Keurig Coffee Machine

Well, here it is, a new year.  With all that has happened in the past year with losing a sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and my oldest brother, I need something new to redirect my life.  There have been some good things in my life happen this year already, but are so personal, I can't relate to them on here.  Here's to hoping 2013 will be the year we can turn our family and life around.

One of the things that did happen was a small, helpful bonus of money.  Since they came out, I've kept my eye on the Keurig Single Serve Coffee maker.  With this bonus money, the kids and I decided to go ahead and get one.  It was love at first cup!!!!  My boy loves coffee, my girl loves cocoa, and I'm a confirmed tea drinker.  I did used to love coffee too, but over the past few years, coffee has given me terrible heartburn.  Before getting this machine, coffee was going to waste in the pot, and all day long there was impatience with waiting for the kettle to whistle saying the water was hot enough to make tea and cocoa.  The link above actually shows the model we did buy.  But I do want to share some hints for everyone that would be helpful if you think this is a waste of money.

First hint:  get either the My K-Cup, Ekobrew, or Solofill Cup Filter. I have both the My K-Cup and Solofill and like them both.  Don't know much about the Ekobrew filter, but from other sites I've read, it works the same as Solofill.  With any of these three, you can fill them with your own coffee and save a bunch of money by using MJB or Folgers ground coffee.  You can even get small samples of coffee and try different flavors without wasting an entire pot if you don't like the coffee.  The whole reason I suggest it is that those K-cups you buy in the store that are pre-made is expensive.  We bought some when we bought the machine and I was in shock that it cost $22 for 36 of those cups.  I could spend that much buying a pound can of coffee and 4 boxes of teabags and still have change left over.  Here's a little bit of math for you-- 36 K-cups or 600 cups of tea and coffee (round figure, since I don't know how many cups of coffee could be made from a one pound can).  I think you can see where I'm going with it.

Hint #2:  and this is the big one.  Being a tea drinker, I was searching the web to find out if anyone was able to use tea in this machine.  Several people say just run it for the hot water and drop a teabag in the cup.  I actually used both the My K-Cup and the Solofill with Red Rose Tea bags, pulling the string off and stuffing them in the filters of those 2 cups.  The tea comes out tasting like it's sat and brewed for 10 minutes on the counter.  The beauty of it is that I didn't have to wait that time for the kettle to heat-- or the 10 minutes for the bag to sit in the cup to brew.  About 90 seconds (if that, I don't time it) I have a hot cup of tea, throw some sugar in it and I'm back to doing whatever I was doing.

We also have been successful with filling a Cup of Noodles cup with this machine.  So that's makes it a win-win-win for this family.  Everyone is happy with being able to choose what they want to drink and when.  With winter in full swing here, we need all the hot drinks we can handle right now.