Strategic Sourcing - - - K-cups

[mcbraemer]

No Cups

We have found that by purchasing your favorite whole bean or ground coffee online in bulk bags (we use Amazon to purchase 2.5 lb bags of Starbucks House Blend for about $26 per bag) our per cup cost is 26 cents per cup. The coffee is brewed in our old reliable 2 to 10 cup thermal carafe Cuisinart using paper cone filters, and tastes better than the coffee dispensed at Starbucks (or most other coffee shops) where they charge 8 to 10 times our cost.
Thermal carafe is the key.
I personally have never found pods that taste right, as I prefer somewhat richer stronger coffee than pods allow.
Just my 2 cents here

 

[Music Lover]

Drinking instant coffee for thirty years. Some people I know spend $30 or more a week at Starbucks to get their fix. 30 years of that about $30k from drinking coffee? No thank you.

Those are your only 2 options...instant or Starbucks? I grind quality beans daily and enjoy great coffee for a few pennies a day.

 

[Nick12]

Those are your only 2 options...instant or Starbucks? I grind quality beans daily and enjoy great coffee for a few pennies a day.

To each is own. You enjoy your beans and I will enjoy my instant coffee. I don't need to deal with operating and cleaning the grinder machines, buying beans and cluttering up my kitchen. I grew up poor drinking and appreciating instant coffee retired early and still appreciate instant after all these years

 

[pacergal]

I buy Keurig K cups from Costco when on sale, other times, grind and use our own beans in the K cup reusable cups.
Lately, have gone back to our percolator--seems to make better tasting coffee and we can make 4-12 cups.

 

[Souschef]

Interesting discussion, but this is definitely a YMMV case.We had a Mr. Coffee, but got a Keurig. I tried using ground coffee, put it was a PITA to clean the holder. Call me lazy, but I buy my coffee pods on sale from San Francisco Coffee. Their pods are biodegradable, unlike the Keurig ones.

 

[dadsterg]

I use Victor Allen Coffee K-Cups

I like Victor Allen brand K-Cups. I'm not a coffee connoisseur but I really like their donut shop, French Roast and Italian roast. I get mine on sale for $19.99 for 80 count, ~$.25/cup. Victor Allen is located in Wisconsin and I've seen it sold on Amazon.

 

[cantfindmyglasses]

The problem with those plastic reusable kcups is that they often have mesh panels. Kcups rely on internal pressure to maximize the interaction between water and ground. Mesh decreases pressure. Wife and I take an equally cheap but potentially tastier approach by rinsing and reusing regular kcups. On Amazo or Ebay, you can buy hard plastic reusable caps that sit tightly inside top rim, solving the pressure issue. Confession- a couple times per year, as kcups wear out, we spring for another cartoon of Kirkland brand at costco. We make EASY coffee for a month and end up with fresh kcup supply!

 

[jimnjana]

The problem with those plastic reusable kcups is that they often have mesh panels. Kcups rely on internal pressure to maximize the interaction between water and ground. Mesh decreases pressure. Wife and I take an equally cheap but potentially tastier approach by rinsing and reusing regular kcups. On Amazo or Ebay, you can buy hard plastic reusable caps that sit tightly inside top rim, solving the pressure issue. Confession- a couple times per year, as kcups wear out, we spring for another cartoon of Kirkland brand at costco. We make EASY coffee for a month and end up with fresh kcup supply!

Based on your post I tried the reusable cap and now I'm never going back to the reusable cups. Definite improvement in taste. A bit more of a pita at first, but worth it.

 

[Chuckanut]

Based on your post I tried the reusable cap and now I'm never going back to the reusable cups. Definite improvement in taste. A bit more of a pita at first, but worth it.

I don't have one of these machines, but I find your decision is supported when I have a cup of coffee from them. The factory loaded cups are just OK at best. The ones made at home are much better.

 

[mickeyd]

We got Keurig #1 about 5 years ago. I have always used the refillable units along with my favorite grinds. #1 died a couple of months ago so I put it in the garage, meaning to work on it later but got lazy. DW, in the meantime (unknown to me) ordered a new one (#2) from Amazon. #2 quit working recently. I noticed too many coffee grinds in the cup area. As it was under warranty I called Keurig and they talked me thru some trouble shooting machinations, but that did not heal #2. Keurig sent me a new (#3) K-Mini. No cost to me. I received it yesterday.


Can you see what's coming?


Yesterday, I got #2 running again (loose grounds in cup area). Today I located #1 in the garage, fiddled with #1 again and got it working again (loose grounds visible).


We now have 3 Keurig K-Minis working.


In the future I will only use pre-filled, closed K-cups. No more refills.

 

[jpeter1093]

We have two separate types of reusable pods, but I'm really clumsy and make too big of a mess to fill those properly.

I like the refillable ones since they let me use freshly ground coffee instead of the stale stuff sitting in the store-bought pods. To fill them, I made a cone out of a taped up sheet of paper.

 

[cantfindmyglasses]

Glad it works for you! Disclaimer . . . . it was my engineer father-in-law that explained the "internal pressure" principle to me. I'm just a liberal arts guy.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I like the convenience of the Keurig, but the cost is just...well not worth it to me. I had one at my desk when I was still w*rking and it was great, but I did notice that every 4 months or so, I would have to take it apart to clean it since it would stop working.
Today, it's used once in a blue moon but generally it sits unused.

Every day, I use my 12-cup programmable Cuisinart without fail, and have been doing so for the last 7 years. When it finally gives up the ghost, I have another one in the garage that my Dad used for 5 years. Easy to use, good coffee costs less than .05 a cup...it suits me well.