10 Reasons to Drink Single Serve Coffee Regularly

Not only has coffee been a staple in our diet here at Single Serve Coffee since we were very young, coffee has been a major part of the diet since the early 16th century for the entire world. Since that time drinking coffee has been clouded with controversy. We can't tell you the number of times a week we hear people singing the praises of coffee, and also saying it's going to ruin our entire body, and bring about our downfall.

We recently found this article that has some pretty interesting details on the following topics related to your health and coffee:

• Cofee Boosts Brain Power
• Coffee and Pregnancy
• Coffee and Heart Attacks
• Coffee and Cancer
• Coffee and Dehydration

One of the most surprising is coffee and dehydration. We've long thought coffee was a diuretic , but it just isn't so unless you can drink about 40 cups a day (okay maybe a bit of an exaggeration). Another one is coffee and cancer - if you drink coffee you can at least be assured that one part of your body (which we won't mention) will have a much higher chance of being cancer free.

Read 10 Reasons to Drink Coffee Regularly

Single Serve Coffee Spoon

Single serve coffee and good design go hand and hand. This concept of a "Single Serve Coffee Spoon" from Hye-Yeon Choi is a good example. With this concept you can get both a fresh cup of coffee, and a fast cup of coffee. Intended to be a simple solution for diners and less service oriented restaurants, this all in one tubular design holds both the instant coffee and the sugar/creamer in one neat package. When the contents are poured out, you simply use the package itself as a spoon to stir your brew. We're not sure if instant coffee will hit the mark for great coffee, but we could also see this working for tea, cocoa, and other hot beverages.

At Coffee Spoon by Hye-Yeon Choi

Green Mountain Coffee Announces Price Increases - K Cups and Coffee Prices to Rise

It looks like the price of coffee and K Cups will be on the rise this year for the single serve coffee world. The Financial Times has recently published an article on the subject of the rise in coffee prices, and it's not surprising that this cost will be passed onto consumers. We had hoped that Kraft and Folgers (who had announced price increases earlier in the year) would be the only companies, but the trend looks to continue with Green Mountain Coffee.

Green Mountain Coffee says the increase in pricing is in response to several factors affecting the coffee industry in general, including a sharp escalation in the price of coffee, increases in prices of other raw materials, and higher energy and transportation costs. In addition, costs for the high-quality coffees used by Green Mountain Coffee have risen even more than the general commodity (“C”) price. The price increases will affect all of Green Mountain Coffee’s packaged coffees as well as its K-Cup® portion packs used in the Keurig® single-cup brewer, and will include streamlining the packaging of its K-Cups® into 24-count sleeves. Previously, K-Cups were packed in a mix of both 25- and 24-count sleeves.

In addition, Keurig, Incorporated, a subsidiary of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., has notified all licensed roasters that it is raising its per K-Cup royalty rate by $0.01 effective August 1, 2008. It is Keurig’s first ever royalty rate increase and reflects the rise in the Consumer Price Index since March 2000. This increase in royalty income will support continued growth in advertising and market development of Keurig’s single-cup gourmet brewing system. Nick Lazaris, President of Keurig, said: “Given Keurig’s leadership role in the single-cup category, we will continue to invest to build our brand awareness. Our intent is to reach gourmet coffee lovers, support our retail partners and build our installed base of brewers.”

Expect higher prices all around in the coffee world. We're also think this will start to hit coffee pods, T Discs, and other single serve coffee products, along with coffee beans and ground coffee. But the price increases shouldn't result in K Cup, coffee pods, or other single serve coffee products being priced out of reach for most consumers. Given a cup of coffee at Starbucks or even Dunkin Donuts is $1.50+, it's nice to know you can stay home and make a better cup of single serve coffee for a 1/3 of the price of either option even with the price increases.

Continue reading: "Green Mountain Coffee Announces Price Increases - K Cups and Coffee Prices to Rise"

Can Sugar Substitutes in Your Coffee Make You Fat?

It's tough to think that using a sugar substitute will lead to you becoming fatter than thinner, but the proof is in the sugar free pudding. Apparently when you ingest a bit of sugar, your body thinks and tells you that more food that's sugar sweet is on the way. This will lead to most people seeking out sugar sweet or fatty food, thus eating poorly even though they are using a zero calorie alternative. Bummer. We only use real sugar and take our calorie lumps with every cup of single serve coffee, but have always believed if we could just stomach a little artificial sweetner things would be a bit thinner in our middle area.

Read Can Sugar Substitutes Make You Fat?

Happy Holidays from Single Serve Coffee

Our Nespresso Snowman!

The entire staff at Single Serve Coffee wants to wish everyone a Happy Holiday! We'll return on the 26th with more single serve coffee news and info, and if you've received or will receive a single serve coffee maker we want to welcome you to the single serve coffee world.

