My K Cup review and a life hack

As a member of Influenster, I received products to review, on occassion. My most recent review-able items was a My K Cup refillable coffee filter. I have had a refillable coffee filter with my old Keurig and was disappointed that there was not a new one for the new machines.

Well wait no more! Influenster sent me one with a pound of coffee for review on my Keurig 2.0 machine. It is as good as the previous model, but with less parts.  Lots of Pros and only one Con, which is not really a con for me, but others seem to take issue. Suffice to say, Keurig has another sales opportunity to make a carafe sized My K Cup!

Please, please Keurig, Make a My Carafe K Cup!

Pros:

Easy to Clean- dump out the wet coffee and dust out the dry a few hours later

Well Sized- fits into the K Cup holder and holds lots of coffee

Easy to Use- just fill to the tab, line up the marks on the lid and brew

Con:

Doesn't work with the carafe- this is no deal breaker for me, but judging from reviews on the site, it bothers some people.























Now for the life hack!

I'll admit, I don't like holding down the button for water to dispense to make tea. Then it hit me. I could empty the tea bag into the My K Cup and brew.
Lo and Behold... the perfect cup of tea. One bag can brew enough to have 12-14 ounce cup of tea.

Though Mr. Carson would not approve, I think it's brilliant!

Keurig 2.0- a review and cost analysis

I received a free Keurig 2.0 to review from Influenster- to my surprise! I am thrilled at the opportunity to try the new one. I was an early adopter when they first came out, as was my sister. We discovered that after about 8-12 months it started acting up and she discovered that you could "do a Fonzie" and hit the top with your fist and it would behave, much like the juke box on Happy Days- hence the name.

 However, that was annoying, unsatisfying and eventually stopped working as well. Back to the Mr Coffee, and other various coffee apparatus.

Then I took and Influenster survey, and they deemed me worthy of a coffee maker! I told anyone who would listen that I was getting a free coffeemaker until it finally arrived... and maybe even afterward. I was excited.

I was super excited about the carafe part. Brewing individual coffees for everyone at Christmas was troublesome, so the Carafe-Cups solves the problem of many drinks. 

I really like that the Carafe Cup is recyclable. You can peel the foil top off and the filter pack is connected. Filter pack to the garbage, plastic cup to the recycle bin!

Then there are the little detail of good design, like the water reservoir has an access door in the front of the machine and the version I have has an 80 ounce reservoir! Which I have used for instant hot water to making tea.  (I really don't see myself using the tea k-cups, but they may be great for others)

I started wondering, after I purchased a giant box of k-cups from Costco, if I am spending a lot more money in coffee than with a traditional coffee maker. So, I sat down and did a little math with the help of  a post from cockeyed for the estimates of how many cups of coffee are in a pound of coffee. 

I typically brew 6 cups of coffee a day and like to use Gevalia coffee- which is about $8 per 12 oz. bag. That comes to 73.6 cents a pot and my K-cup is about 33 cents per cup. So the K-cups are a little cheaper, since I get about 2 servings per pot. I would feel comfortable paying up to 40 cents a k-cup, after doing this math.

I would completely recommend this brewing system, and not because I got a free one. Having had one before, I can see the improvements and look forward to the new K-cup ideas in the works. 

I am super excited about the Keurig and Campbell's future products! They are working on a Chicken noodle soup version! The broth would be in the K-cup and it would have a packet of noodles. I would be happy with broth k-cups sans noodles! Here's a look...