Single Cup Coffee Makers

Single Cup Coffee Makers

In the coffee world, single cup coffee makers have taken hold as a sort of new, exciting trend quickly gaining popularity. And, when you think about, the trend is pretty easy to explain. With the rise of coffee stores like Starbucks, the coffee market has evolved from making pots of regular coffee to enjoying a single serving of high quality coffee. Cost conscious consumers, meanwhile, don’t like the idea of paying upwards of four or five dollars every morning for their caffeine fix. This is where the single cup coffee maker comes in. It combines the “gourmet” coffee feeling while maintaining cost conscious sensibilities.

That being said, the new market for single cup coffee makers has become increasingly competitive. Several companies have seen the opportunity, and come up with several different versions of single cup coffee makers. And though they do vary a little bit, the basic principle behind them is the same – convenience and quality over quantity. Additionally, they’re generally designed with sleek, classy aesthetics to induce that overall feel of high quality and “coolness”, so to speak. In this article, we’ll take a look at the general types of single cup coffee makers, how they work, and the best brands that make them available.

Types of Single Cup Coffee Makers

First and foremost in popular single cup coffee maker types is the “K-Cup”. While it has become a ubiquitous name associated with single cup coffee brewers, the technology was actually designed and made available by a single company, called Keuring. The K-Cup itself refers to small, single serving unit that is filled with coffee grounds. On top of it is a foil seal, and on the bottom is a coffee filter to dispense the actual liquid. In cooperation with Keuring, coffee companies including Folgers and others offer different types of coffee manufactured in K-Cups, though the selection is somewhat limited. The one key advantage of this type of brewing method, however, is that it only takes a minute or less for the coffee to brew once the machine is warmed up.

Coffee pods (or coffee pads, as they are sometimes called) are similar in form and function to the K-Cup, except they have no aluminum foil seal and are made by several different manufacturers. In essence, they are much like large, disc shaped tea bags that act as grounds and filter in one convenient package. If you’ve ever stayed in a hotel with a small coffee maker, odds are you have encountered a coffee pod before. Like the K-Cup, the key quality that makes coffee pods popular is their convenience, and their biggest drawback is limited selection. An added advantage of coffee pods is that they don’t necessarily even have to be brewed with a single cup coffee maker, though they are designed to do so. In a pinch, though, they can easily be steeped in a pot of hot water to make coffee in a more rudimentary manner.

The third and final type of single cup coffee maker is associated with just two brands: Braun and Bosch. Termed “Tassimo Brewers”, they use a slightly more advanced technology to brew coffee. The coffee grounds themselves are packaged in small apparatuses called “T-discs”, which have their own individual bar code. When you insert a T-Disc that is compatible with a given brand of Tassimo Brewer, it will read the bar code to determine the temperature, amount, and duration of the brew. If you’re a picky coffee drinker with a taste for variety, the Tassimo Brewer is a fantastic choice.