There are many advantages to using a K-Cup to brew your coffee. A K-Cup is a single serving packet of coffee that is used with a Keurig coffee machine. Ground coffee is packed inside the cup along with a filter. A foil lid is placed on top of the K-Cup. When the cup is placed into the coffee machine, the foil is punctured and hot water is forced through the cup and the coffee is brewed directly into a mug. Each K-Cup makes one cup of coffee.

There are many different manufacturers who make K-Cups for Keurig machines, and coffee drinkers have a wide variety of coffees to choose from. There are also K-Cups for teas and hot cocoas, making K-Cups versatile.

What are the advantages to using a K-Cup over traditional coffee?

K-Cups are very simple to use. It is virtually impossible to make a bad cup of coffee with a K-Cup, unless you choose the wrong blend to make. K-Cups brew a quick, delicious cup of coffee. No need to measure coffee from a bag and make a mess. Just pour in water, place the K-Cup in, and put your mug under.

K-Cups also make a fast cup of coffee. Most machines that use K-Cups brew in one to two minutes. No more waiting 10 minutes for an entire pot to brew. You can enjoy multiple brew sizes with the K-Cup system as well. Each K-Cup machine allows users to set the brew size. For a stronger, more potent cup of coffee, a user can select a smaller brew size. For a larger, mellower cup of coffee, a user can select a larger brew size.

Coffee house quality at a fraction of the price basically sums up the K-Cup experience. One of the reasons many people chose to get their coffee from a coffee house each morning instead of from their own kitchen is because the quality tends to be better. With K-Cups, the quality is perfect each time. While K-Cups may be a bit more expensive than traditional coffee, they are far less expensive than a cup from the coffee house each day. If you replace your coffee house coffee each morning with a K-Cup brewer, the brewer will eventually pay for itself in savings. Over time, you will see significant savings.

Utilizing a Keurig coffee machine and K-Cups gives you the exact coffee you want each time. With traditional coffee makers, everyone drinks what has been brewed. With K-Cups, each coffee drinker gets the type and flavor coffee he or she wants.

K-Cups offer an easy system for brewing coffee. There are no beans to grind yet the coffee is always at its freshest because each K-Cup is airtight. There are also no filters to buy or clean, and no glass carafes to break. Since the K-Cup brews directly into a mug there is no glass carafe that will break and be next to impossible to replace. Glass carafes can get stained and grungy looking. No carafe means no cleaning a carafe. In many cases coffee can be saved as well. Sometimes you brew more than you need and end up pouring half a pot down the sink. With K-Cups, you make only as much as you’ll drink.

Organic or fair trade coffee is available for use with K-Cups as well. K-Cups are one of the few single brewing options that offer these green and responsible choices of coffee. K-Cups are a very easy clean up too. They are dry when taken out of the machine and can be thrown in the trash without leaving a messy, drippy trail.

While individual packs of K-Cups from the grocery store might be a bit expensive, there are many online sellers that offer a discount and many K-Cup coffee clubs that regularly send K-Cups at a discount. In fact, Keurig has its own coffee club with many discounts and benefits.

There are also a variety of K-Cup machines available, from heavy duty machines to small machines that can be kept directly on your desk. Since only one cup at a time is brewed, you don’t have to worry about having a hot carafe of coffee waiting to spill or burn.

One more thing you might want to know about K-Cups. Not just anyone can manufacture them. Green Mountain Coffee owns Keurig and the right to license out the making of K-Cups. That means that they need to approve any manufacturer that wants to put its product in K-Cup. This helps to assure quality, because Green Mountain Coffee is committed to making sure their product produces the best cup of coffee drinkers can have.

Most people who have a K-Cup brewing machine rave about the machine and the coffee it makes. Having a perfect cup of coffee, brewed just the way you like it in fewer than two minutes certainly is something to rave about.

