Review: The Keurig K-Cup Brewer B100

When I first heard about the Keurig K-Cup Brewer - I was stuck on just what the word Keurig meant. After doing a little poking around on the web site my curiousity was satisfied.
"The word "Keurig" is derived from the Dutch word for excellence, and it is our promise to you."
Excellence and a promise of great coffee. Keurig better deliver I thought but, with brands of coffee like Green Mountain and Van Houtte how could it not?
Must Read Keurig K Cup Single Serve Coffee Maker Reviews:
You can also read all of our reviews on Keurig in the Keurig Archives...
Since release of the B100 there has also been a slew of new Keurig brewers including: Keurig Elite B40 Brewer, Keurig B50, Keurig Special Edition Ultra Elite B60, and the newly released Keurig B70 Brewer single serve coffee makers.
Next, I needed to get an idea of where this new coffee brewer would fit within the new single cup coffee craze. My first thoughts after hearing that it was a "cup" system, was that it might be very much like the Flavia office coffee systems but built for the home.
My suspicions were correct on one front - the Keurig Single-Cup Home Brewer is the brother of their office brewer and Keurig is both in the home market and the office. So, the Keurig would probably have a high level of quality built in if it was based on their office brewer that would have to sustain a ton of brewings every morning, versus a typical Single Serve Machine that was engineered exclusively for home use and would on a daily basis, only have 4-6 cups of coffee made with it.
This lead me to my next thought, "How well supported will this coffee maker be?" Would the Keurig have cups sold at your local store? Or would I have to order the cups online? What variety of coffees and teas would I be able to buy? I'll answer these questions over the course of the review but...if the number of coffees and teas available for the brewer is any indication of the support and staying power of the Keurig (there are over 50 varieties of gourmet coffees and teas are available in K-Cups), my initial feelings are that the Keurig is here to stay for some time and very well supported after finding this out.
The Keurig Promise
The Keurig Single-Cup Brewer promises the following:
- Perfectly Brewed Coffee and Tea
- Always Ready Coffee or Tea
- Consistent Great Taste - with no taste contamination from cup to cup.
From Keurig:
"The Keurig B100 Single-Cup Brewing System brews a cup of coffee or tea in less than a minute. To brew a cup, simply insert a K-Cup® of your choice into the brewer, press the “Brew” button and the brewer will pierce the K-Cup, inject pressurized hot water and brew the coffee or tea in about 45 seconds. The brewer is always ready to brew because it maintains up to 8 cups of hot water at brewing temperature. On the initial fill or when refilled, it will take 8-10 minutes to heat the water (or less if less water is used)."
So in a nut shell - it's an always on, single cup brewing powerhouse, that has a ton of teas and coffees and also promises to never have your tea taste like coffee or your coffee taste like tea. Now, I'm not sure how big of a concern this is for me yet, but I can see the "ideal" of this convenience.
Pricing
The Keurig isn't cheap. At $249.95, it puts it as the most expensive in this category of Single Serve Coffee machines. However, since it has many higher end features - the price is somewhat justified by the craftsmanship and quality of the Keurig (trust me - after opening it - it is a very well designed machine), the on demand coffee, and the fact that it uses it's own unique K-Cup system that ensures the freshness of the teas and coffees since they are individually packed.
The K-Cups aren't cheap either. With the Senseo pods coming in at about ~$0.27 a pod, the K-Cups are $13.95 for 25 sans shipping. That makes each K-Cup ~$0.56 cents a cup. That's more than double the price per cup of coffee compared to a home pod brewer. That being said, it is a more expensive Brewer and promises a high quality cup of fresh coffee or tea. So, given that each K-Cup has a 2 ply paper filter and is dated for freshness - well - that has to cost something.
Setting it Up and Unpacking the Keurig
I have to admit, for $249.95 the packaging better be nice. However, the Keurig's exterior box and packaging is a little lacking on the nice front. Don't get me wrong, the Keurig itself is packed very well - but the brown box exterior is a tad lacking in such a handsome piece of hardware to be revealed. I like the set up that an Apple packed product gives you - if you've ever opened a new Powerbook or iPod - you know what I mean here.
That being said, the Keurig is packed with a foam heat mold packaging within. There really isn't any "labeling of parts" inside the box but it's pretty clear what they are going to be used for.
