Try browsing the Internet for single cup coffee makers, and you'll find dozens of websites, all purporting that they sell the best brewers available. The problem lies in the fact that most sites don't agree with each other, so you get as many different opinions as there are coffee making machines. One of the debates on these websites is whether it's better to buy a brewing system that uses k-cups or one that uses coffee pods. Both have their pros and cons, and this article is going to explore what's good and what's bad about them.
K-cups are the ultimate in convenience. They are little pre-measured portions of coffee housed in air-tight plastic cups sealed with both plastic and foil in order to preserve freshness. A k-cup coffee maker sends pressurized hot water through the top of the cup into a filter filled with coffee grounds. You can purchase an optional k-cup carousel for convenient counter-top storage. K-cups are made by many different gourmet coffee brands including Green Mountain, Caribou, Emeril's, Newman's Own, Gloria Jean's, and Timothy's. You will find numerous distinctive flavors and roasts to suit any taste.
On the downside, k-cups are expensive. You can end up paying as much as $.63 per cup with certain brands of coffee. For example, a box of 22 Green Mountain Variety Flavor K-Cups costs .95. You may find a few websites that offer discount k-cups, but even so they tend to be expensive compared to other coffee brewing methods.
There are a couple of ways you can avoid buying so many costly k-cups if you own a k-cup brewer. One of these is a reusable coffee filter you can fill with your own grounds. Using this type of filter you still have to mess with wet grounds, and reviewers will tell you they don't make nearly as good of a cup of coffee as the originals, but they make single cup brewers much less expensive to use. You can also reuse k-cups 10 to 20 times provided you buy reusable plastic lids and put in your own coffee grounds.
Coffee pods are also pre-measured packets of all different kinds of coffee. These pods are filters that are heat sealed to keep the coffee in them fresh. They have been likened to tea bags, but the coffee they produce is fresh-brewed, because single cup coffee makers brew coffee one cup at a time. Pods are available in dozens of varieties, and where some people have complained that k-cups are very limited in the flavors they offer, there is no problem with that when it comes to coffee pods. Companies, such as Senseo, produce their own coffee pods to specifically fit their coffee makers; however, there are numerous standardized pods available that you can use also.
Once again, the problem with coffee pods is that they are expensive. Although they don't run as much per cup as k-cups do, they are still more expensive than either a drip coffee maker or a French press. As with k-cups, there are alternatives to using the premade packets. You can buy a machine and make your own heat-sealed pods, or you can buy adapters for some brewers that allow you to use regular coffee grounds. Another negative that some people have found with certain coffee pods is that they make coffee that is too weak. To remedy this problem they use two pods per cup which doubles the price of each cup of coffee.
As with most products these days, it all depends on personal preference and budget. You will find lots of online reviews from people loving their k-cup brewers as well as reviews from those who are very happy with their coffee pod coffee makers. Therefore, it's pretty much up to you to weigh the options and decide which type of brewing system is right for you.
