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Coffee Maker Lingo
Single
Serve Coffee Maker Lingo
- A
Primer on K-Cups, Pods, and T Discs
By Brad
Fruhauff
We've all heard the joke about how hard it can be to order
coffee nowadays. Among many other gourmet coffee shops, perhaps
Starbucks is most (in)famous for giving us terms like "venti,"
"cappuccino," and "macchiato." For those who enjoy coffee culture, its
diverse and specialized jargon is part of its charm. For those who
simply want a hot cup of joe to wake up in the morning, sometimes the
last thing they need is to learn a new language.
Whether you're a self-proclaimed coffee connoisseur or an
old-fashioned, just-give-me-a-cup-of-coffee kind of person, one of the
quickest and easiest ways to get great coffee at home is the single
serve coffee maker. But, like any other coffee accoutrement, you have
to learn the lingo in order to make an informed decision about which
system is best for you. As it so happens, this article is about
precisely that. The first thing you have to decide
is if you want to go manual or electric. This article concerns electric
single serve coffee makers; an article soon to follow will explain
manual coffee makers.
Electric single serve coffee makers come mainly in three types,
according to the brewing and filtering systems they use. Keurig and
Tassimo make up two types because they each have their own unique
brewing system, while a wide variety of brands, such as Senseo,
Cuisinart, and Black & Decker, use standard-sized coffee "pods."
Pods - Single Serve Pod
Machines
Pod machines use small disks of coffee prepackaged in their own
filter-paper. To brew, you slip a pod into the machine and press a
button. The main advantage of the pod machine is the variety of coffee
available. Because the pod is standard, many different companies can
offer their coffee in pod form, from well-known names such as Lavazza
or Millstone to newer entries such as Senseo's Douwe Egberts pods. In
addition, you can buy your own pod-maker, such as the Perfect Pod,
which lets you choose any brand of coffee and make your own
ready-to-use pod.
K-Cups - Keurig Single
Serve Coffee Makers
Keurig, from the Dutch for "excellence," uses a special filtration
product called a K-cup. A K-cup is a self-contained unit that you place
directly in your Keurig coffee maker. The machine punctures the K-cup
and sprays hot water over the grounds, which drips through a miniature
filter and into your cup in about a minute. Many companies, such as
Caribou Coffee, Timothy's, Coffee People, Tully's, and Gloria Jean's,
offer their own K-cups, so you actually have a good selection of
high-quality coffees that are readily available on-line. But the really
cool thing about K-cups is that, since they are self-contained, you can
switch beverages without having to clean the machine. That means you
can buy Twinings or Bigelow tea K-cups, as well as Ghirardelli hot
cocoa K-cups.
T Discs - Tassimo Single
Serve Coffee Makers
Tassimo machines, like Keurig, use their own, self-contained filtration
called a T Disc. T Discs are similar to K-cups but they add a hi-tech
component: a bar code on each T disc tells the machine precisely how to
make your beverage, be it coffee, espresso, hot cocoa, or tea - that's
water temp, brewing time, and volume, all with the push of a single
button, one right after the other. Brands making T Discs include
Starbucks, Seattle's Best, Maxwell House, Gevalia, Carte Noire, Tazo,
and Twinings.
A Note on Espresso
Machines
One last note: technically, an espresso machine could qualify as a
single serve coffee maker, since it generally produces one or two shots
of espresso per brew cycle. The main difference between most espresso
machines and what tend to be classed as single serve coffee makers is
that espresso machines use loose grounds which you measure and tamp
yourself, while the single serve machines all rely on pre-packaged
grounds. In addition, single serve coffee makers such as the Keurig or
Tassimo machines have the added advantage of making more than just
coffee or espresso, so with them you can please all your guests,
whatever their pleasure.
So, there you go - armed with these basic terms you're ready to sound
smart when you talk single serve coffee makers.
Brad Fruhauff is a poet,
teacher, musician, and coffee aficionado. He writes about the coffee
lifestyle at Single
Serve Simplicity & Style
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