As you know, the caffeine in coffee will help wake you up but did you know that it is also shown to stimulate your muscles?  When you’re sleeping, your muscles are dormant and coffee can immediately wake up the muscles in your body to get you going for the day, as well as for working out.  Check out our Health Benefits page to find out what else your java routine is doing for you.

So, grab another cup and read on to find out the easiest way to make a great tasting cup of Joe!

 Traditional Coffee Makers versus Pod Coffee Makers

Traditional coffee makers are designed to drip heated water through your coffee grinds and into a pot made of glass that sits on a heated metal plate.  With an old-fashioned coffee maker you end up with leftover coffee sitting on the hot burner, giving it a stale, bitter taste.

But, why brew an entire pot of coffee when you want only a single cup?  

Try a pod coffee maker instead.  This revolution in coffee making provides pods of freshly roasted coffee that is tampered to the perfect temperature and then wrapped in paper.  These machines speedily shoot boiling water through coffee type pads.  The result is a cup of smooth coffee with a taste that is unmatched with traditional coffee makers.

With these single serve coffee makers you make the coffee as you drink it, eliminating wasted coffee and burnt leftovers.  Plus the pods make it easy for you to try many different flavored coffees.  Brew one flavor after another. 

Enjoy coffee house quality at a fraction of the price.

 The Fabulous Pod Coffee Maker Features:

•  Simple – all you need to do is to insert the capsule into the machine.
• Convenient – no need to measure out ground coffee for each brewing, just pop in a pod.
• Fresh coffee – the coffee is made one cup at a time, right when you are ready to drink it.
• No hassle cleaning – just remove used pod and throw away.
• Easy to try different flavored coffees – each serving is individually wrapped, no need to finish one large bag of coffee.
• Great tasting coffee – no grinds ever get into your cup.
• Stays fresh longer – the freshly roasted and ground coffee beans are sealed into specifically measured pods which remain fresh for at least 6 months.

The Drawbacks to the Single Serve Coffee Maker:

Non-compatible systems – when shopping, be careful to find a coffee maker that will fit many different size/styles of pods.

• Expensive – the pods themselves can be more expensive than using ground coffee, however some machines will take ground coffee or you can make the pods yourself.  Although the pods may be a bit more expensive than traditional coffee, they are far less expensive than a cup from the coffee house each day.
• Not great for parties – if you are making coffee for 10 guests at a party, it could be time-consuming and tedious to make coffee one cup at a time.  As an alternative, keep a traditional coffee pot in storage or allow guests to select and brew their own flavor.

 If you are looking for a simple, easy way to make a variety of great flavors of coffee, then a Pod Coffee Maker is for you!

Mr. Coffee Dual Coffee Maker

If you are not the only coffee drinker in your household, then you might think that a pod coffee maker won’t work for you.  After all, these single serve coffee makers are designed to only brew one cup of coffee at a time.  If you and your spouse both leave for work at the same time, who is going to wait for the second cup to brew?

If you’re willing to forego some features, the dual coffee maker prevents the need to wait for your coffee if you’re not the first one up in the morning.

 Not all of these machines require a pod.  You can now get a single serve coffee maker that can take traditional coffee grounds.  Some just need a filter, similar to a traditional coffee maker.  Many other models, like the Keurig line, offer a reusable “pod” that you can put ground coffee in that is similar to the filters for traditional coffee makers.  

If the model you prefer does not have one of these options, you can make your own pods at home using the Perfect Pod Maker.  Although you will have to invest between $40 and $50 for the Pod Maker, the filters themselves only cost around $0.12.  If you’re worried about cost, this option will pay for itself over time.

 While you lose the convenience and easy cleaning of a pod coffee maker, you can continue to use your favorite ground coffee and you will save money over buying the single serve premade pods.

• COFFEE – GM FREE! « Genetically Modified Foods, The Silent Killer – Non-Genetically Engineered Ingredients. COFFEE – GM FREE! I’ve added a new addition to the “SHOPPING List – Healthy Food Choices (GM Free) and Those to Avoid” for you today, GM Free Coffee. Those ‘mornings after’ all of your GM Free …
• Roll Your Own Frappuccinos – thekurths.com – This evening Karianne and I experimented with making our own version of a frappuccino! The Starbucks bottles in this picture are filled with Kurfee (yes, that’s Kurth + coffee. The marketing campaign practically writes itself! Gimme anuther gal-dang Kurfee, Lorna Gene! I gotta stay up tonight and catch them possums! ). We boiled 5 Starbucks bottles (and their caps) for about 10 minutes.
• Selecting Your Beans Part 2 – Better Know a Bean at Dethroner – So assuming you’re ready to make the upgrade to only buying fresh roasted whole bean coffee, how do you make heads or tails of various origins, roasts, labels, and blends? What criteria should you use in selecting coffee and where do you begin to explore this new landscape? You’ll get different answers asking different coffee nerds, but here is my long winded take, after the jump. Backtracking a bit, it bears repeating that freshness is key to great coffee. Look to buy only beans that reveal their roast date and aren’t going stale in open containers.
• Best Coffee Ever: Gimme Coffee | overstated – I’m not usually that impressed when someone receives a Best of award. This is Economics 101: given a fixed demand for Best of reviews, the more the supply, the lower the value of each award. The science I’m about to drop here comes in the form of one award in one category for my entire life.
• Limited Edition Coffee Kit Kat – Kit Kat, because of its four chocolate covered wafer fingers, is the perfect candy for sharing, making fake walrus teeth with, and always comes in handy if you’re being attacked by Star Jones Reynolds. However, with this Limited Edition …

Many people love to spend time in the kitchen.  I prefer to spend time with my children – whether it’s in the kitchen or someplace else.  I have 2 beautiful little girls and I work full time outside the home.  I want the little time I have with them to be the best it can be. 

Enter the Keurig B70 Gourmet Single-Cup Home Brewing System!  Ok, it doesn’t really take a lot of time to make a pot of coffee.  But when I have only five minutes before I have to leave for work, I’d rather spend that time with the girls.  Since these single serve coffee makers are so simple even they can help me with it!  One pops in the K-Cup (yes, we have a Keurig) and the other turns it on.  You would be surprised how excited they get about something so simple! 

That gives me 4 minutes and 30 seconds to spend playing with the kids.  I can then grab the coffee on my way out the door.

To me, this makes the perfect kitchen.  What’s your idea of a perfect kitchen?  Share it here!

Coffee Pod Carousel

Check out this great project on lumberjocks.com.  They made their own coffee carousel for K-Cups out of Walnut.  Not everyone will have the tools/knowledge to make this, but if you do this is would be a great addition to your kitchen!

I went with the Keruig B70 because it had the best features and got great reviews.  I also purchased the Keurig My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter so that my husband can have his Dunkin Donuts coffee every morning.  It is the best thing I’ve done this year!

Then I saw it.  My sister’s new Keurig B30 single serve coffee maker.  It was amazing.  She slipped in a tiny plastic cup and a minute later I was holding a hot, fresh cup of fragrant coffee.  I was in heaven!

Since that day I’ve been hooked.  I went online before I even left her house to order mine.  But when I did my search in Amazon, I found so many makes and models I didn’t know which to pick.  So my quest began.  As I put together my research, it occurred to me that others were running into the same issues.

And the idea for this blog was born.  I hope the information here is helpful to you.  Best of luck on your quest!