As single cup coffee brewing systems gain in popularity, the brand that has stood above the rest has been Keurig. With its K-cup coffee brewer and incredible variety of available coffees, it’s no wonder that Keurig has risen to the top. Introduced just ten years ago, the patented Keurig (pronounced kor-ig) single cup coffee system stemmed from an age-old question: why do we brew coffee a pot at a time when we drink it a cup at a time? In answering that question, the fine folks at Keurig made coffee history with one of the most versatile and innovative coffee systems on the market today.

What makes Keurig so different?

Unlike other single-cup brewing systems, Keurig doesn’t just package coffee in a little disc. Every individual K-cup is its own drip coffee brewer, complete with filter. You just pop the cup into place, press a button, and in a minute or less you will have one perfectly brewed cup of coffee, ready to drink. Cleanup is just as easy. Just eject the k-cup and toss it away. No dripping filters, no coffee grounds mess to deal with.

While the easy cleanup and easy learning curve for the Keurig brewing process is nice, the real value of choosing Keurig over any other single-cup brewing system is the amazing variety of coffee and coffee products that are available in K-cups. From the very start, Keurig solicited the top gourmet coffee roasters from around the world and offered them a chance to be in on their revolutionary coffee concept. The hard work in the early years paid off. Today, Keurig offers nearly 200 coffee and other beverages for use with its K-cup system.

K-cup varieties for the home or office

Do you have a favorite brand of gourmet coffee? Chances are that you can get it in K-cups. Keurig has partnered with a diverse group of gourmet coffee roasters and name brands to offer the widest variety of coffees for any single-serve coffee system. Perhaps the best-known of the companies that package their own coffee for Keurig is Green Mountain Roasters, a socially conscious roasting company that imports the finest coffees from all over the world. Among the other specialty coffee roasters and distributors that package their coffee in K-cups for Keurig are Newman’s Own Organics, Diedrich, Emeril, Gloria Jean, Caribou, Timothy’s, Tully’s and Van Houtte. Each of them sells multiple roasts and blends through K-cups, though not necessarily every one of the blends that they make. There is quite a selection, though. Green Mountain alone offers over thirty of their specialty coffees in k-cups, including specialty signature blends like Wild Blueberry.

More than just coffee

Keurig does not confine you to making just coffee in you Keurig maker. They also offer a variety of teas, including Celestial Seasonings, Twinings and Bigelow teas, and gourmet chocolate drinks like Ghirardelli, Timothy’s and Green Mountain.

Keurig Brewers

Keurig originally made coffee makers only for businesses and large offices. In fact, most people’s first experience with K-cups was at their doctor’s or dentist’s office. For the past several years, Keurig has also made coffee brewers for the home market. There are currently three models available for the home market, ranging in price from $99 to $199. Keurig still makes their brewers for the small and large office, but they are only available through local distributors. There are Keurig brewers designed for small and large offices, and specifically for the hospitality industry. The hotel Keurig brewers are designed for single suite use, hospitality suite and coffee service use, depending on the level of use that you expect to get from your brewer.

Other Coffee Accessories and Gifts from Keurig

If you are not satisfied with the variety of k-cups available, Keurig also sells My K-cup for specific models of their home brewer. With My K-cup, you can make your own K-cup assembly using your own favorite gourmet coffee – or save money by buying whatever is on sale at the supermarket and making your own. Using the My k-cup is as easy as using a regular filter cup with a standard coffee maker, but you are still brewing only one cup at a time in the exclusive patented brewer, so you get all the flavor and convenience – with your own favorite coffee.

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Read about Home Coffee Bean Roasting:

Coffee. It’s a delectable word. It makes you follow the aroma especially with the great tasting roasted coffee beans. Coffee is a popular drink at home, in the office, or just about anywhere. Tastes may vary depending on how the drinker wants the brew of the coffee and the type of coffee beans. Most drinkers, who are so picky about the flavor of their coffee, would consider home coffee bean roasting. We may think of home coffee bean roasting as a complicated process, but it is not. In fact, it does not require a special machine or equipment and any tools to produce the same professional tasting roasted coffee. What is even marvelous about coffee bean roasting is that you could do that with your popcorn popper or stove top pan, and you still get the same roasted coffee beans. But you could also use the help of coffee roasters.