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What is the first thing that most workers do when they get to work? Is it sit down and immediately become productive? Probably not. Most likely they head for the coffee. They grab a cup of coffee, say a quick hello to their co-workers, and then they start their daily tasks. For many workers, if they were to skip those first five coffee minutes, they wouldn’t feel like they would be able to be very productive in the morning. In fact, a lot of ideas start flowing around the coffee area first thing in the morning as workers come to life and start to chat.

If this is what happens regularly in your place of business, and you feel like you spend more time restocking the coffee supplies than you do the rest of your job, it might be time to consider hiring a coffee service. A coffee service can routinely stock your coffee supplies, making sure that you never run out (and you know you don’t want that to happen). That’s not all a coffee service can do, though.

What a coffee service can supply

Yes, coffee services deliver coffee. But they do so much more.

Other services a coffee service may be able to perform

Hiring a coffee service for your place of business can save you a lot of time, a lot of headaches (both figuratively and literally), and even save you money. Replacing over worked coffee machines routinely and buying coffee, teas and their accompaniments at retail prices can really add up. Coffee from a service can cost as little as 10 cents a cup.

A good coffee service will come out and provide you with a tasting of their coffees and other beverages before you purchase. They will also speak to you at length about the coffee habits of the people you work with so they can determine your needs. Many coffee services will also throw in the first coffee machine for free as a bonus to signing on to their service. Shop around for the best office coffee service in your area.

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The word Gourmet is used to refer to the fancier grade, cut, or quality of many of the foods and beverages we consume. Gourmet foods and drinks have long been associated as the regular fare for the rich and famous who can afford the higher pricing that often accompanies many of these finer food and beverage versions. Coffee is a beverage that has been available in cheap, regular and gourmet versions for a long time and the consumption rate of coffee among people from around the world continues to increase every year. Gourmet coffee may have once only been served in the finest dining establishments and found being served mostly in the homes of the upper class, but gourmet coffee is widely available and affordable to a variety of people and is found in a variety of settings today.

Coffee is made from coffee beans which are found within the berries that develop and ripen on a number of smaller evergreen bush plant species known as the Coffea plant. After ripening, coffee berries are harvested, and then undergo a processing which also includes drying them. It is the coffee beans that remain after the processing and drying of the coffee berries. The beans are then roasted to various degrees which cause them to change physically and in the tastes they produce. Finally, the coffee beans are grinded down into a fine consistency that is commonly known as coffee grounds, and packaged and shipped to destinations around the world where consumers can buy and brew coffee grounds to make coffee in commercial, hospitality, institutional, and residential settings. Some people prefer to grind their own coffee beans before brewing them for coffee. Packaged coffee beans that have not been ground can be purchased in stores and ground using the grinding mills that are made available in most of the stores selling them, but also with grinding machines in the home.

The two most commercially grown species of the coffea plant that produce the coffee beans used to make the coffee that the world’s population consumes, are Robusta and Arabica. Gourmet coffee is made from the top tier coffee beans from the arabica coffea plant. These top tier arabica coffea plants are typically grown at very high altitudes (above 3000ft) with ideal soil and climate conditions. The coffee beans produced have fuller flavors, are more aromatic, and have less caffeine in them than other varieties of coffee beans such as Robustas. The coffee beans of arabica coffea plants grown at lower altitudes are still noted among consumers as having richer flavors than the flavors produced by Robusta coffee beans, but it is only the top tier arabica coffee beans that are considered to be Gourmet, and thereby from which gourmet coffee is derived.

Coffee bean grounds and coffee beans that have not been grinded down need to be stored in air-tight containers and kept cool in order to protect them from losing their flavor. The containers that coffee is typically sold in are not the most ideal for storing coffee for a long period of time. When you arrive home after purchasing coffee grounds at the store, consider transferring the fresh coffee grounds to appropriate storage containers to extend its shelf life and full flavor.

