Advantages & Disadvantages of K Cup Coffee (Part One)

Keurig’s coffee maker is the original (and some would say best) single serve coffee maker on the market. It’s the machine credited with bringing those individual pods to the market in the US, and remains the single most popular brand in this particular segment today.

It’s a little-known fact that the Keurig K Cup coffee maker was actually invented to solve a very specific problem. The K Cup was first brought to market in 1992, as a solution for workplaces looking to treat their staff to something better than bitter, stale, and stewed pot-brewed coffee.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking coffee that’s been sitting around for hours on end, you’ll know exactly how unpleasant it can be.

And so, the K Cup coffee maker was invented – a machine designed specifically for the workplace, in order to give each and every worker the opportunity to enjoy a fresh cup of coffee on demand. It didn’t take long for the trend to catch on, and the Keurig coffee maker became a staple feature in millions of workplaces across the country.

So popular and successful was the idea that Keurig K Cups subsequently began making their mark on the domestic coffee scene. Keurig created a bunch of home versions of its machines, which sold to the tune of tens of millions of units.

20 years later, the patent on the original design expired, and countless rival machines using similar technology appeared on the market. In fact, it’s now estimated that at least 15% of Americans drink one or more pod-brewed coffees each day.

Today, Keurig’s coffee maker is still the biggest name in the pod business, accounting for at least 25% of the entire ground coffee market in the US. But given the huge competition from countless similar brands, what is it about the Keurig single serve coffee maker that makes it such a huge hit?

Advantages and Disadvantages of K-Cups

It’s important to remember that the Keurig single serve coffee maker was introduced as an alternative to the classic workplace drip coffee machine. Electric drip coffee makers first appeared on the scene in the 1970s and were quickly adopted by pretty much every workplace in the entire US.

The biggest advantage of Keurig K Cup coffee is therefore the main benefit the system was engineered to bring. With K Cup coffee, each and every cup is brewed fresh to order. Irrespective of the type of coffee being brewed – which could be anything from generic supermarket brands to world-class Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee (i.e. the best Jamaican coffee and possibly the best coffee in the world)– you’re guaranteed a flawlessly fresh cup, every time.

Unsurprisingly, this is something that goes down well with most workers. At least, those who have a taste for fresh coffee, and can appreciate the difference.

In addition, the brewing process couldn’t be simpler. You simply hit the button, and the machine takes care of everything on your behalf. This eliminates the risk of whoever was tasked with brewing the traditional pot of coffee making a catastrophic error, resulting in a disgusting black substance that’s beyond unpalatable.

Still, there are inevitable downsides to K Cup coffee brewing, which we’ll be taking a look at objectively in our next post.

Click here to learn more about our fresh roasted Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, considered by many the best coffee in the world, and now also available as coffee pods compatible with Keurig K Cup coffee makers (including Keurig 2.0 models)*. Order now, we offer free worldwide shipping!

 

* Keurig and K-Cup are registered trademarks of Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. unrelated to Hayman®. Our pods are not created or sold by Keurig®.