The Process

The process of home coffee bean roasting may not be that difficult and time consuming. It also does not require expensive equipments. To begin with, you would need green coffee beans. You may try Guatemalan Antigua, Colombian Supremo, or Costa Rican Tarrazu. These are just some of the high quality coffee beans you can use. There are more, but of course, if you want to make the best tasting coffee, you have to make use of the right coffee beans.

The next thing is to roast your coffee beans in the coffee roaster, popcorn popper, or stove top pan, whichever you have at home. You will also need pot holders, a cookie sheet to pour the roasted beans out, and a bowl to catch the chaff. A small scale may be helpful to measure the right amount of coffee beans used in each batch and a digital timer to have the right timing for roasting. You might also want to consider roasting coffee beans outside your home, probably the garage or somewhere else to avoid blowing the chaff inside your home.

The whole process would take about 15 to 20 minutes for a cup of coffee beans. But the time would generally depend on how dark you want your green coffee beans roasted. You then drain the beans and let them cool. After which, you have to shake them to remove the outer skin and sift with the use of a mesh cooking screen. Depending on their preference, some would want freshly roasted beans cooled immediately while others would want to let it cool to release carbon dioxide from 4 to 24 hours to have the best tasting coffee. And that’s it for home coffee bean roasting.

The Store

There is an increasing number of consumers who prefer home coffee bean roasting. And for these consumers, there are online stores like The Grape and Granary who specializes on supplies, equipment, and ingredients needed in beer brewing, wine brewing, liquor making, cheese making, or coffee bean roasting. You will be flabbergasted at their long list of available items.

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Brewing a great cup of coffee with a basic coffee machine is possible. You don’t need a thousand dollar espresso master to be an at-home barista. However, brewing a tasty coffee takes work and preparation. To learn more about how to brew a great machine cup of coffee, keep reading.

Clean Machine

Start your brewing process by making sure your machine is clean. You should be cleaning out your coffee pot with soap and water after every use and making sure that you rinse it out well. You don’t want to leave behind any used coffee grounds or the bitter taste of previously brewed coffee on the inside the machine.

Ideally, your pot should be thoroughly clean and decalcified or descaled at least once a month. To do this, you can use a mild solution of lemon and water or a specific descaling product designed for coffee machines.

Clean Tools

Next, make sure your coffee preparation tools are also clean. This includes your reusable filter container and coffee spoon. Most coffee brewers use the same coffee spoon over and over, going as far as to store the scoop inside the coffee container. However, the metal or plastic from your scoop can react with the coffee and affect its natural flavor, so avoid doing this. Instead, store it in a clean area perhaps with or near your other silverware.

Filtered Water

Try using filtered or pure water the next time you brew a pot of coffee and note the difference when compared to tap water. By removing sediment, minerals and other taste-affecting particles, you can ensure the pure water you’ll be using won’t affect the taste of your brew.

Many coffee machines come with water filters. If yours includes a filter, remember to clean it and replace it on a regular basis to avoid build-up or calcification.

Additionally, some people also love the clean taste of distilled water, using their own countertop water distiller. Using home distilled water can significantly improve the taste of coffee.

Properly Stored Coffee

Coffee should be stored in a dark place at room or refrigerator temperature. Freezing your coffee may make it last longer, but it can also negatively affect the taste.

So, instead of buying your coffee in bulk and freezing it, buy freshly roasted coffee and use it within the week. Find a local roaster in your area and go directly to the source for that truly fresh taste.

Freshly Ground

Ideally, you should be buying whole ground coffee and grinding your coffee beans immediately before you start brewing. This will lock in freshness and keep your coffee from going stale.

When grinding, remember that how fine you grind the coffee will affect the taste. If coffee is too finely ground, it will taste bitter, but if it’s not ground enough, it will taste flat.

