Confessions of a Caffeine Addict

I've been a coffee drinker my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of stealing the remnants out of my parents' old drip maker; those nasty, bitter last few ounces that have been burning on the hot plate for hours, then adding enough sugar and milk to make it palatable to the preschool me.  As I got older, I got bolder and would just pour a cup in front of God and everyone, daring them to say something.  Nobody ever did. If I wanted coffee, fine.  Just learn how to make it if you take that last cup. I had to be about 10 then. I was the youngest of 5 kids, and I never saw any of my siblings drink coffee, so I think I had always just assumed there was some kid taboo on it in our house.  It wasn't until much later that I'd found out from my Mother that she too had been drinking it all her life, that her Grandmother used to make her coffee all of the time. It was a Scandinavian thing, she'd said.

I've tried different brewers and methods over the years, some with great success, some not so much. The only constant I found seemed to be that the easier it was to brew, the worse the coffee was; the more difficult, the better.  I'd tried various methods for single serving coffee in the past, some good (but difficult or messy) but most bad.   So, believe me when I say I was more than dubious about the Keurig Platinum B70 single serve coffee maker when I was first confronted with it at a friends house last fall.

After a couple of cups, the suspicions fell away and I was in Coffee Nirvana.   The Keurig Platinum makes a consistently good cup of coffee, and it does it quickly.  I don't like weak coffee, I want it to bite. I can taste the water in weaker coffee, and it turns me off.  This is what I expected from the Keurig, but what I got was a wonderful, thick, rich tasting coffee with a terrific aroma.

Keurig and Green Mountain Coffee offer over 200 different K-Cups, so there's something for everyone there.  I prefer the Dark, Extra Bold flavors, like Coffee People's Black Tiger and Emeril's Big Easy Bold. But there are plenty of medium and light flavors available to make just about anyone happy.  They even offer a selection of K-Cup teas, apple cider and hot cocoas, but in my opinion, you're probably better off still using the traditional methods to make those.  You can still use the Keurig to brew those, as it will dispense hot water on demand. 

Yes, the Keurig is a bit more expensive than a regular drip coffee maker and the K-Cups are a bit more expensive than the giant grocery store cans.  But, you're also getting premium coffee, and are able to brew it one cup at a time.  I don't care what kind of coffee you buy for your drip maker, even the best will taste pretty rotten when it's been burning on the hot plate for a half hour.  It's also clean and easy, with no grounds to clean up, filters to buy, pots to wash, etc.  Not a bad trade off at all, in my opinion.

But when all's said and done, what I really like about it, is I can have a cup of coffee anytime I want without wasting an entire pot. I often do want a cup at 8pm, or later. Or in the middle of the afternoon.  Caffeine doesn't effect my sleep at all, so in the past I always had instant or canned iced coffee to take care of that craving.  Now, I can make myself a cup of great premium coffee.  I've also noticed that since I've had the Keurig, my desire to go to Starbucks has diminished.  Why spend a couple of bucks on a cup of coffee when I can get one just as good at home?