For all the latest single serve coffee reviews and news, check out our reviews category. You will also want to sign up for the Single Serve Coffee Forums, and chat with other single serve coffee drinkers.

Also there's a wealth of info available on the site including: single serve coffee makers, coffee pods, k cups, coffee gadgets, coffee cups, and other super cool items single serve coffee items.

Also, we will be giving away lots of single serve coffee prizes in the New Year at Single Serve Coffee and Single Serve Espresso. To be eligible to win you need to be signed up for the Single Serve Coffee mailing list and the Single Serve Espresso mailing list.

Again - Happy Holidays and enjoy this special time of year.

Last Days to Shop Online for Single Serve Coffee Holiday Gifts

We're really getting to the end of the holiday shopping season online for Single Serve Coffee. For single serve coffee gift ideas we recommend the 2007 Single Serve Holiday Shopping Guide. It will help guide you in your gift decisions, and get you the latest info on single serve coffee makers, coffee pods, k cups, coffee gadgets, coffee cups, and other super cool items single serve coffee items.

Many sites will still offer 2 day and overnight shipping like CoffeeWhiz.com, CoffeeGiant.com, Amazon.com, Green Mountain Coffee, Keurig, and others. So check their sites for shipping details. The big thing - get your shopping done today or at the latest tomorrow to have items arrive on Saturday or Monday the 24th. If not - you can always give a gift certificate or a raincheck.

And if you're looking for our latest reviews of the newest single serve coffee products, check out our reviews category.

Whatever you choose to do - we'll be around and posting throughout the holidays, and will have lots of news and reviews to come post Christmas and New Years.

Weekend To Dos: Final Days to Win a Lavazza Blue and Holiday Shopping

The Tasimo Hot Beverage System is very hot this season.
You can also get Starbucks T-Disc Coffee for the Tassimo Brewer.

'Tis the season to be shopping for all things single serve coffee, and to have a chance to win something single serve coffee to give to that special someone

Single Serve Espresso and Single Serve Coffee are giving away a Lavazza Pininfarina Blue LB1010 Home espresso maker (you can read our thoughts and impressions here on this new machine). To be eligible to win you need to be signed up for the Single Serve Coffee mailing list and the Single Serve Espresso mailing list. We will be picking the winner on Monday - so please sign up to win. A special thanks to Cafe Razzi for donating the machine to giveaway.

On the holiday shopping front you should check out the Single Serve Coffee Holiday Gift Guide if you're looking for a complete round up for shopping in the single serve coffee world this holiday season. It's got details on the best single serve coffee makers, coffee pods, k cups, coffee gadgets, coffee cups, and other super cool items for your single serve holiday shopping.

And if you're looking for our latest reviews of the newest single serve coffee products, check out our reviews category.

We'll have a bunch of coffee pod, k-cup, and other single serve coffee reviews next week.

Weekend To Dos: Win A Lavazza Blue, Black Friday, and Single Serve Coffee Holiday Shopping

We think the Breville BKC600XL Gourmet Single Cup Brewer
is going to be a hot holiday item.

'Tis the season to be shopping for all things single serve coffee, and to have a chance to win something single serve coffee to give to that special someone

Single Serve Espresso and Single Serve Coffee are giving away a Lavazza Pininfarina Blue LB1010 Home espresso maker (you can read our thoughts and impressions here on this new machine). To be eligible to win you need to be signed up for the Single Serve Coffee mailing list and the Single Serve Espresso mailing list. A special thanks to Cafe Razzi for donating the machine to giveaway.

On the holiday shopping front the Black Friday madness has begun, and also special deals on things single serve coffee, and not so single serve coffee. Amazon is going to have several deals on their Black Friday Deals Page hopefully coffee related. Also you might want to check out the products this week that Amazon customers have voted on their Customer Voting Deals, as you'll be able to get a Nintendo Wii for less than $100 bucks to go with your single serve coffee maker.

You should also check out the Single Serve Coffee Holiday Gift Guide if you're looking for a complete round up for shopping in the single serve coffee world this holiday season. It's got details on the best single serve coffee makers, coffee pods, k cups, coffee gadgets, coffee cups, and other super cool items for your single serve holiday shopping.

And if you're looking for our latest reviews of the newest single serve coffee products, check out our reviews category. We'll also have a review of the Breville BKC600XL Gourmet Single Cup Brewer on Monday.

Hot Cup Haiku Sweepstakes from Green Mountain

If you can dream up the perfect single serve coffee haiku, then you could win a Keurig B60 and two boxes of K Cups! All you have to do is visit the Hot Cup Haiku Sweepstakes, and paint a word picture of your love of coffee in Haiku form. Green Mountain will then share it with... well, everybody! Fourteen lucky prize winners will have their haiku printed on our environment-friendly hot-cups.