Good Measurements

A good measurement ratio is 1 to 2 tablespoons of ground coffee for every six ounces of water. Using much more than that will give the coffee a taste that is too strong for most.

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Will morning coffee boost your alertness in the morning? New research stated that the myth of morning coffee is merely a “reversal of withdrawal symptoms in caffeine’”.

Drinking coffee whether in the morning or in any part of the day can be beneficial and also disadvantageous. There are myths about drinking coffee in the morning. It is said that it can making anyone who drinks coffee in the morning stay alert. There are also recent studies about drinking coffee like the statement that it can release anti-oxidants in the body and other more curative properties.

In a recent study at the University of Georgia in Athens, the researchers found out that two cups of coffee in the morning will cut the induced exercise muscle pain in half. This means that it is best to drink a few cups of coffee after working out. The researchers of Georgia University, on the other hand, studied and tested nine college women and were given placebo or caffeine 24 up to 48 hours after doing their so-called “eccentric exercise”. The intensity of the eccentric exercise focuses on the women’s quadriceps or thigh muscles so that it will initiate soreness in the said areas. The result of the study indicated that the caffeine ingredient of coffee was more effective in relieving the pain brought about as these women exercised harder. The women who drank coffee about an hour before the difficult test exercise had about 48 percent less pain as compared to the women who took the placebo. This is also while the women who drank coffee prior to the less difficult test exercise had about 26 percent less pain as compared to the women who took placebo.

The so-called “eccentric exercise” is met when the skeletal muscles create a force once it is lengthened. An example of this is when the cup of coffee is lowered from the person’s mouth unto the table. Thus, the biceps brachia muscle acts eccentrically. This study can actually improve the life of persons who are experiencing skeletal muscle pain after they are engaged in an unaccustomed, eccentrically biased form of exercise.

Another study about morning coffee and the like is the myth that drinking coffee in the morning will make you alert. The researchers of the University of Bristol found out that caffeine does not make any individual alert. This is even though it eases any withdrawal symptoms overnight. A presentation at the British Nutrition Conference showed that the people who avoided drinking coffee will eventually get a “buzz” from caffeine.

However, the British Coffee Association also stated that regular drinkers of coffee did really feel alert. Those who drink their usual morning coffee say that it makes them alert or it enables them not to feel sleepy anymore. Plus, if they missed their usual morning coffee, they would feel lethargic or sluggish and they are unable to continue to do their daily routines.

Thus, the researchers from Bristol reviewed the previous studies of caffeine and its effects and contradicted the statement of the British Coffee Association. The Bristol researchers found out that coffee counteracts the mild withdrawal symptoms of caffeine that people are experiencing since they did not take coffee overnight. Therefore, the habitual coffee drinkers in the morning are no more alert as compare to those who never drank coffee. The biological psychologist named Professor Peter Rogers, who led the Bristol University research, told BBC that we do feel alert in the morning when we imbibe caffeine but it is only because of the counteraction of the withdrawal symptoms. So, the alertness that habitual morning coffee drinkers experience is the state of “getting back to normal” rather than the “above normal state” that most of us assumed with coffee.

A member of the British Coffee Association named Zoe Wheeldon stated that the research was “interesting” although there were two sides on every debate and that significant scientific evidence has proven that moderate consumption of coffee like four up to five cups a day is safer and can even provide advantageous effects on the performance and alertness. This is true, even with the habitual coffee drinkers.

Aside from the myth about morning coffee, there are also indicated benefits in taking caffeine. One is the fact that it prevents “cognitive decline”. This is more on the part of the elderly. Although it is best to drink decaffeinated drinks, coffee may help boost cognition as we grow older.

Thus, there are also detrimental effects on the long term use of coffee. Good examples are diseases like the loss of the bone density minerals and hypoglycemia. All in all, drinking the usual morning coffee is a perfect way to start the day, especially if you’re used to having one but take note that with the noted disadvantages, coffee in your system also has proven advantages.

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