Coffee can be brewed in many ways such as boiling, pressuring, and steeping. Most of us brew our coffee using automatic coffee brewing machines and percolators which use gravity to pull hot water through coffee grounds where the hot water mixed with the oils and essences of the coffee grounds empties into a liquid holding container below. Filters are used to keep coffee granules from being emptied into the carafe or liquid holding container from which the brewed coffee can then be served from because most people do not want to drink the coffee granules. Coffee granules can be very bitter once the flavor able oils and essences have been removed through the brewing process. Plants and flowers love coffee grounds though for anybody who is looking for a greener alternative of what to do with coffee grounds after brewing instead of just throwing them in the trash.

Of course, Gourmet coffee beans are only the beginning to creating a truly gourmet coffee experience for many gourmet coffee drinkers. Some people are quite content with drinking their gourmet coffee black, without adding anything like milk, creamer, sugar or other sweeteners or flavorings, to their coffee. While many others want to enhance their gourmet coffee and drinking experience with tasty additions like milk that is whipped into a froth, sweeteners, and mixing in other flavors like chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and mint, to name just a few. Big name coffee chains sell a wide variety of gourmet coffee with different tasty additions and flavors to appeal to gourmet coffee lovers. However, brewing gourmet coffee at home is usually much cheaper, and you can add what you want to your coffee to satisfy your refined, gourmet tastes.

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Gourmet coffee pros know what they like in a gourmet coffee and have a set habit to both smelling and tasting a new gourmet coffee. Others wont try a new gourmet coffee in a foreign country.

They deliberately slurp the gourmet coffee and swirl it all around the surface of the tongue and mouth. They want to obtain the full experience of the taste, the unique combination of sensations in the nose and on the tongue. Note to Readers: The taste profiles and characteristics discussed in this article apply to drip gourmet coffee. Flavor characteristics and descriptions will change with alternate brewing processes.

For all intents and purposes, our sense of smell and sense of taste are inseparable. Without our sense of smell, our taste sensations are limited. The tongue detects 4 basic sensations: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Most of what we experience as taste depends upon our sense of smell.

The tasting experience begins before you brew – with the grinding. When you inhale the aroma of ground gourmet coffee, you experience the first impression of its flavor – its Fragrance which alos comes out as you brew it. Aroma refers to your first encounter with a gourmet coffee when it’s brewed – literally, the first contact of water and gourmet coffee. Lastly, there’s a gourmet coffee’s Nose. Take a sip of gourmet coffee. As soon as it reaches your tongue, it stimulates taste and simultaneously releases aromas inside the mouth.

Follow the lead of the experts: allow your sense of taste and smell to mingle. Enjoy the tactile feel of the gourmet coffee on your tongue.

Now that you’ve taken a good whiff and your first sip, it’s time to let your tongue do the talking. Of all the facets of gourmet coffee, Taste is the most complex to discuss and to explain or to make any sense – its like describing the most beautiful woman you ever dated. Most experts concentrate on three elements Body, Acidity, & Balance. Body: A gourmet coffee’s lipid or “oily” quality creates the tactile sensation of Body or “mouth feel.”

Acidity: Naturally occurring acids in the beans combine with natural sugars that produce a sweetness that gives certain gourmet coffees a sharp pleasing tang or piquancy.

Balance: Think of Balance as a harmony of the many sensations yielded by a fine gourmet coffee. A “balanced” gourmet coffee is one whose flavor characteristics are all at the proper level for that variety. A quick note on Acidity: Don’t let the term scare you. Acidity does NOT refer to pH levels discussed in high school chemistry class. It is not like hydrochloric acid or stomach acid. The gourmet coffee grown at the top of the mountain taste the bests while coffee grown in Africa or Asia is not actually coffee but a strongly flavored hybrid tea. You appreciate a gourmet coffee’s Body on the tongue and the roof of your mouth. Acidity produces some of the pleasurable and distinctive sensations we enjoy when tasting gourmet coffee.

