am not a coffee purist, although my husband is. He likes the taste of the coffee from our Keurig much more than he liked the coffee from our B&D Home Cafe' machine. Still, he says that the quality of the coffee varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. His favorite supplier is Timothy's Coffee, and he likes Gloria Jeans as well. He's not as fond of Green Mountain Coffee's K-Cups. Unlike the pod-based machines, if you don't like one brand or variety of coffee, you have dozens of others to choose from.
Another definite plus is that unlike the pods, which we found to be stale occasionally, the sealed K-Cups deliver a more consistent taste and quality. Sealing the coffee inside a K-Cup seems to do a much better job of preservation than dropping paper-enclosed pods into a foil bag.
Summary
We were burned by our Black & Decker Home Cafe' system and I was initially very wary of paying so much for the Keurig but I'm really glad that we did. This single serve coffee - and tea - maker is so much more versatile than it's standard consumer-end counterparts. It's a purchase that I'm glad we make every single night when we fix hazelnut coffee with whipped cream for dessert after dinner. The Keurig hasn't just made my caffeine-loving husband happy, it's also turned me into a coffee-fanatic, and after thirty-plus years of holding out on being a part of the "Coffee Generation", that's really saying something!
Warranties, Information & Support
The Keurig B50 comes with a one year warranty. To get support or find out more information on the Keurig B50, visit Keurig's website at: http://www.keurig.com.
Many thanks to Pogomom for her persistence in getting this product added to the Epinions database so I could review it.
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