Entries *must* be related to coffee, and how coffee makes a difference in your day — your world. Winners will be selected based on the distinctiveness and originality of their Haiku. Winning entries will be consistent with themes of the pleasures of coffee, the role of coffee in work and family life, and the pursuit of life's simpler pleasures. Bonus points will be awarded for Haiku that further relate to themes of sustainability and environmental balance.

Enter online through December 1st, 2007. (Limit one entry per person, per day, please.) See Official Rules for complete details.

At Hot Cup Haiku Sweepstakes

Starbucks To Giveaway 50 Million iTunes Songs

From Oct. 2 to Nov. 7, more than 10,000 Starbucks shops will be handing out free "Song of the Day" iTunes download cards. Starbucks estimates it will hand out 1.5 million songs per day, over 50 million in all, to promote the iTunes Wi-Fi store to which Starbucks will grant free access over its T-Mobile Wi-Fi networks.

Before we switched to AT&T, we used to use the T-Mobile Hot Spot at Starbucks all the time. Since we often take the entire single serve coffee staff to Starbucks for a break from the office, we loved the ability to surf and drink some coffee. To get your free songs, it appears you'll have to have a computer running iTunes, and you don't get your pick—each card is for a specific song. Oh well, at least it gives us a reason to sample some Wi-Fi and get a free song along with a cup of coffee. Maybe they should hand out these cards and we should just come home for coffee...hmmm...

Via Gizmodo at Reuters

Test bench: Single Serve Coffee and Espresso Makers

This must read article from the Times Online does a pretty amazing job of looking at the current models of single serve coffee machines you can purchase for your home. They take the different models and put them through their test kitchen making lattes, espresso, and cups of single serve coffee. Though the article is UK based, many of these same machines (like the Nespresso Le Cube above) are available in the US. So, if you want to get the low down on many of the preparation methods and machines available in the single serve coffee world, this article is for you.

Why fill the till at Starbucks on your way to work when you can make a cup of authentic morning java for as little as 10p, as well as having a gleaming coffee machine in your kitchen and enjoying the pose value of acting the barista for guests?

Despite many options, all espresso machines employ the same basic method. Water from a tank is heated rapidly to just below boiling point and then driven at high pressure through a filter that holds tightly packed fine-ground coffee. Most home systems can make one or two cups at a time, and the majority also have a steam nozzle or “frother” that heats and froths milk for a cappuccino or a latte.

Read at Test bench: coffee makers

Does Espresso have more Caffeine than Single Serve Coffee?

We wonder this all the time and the answer is - yes and no. In a nut shell - an espresso cup has about as much caffeine as a cup of strong coffee. Because the serving sizes are very different - espresso being smaller and a cup of single serve coffee being a bit larger - you can often surpass the amount of caffeine in the larger cup of single serve coffee. However, if you are used to putting 2-3 shots of espresso into your latte, then you're really drinking about 3 cups of coffee.

Want the to know even more? Check out the Coffee and Caffeine FAQ.

Why Do People Use WiFi at Coffee Shops?

We're not sure why this article/powerpoint presentation (PDF) infuriates us so - but isn't the answer a bit obvious? You use wi-fi in a coffee shop to get away from the house and feel as if you're hanging with people because you have zero friends. Right? :-) We like wi-fi in coffee shops to surf a bit, get some writing done outside the house, and maybe - just maybe drink some good coffee? How about meeting people in a coffee shop for business instead of the office for a little urban feel? Whatever the reason, the staff at Single Serve Coffee likes to drink amazing coffee at the office and use our wi-fi there.

The nuts and bolts of the real article is debating whether or not - city wide wi-fi would kill business in coffee shops because people go there just for wi-fi and coffee. Come on - how about kill the fee at the coffee shop for wireless, and let us go there and use the free stuff and buy more coffee and scones? And to top it off - what about coffee shop wi-fi squatters...yeah...we're not big fans either.

He found that most coffee shop hotspot users had access to broadband Internet connections at home, so they weren't using it as their primary access point. Instead, they chose their surfing location to get out of the house and concentrate - albeit among a group of strangers.

Based on my own experience with San Jose's municipal WiFi system, I'd surely seek out a local coffee shop providing WiFi over the more accessible muni system due to the intrusive banner placed in the browser. Assuming it didn't have intrusive ads, or was paid and I had already paid, I'd have to find somewhere as accommodating as a coffee shop to do some surfing. That may be easier said than done.

Via Technology Evangelist

What's Happening Over at SingleServeEspresso.com

Welcome to the dog days of summer, but who said that summer is a time not to have coffee or espresso. If it’s too hot, have an iced espresso, and cool yourself off with that great taste of espresso (pour espresso over ice, add sugar and milk to taste).

Just don’t forget to try an all Arabica Blend for the cold coffee; the “Classic” roasts are a bit harsher than most people will tolerate. Check out just a few of the things happening over at SingleServeEspresso.com

Espresso Machines