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The Keurig Arrives in a big brown rather industrial looking box. |
The Keurig is packed with a heat molded foam. |
Ahhh...quick start instructions. |
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The base? Perhaps I put my coffee cup there. The star is a nice touch. |
The brewer is packed with plastic to avoid marks. |
I unpack the brewer. Reminds me of a Romulan warship. |
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I put the K-Cup holder and base in place. |
I next fill it up and await it to heat up. |
Plugged in and ready to go? |
Coming up in Keurig Part II: The Brewing of the Coffee
I'll be going through the paces of brewing that first K-Cup of coffee and also putting the maker through it's paces with teas as well.
The Keurig Brewer and K-Cup Size
I think it's really important to compare the size of the maker to another maker in the same category. The Keurig is a big machine. It's nearly 1.5 times the size of the Senseo and about 1.25 times the size of my Cuisineart. Also, the K-Cups take up about twice the size of a typical pack of pods and even a coffee canister I use for fresh roasted beans. I don't think this is a major drawback - but get ready to clear a little more area to land your Keurig.
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It's about 1.5 times the size of the Senseo. |
The K-Cups take up a bit more space than typical pods. |
Prepping the Keurig Brewer
After setting up the coffee maker, pouring in the first full reservoir of coffee, you have to wait for the brewer to heat up the water reservoir to brewing temperature. The funny thing here is: the Keurig comes with nothing to fill up the reservoir. If you look at the first part of the Keurig review, we ended up using our old retired Cuisineart carafe to fill the reservoir. Next, you'll need to run about 12 full mugs of water through the brewer prior to making your first K-cup of coffee.
The brewer doesn't make a ton of noise when it heats up or when I run the 12 or so mugs of coffee through it. Sometimes it does sound (I'm quoting my friend Mark Steele who helped with the review pictures) like "A muffled duck somehow trapped inside the coffee maker is making a cry for help". I would also like to add, other single serve coffee makers like the Senseo and My Cafe sound like a grumpy old man huffing and puffing. :-)
The reservoir fill level is indicated with the coolest blue light I've ever seen outside of a modded PC case. It has this little cool float ball that seems to be floating in a cool blue liquid. Brilliant.
Okay enough rambling, here's how the prep really plays out:
1. Unpacking the maker: 5 minutes
2. Reading what to do: 2 minutes
3. Filling with Water: 1 minute
4. Waiting to Heat Up 1st Time: 15 minutes
5. Make 12 mugs of hot water to clean out the machine: 10 minutes
6. Refill reservoir again: 1 minute
7. Wait to heat up again: 15 minutes
Total prep time before being ready to brew: ~45 minutes
Brewing My First K-Cup of Coffee
I decided to brew a Dark Roast cup of Green Mountain coffee as my first K-Cup of coffee. Putting the K-Cup in the maker is very easy. You simply pull out the drawer in the front, pop the K-Cup into place and push it back in.
When you place the K-Cup in the drawer, there is a little puncture-pin that creates a whole in the bottom of it. It punctures the bottom where the coffee or tea will come out. After pushing in the drawer I get my first push of the coffee brewing button.
I'm an interface geek here - so I'll have to spend a little time on it. It's extremely simple...
- Green light go. Red light no. Big button - push and yo! A fresh K-Cup of coffee!
The quality of the button is really exceptional - it has the dimple push feel that exudes quality and is fun to push. Really it is!
I didn't state this earlier, but the Keurig doesn't produce a ton of coffee per K-cup. It produces a small regular coffee mug sized cup of coffee. This is a tad bit disappointing, but I will go more into that later.
Okay - I push the coffee brew button...
Duck noise...
And in less than 30 seconds a steaming K-Cup of coffee is produced. The coffee looks very rich and dark. There is a little bit of froth on the top of the coffee, and I quickly pull the mug from the brewer and put in my 2 spoons of sugar and a little half and half.
Coming up in Part III: How Good is the Coffee? And Our Conclusions...

Coffee Impressions from the K-Cup Brewer
The Green Mountain French Roast coffee looks good; however my first impressions of the coffee are - well - it's good, but not great. I drink Green Mountain French Roast at work and at home and this coffee is a little lacking. The coffee seems to be on the perfectly measured for 1 cup of coffee kind of flavor - and this leads me to my first startling revelation.
How do I make a stronger cup of coffee? I guess I could buy other darker blends of coffee like Van Houtte (which I brew next), but since you can only put 1 K-Cup of coffee in the maker and push the same amount of water through it - what you get is what you get.