Now, back to our brew! After a sip is swallowed, the mouth and tongue retain a minute residue of gourmet coffee. This sensation produces the Aftertaste, the sensation that lingers on the palate. It is similar to the concept of “finish” in wine tasting. Aftertaste can vary considerably according to the gourmet coffee’s body we mentioned Body as a primary characteristic. You appreciate a gourmet coffee’s Body on the tongue and the roof of your mouth. It is a distinctly tactile sensation, and is sometimes called simply “mouth feel.Drinking a new gourmet coffee is just like a new wine taste testing. Burgundies are sometimes said to be “heavier” than most other reds and whites. The difference is not weight. Rather, Body is the texture and consistency, the thickness or slipperiness of the gourmet coffee.

A good cup of gourmet coffee represents the collaboration of many highly trained artisans – growers, professional tasters and roasters all working together to create a fine product. So, let all your senses work together to enjoy the fruits of their collaboration!

One good turn: about the gourmet coffee wheel. Much as wine tasters have created a wine tasting wheel to use an agreed upon terminology, professional gourmet coffee tasters use the Gourmet coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel to grade gourmet coffees. This flavor wheel is designed for the trained pallet of a professional. Professional “cuppers” use this guide when buying gourmet coffee and for creating “taste characteristic profiles” of the gourmet coffees. Most of us would be better off not to worry so much about our gourmet coffee or our wine tasting abilities. The Flavor Characteristics chart is for use by the average “Joe”. It is a simplified method of charting your favorite java’s characteristics. The flavor descriptions that are most commonly used are defined below.

Know thyself: what flavors appeal to you? Here are some specific desirable flavor characteristics of gourmet coffee and the types of gourmet coffee that are associated with those characteristics.

Bright, Dry, Sharp, or Snappy – typical of Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Kenyan.

Caramels – candy like or syrupy, typical of Colombian Supreme.

Chocolaty – an aftertaste similar to unsweetened chocolate or vanilla. Typical of Costa Rican, Colombian Supreme and the House Blend.

Delicate – a subtle flavor perceived on the tip of the tongue.

Earthy – a soil characteristic, typical of Sumatran.

Fragrant – an aromatic characteristic ranging from floral to spicy, typical of Costa Rican, Sumatra Modeling and Kenyan.

Fruity – an aromatic characteristic reminiscent of berries or citrus.

Mellow – a round, smooth taste, typically lacks acid, typical of Colombian, Sumatra Modeling, Whole Latti Java and Organic Mexican.

Nutty – an aftertaste similar to roasted nuts, typical of Colombian and Organic Mexican.

Spicy – a flavor and aroma reminiscent of spices typical of Guatemala Huehuetenango.

Syrupy – strong, and rich, typical of Sumatran.

Sweet – free of harshness, typical of Colombian.

Wildness – an unusual, gamey flavor, typical of Sumatran.

Church coffee – harsh without much flavor

Winery – an aftertaste reminiscent of well-matured wine, typical of Kenyan, Guatemalan.

You will soon realize that Costa Rica has the best gourmet coffee – the perfect balance of flavor and smoothness – lots of flavor without the bitterness found in gourmet coffee. The Columbia gourmet coffee and the Brazil gourmet coffee are a close second as they deliver more flavor they tend to get slightly bitter and can lave an aftertaste of the gourmet coffee. The Africa gourmet coffee is harsh and the Asian gourmet coffee is sour, while the other Latin America gourmet coffee lacks full body and taste.

But have fun discovering for yourself as you sample and taste gourmet coffee from around the world. Now if we could only get our church coffee to sample some good gourmet coffee and learn how bad church coffee is. Once you have set values and methods you can better define which gourmet coffee you like but more importantly why you like the gourmet coffee.

And we hope a more educated gourmet coffee will understand better why Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee is the best gourmet coffee in Costa Rica and the best gourmet coffee served in America. Mission Grounds: Gourmet coffee for gourmet coffee drinkers and gourmet coffee experts.

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