Let's look at a typical pod brewer for a moment to get at the difference:
Senseo: You can make 1 pod to 1 cup. Or 2 Pods to 1 Cup or 1 Pod to 2 cups or 2 Pods to 2 Cups. There is a ton of flexibility here to make the coffee a little stronger or a little weaker. The K-Cup brewer lacks any way at all to adjust the strength or amount of coffee you produce.
Now - am I being too harsh? No. I'm trying to make you realize that I think it's quite limiting. The Senseo Dark Roast or even the Folgers Dark Roast single pod isn't as strong as I would like in a really dark cup of coffee, but putting 2 pods in and brewing a double mug is perfect and roughly the same cost as 1 K-Cup of coffee. And, sometimes I don't want a strong cup of coffee, so I brew a single Pod in the Senseo. It's nice to have options.
That being said, I decide not to totally go on the Green Mountain Dark Roast as my only cup of K-Coffee...hmmm...K-coffee... I next put in a Van Houtte Dark Roast K-Cup. The coffee looks a lot like the French Roast from Green Mountain and I forgot to mention - PIPING HOT! The brewer produces a very hot cup of coffee - very hot, I would dare to say - even hotter than the My Cafe or Senseo.
The Van Houtte coffee is quite good. Much better in taste than the Green Mountain. The coffee has a nice flavor that you would get in a "end of a great meal - oh my god they even have great coffee in this restaurant" kind of flavor.
Next, I put in a Gloria Jean French Hazelnut K-Cup. We used to have a Gloria Jean coffee shop in the Burlington Mall - in Burlington Massachusetts. I have had just about every type of flavored coffee from there, and I was prepared for a very flavored cup of coffee from the K-Cup. I was immediately disappointed.
The Hazelnut coffee seemed to be a little less intense than I get at a Gloria Jean coffee shop. I think the coffee is well - okay. It's on par with something I could brew in the Cuisineart from a medium grade flavored coffee. That being said - why am I under whelmed yet again? I guess at $249.95 for the brewer and $0.57 a K-Cup - shouldn't all the coffee it brews be on the level of amazing? Or at least - GREAT?
Brewing Tea in the K-Cup Brewer
We tried a bunch of the different teas that came with the Keurig brewer to review. The Bigelow Mint Medley Herb Tea was on par with any cup of tea I have brewed at home (sans loose leaf tea - can't compare there). The tea is very well brewed - with good color, great taste, and piping hot. Since I'm not a huge tea person, I let my mother in-law try the tea. Note: My mother in law is currently visiting from northern California where she lives in a cabin on the side of a mountain and brews tea only made from spring water that is heated on the gas stove in an a pre-heated ceramic pot - her impression, "Very good. Nice."
Conclusions
The K-Cup brewer from Keurig is a well engineered, well thought out brewing system. The Keurig is very convenient, and less mess than a pod brewing system. That being said, the flexibility of your brewing options, the fact that it produces a small mug of coffee and can't produce a double cup of coffee in a single brewing step, leads me to conclude...
Get it if you want an industrial strength well engineered coffee maker with the most variety of coffees (over 70 varieties of coffees and teas) and be prepared for - if you don't like how it brews your favorite cup of Green Mountain or Gloria Jean's coffee, you won't have any option to change the way it came out.
Also - at $249.95 (note: we received the brewer and coffee direct from Keurig free of charge to review), we think it's a tad bit expensive for your single serve coffee dollar bang for the buck. Other coffee makers in this category are half the cost or less and the coffee they use is also half the cost or less than the per K-Cup average.
And now my final-final Conclusion....
The Keurig Single-Cup Brewer promises the following:
- Perfectly Brewed Coffee and Tea
- Our Take: Yes and no. Perfectly brewed how the brewer produces the coffee with no flexibility in making more or less coffee and adjusting the darkness of the brew.
- Always Ready Coffee or Tea
- Yes. The brewer is always ready and the coffee and tea is produced quickly and piping hot.
- Consistent Great Taste - with no taste contamination from cup to cup.
- Yes. The taste is consistent and there is no contamination of tea to coffee, coffee to tea, or coffee-to-coffee. Spot on here.
Thanks again to the folks at Keurig for providing us with the Keurig and a sample set of coffees and teas for review.
Update: Read our review of the Keurig B70 Brewer
You can also read all of our reviews on Keurig in the Keurig Archives...
Since release of the B100 there has also been a slew of new Keurig brewers including: Keurig Elite B40 Brewer, Keurig B50, Keurig Special Edition Ultra Elite B60, and the newly released Keurig B70 Brewer single serve coffee makers.
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Posted by Jay Brewer at July 27, 2004 8:36 PM