It is no secret that I am a BIG coffee fan. I love coffee. I drink several cups a day, hit up Starbucks, Gloria Jeans, or Caribou when I can, and have even taken to keeping coffee flavored candies in my purse for when I can’t have a cup close at hand.
Several years ago, a Keurig came into our life. For years we’d resisted the idea of a dedicated coffee pod machine. To us it seemed like a fun novelty, but the reality in our minds was that the coffee from such a machine had to taste like that awful instant coffee. We discovered how wrong we were with that first Keurig. We tried box after box of K-cups, finding ones we liked, ones we didn’t like, and we also discovered how wonderful it was for entertaining! Fresh, hot coffee of your choice at the ready? We wished we’d had one of these back when we were hosting a small group all those years!
While the Keurig did not replace our daily morning drip pot of coffee, it did add to it, and enhanced our coffee-drinking lifestyle. So when Keurig announced their big upgrade to the Keurig 2.0, I honestly didn’t see a real reason to upgrade to the new machine. Oh, it claimed to have new bells and whistles, but we already had a working Keurig that we liked, why upgrade to the new one?
Well, that decision was made for us as a Keurig 2.0 showed up on the doorstep one day. It was a gift, one that I was not expecting and after admiring the box for a few hours, the kids and I pulled it out and put it to work. After having it in the house for several weeks now, I feel like I now know the ins and outs of the new Keurig 2.0 and can give it a proper review. The spoiler alert is that I love, love, love it, and am so glad for the upgrade. However, there are a few drawbacks so I’ll dig into those as well.
The big thing you first notice with the Keurig 2.0 is that in addition to the sleek new design, it also comes with a carafe for brewing into. There are special K-Carafe packs of coffee that you can now use to brew 2-4 cups of coffee into the carafe. This feature works well, and with the new digital touch screen you can set your Keurig 2.0 up in advance and set a timer to brew your carafe of coffee. Handy for in the morning, or when you know you’ll be home at a specific time and want to grab a quick cup to take with you back out the door. We have tried several of the K-Carafe pods- our favorite seems to be the Green Mountain Breakfast Blend set at brewing 4-5 cups.
Some caveats to the carafe feature. One is that the carafe is not very large. When it says it’s brewing 4-5 cups of coffee, it means 4-6 ounces a cup. We use large coffee cups in our home, so we get 2 cups of coffee, plus a warmer for someone halfway through. If you have smaller cups to drink out of, obviously you’ll get more mileage out of brewing a carafe. The second, and biggest caveat to brewing into the carafe is that the carafe is not insulated. It does not keep the coffee hot for any length of time. On top of that, it appears this machine does not brew coffee as hot as our traditional drip brewer does. When Andy gets up in the morning and brews a carafe, he fills his travel mug and then pours the rest into our thermal carafe for when I get up a few hours later. My morning coffee prepared in this fashion has only been warm- and that’s pretty unpleasant first thing in the morning.
Note, the coffee seems to be plenty hot enough when brewing a single cup. Since I drink my coffee black, I have to set my cup aside for a few minutes before I can start sipping. It’s also plenty hot that Andy can add his cold cream from the fridge and find the temperature perfect for drinking. And, straight out of the carafe is fine, it just isn’t a hot enough temperature to really stay hot for a long period of time I guess.
Anyway, I mentioned the digital screen a bit ago. I love this part of the Keurig 2.0. With the old machines there were buttons with different sized cups on it, but it was always just a guess what size cup you were brewing. With the 2.0 the digital screen gives you specific options of 4, 6, 8 and 10 ounce cups of coffee. There is also a separate selection for non-coffee cups, such as hot chocolate or tea. My absolute favorite new feature is the choice to brew your cup “strong”. It really does make a difference! I did two cups side by side, choosing strong for one of them, and it really was a stronger cup of coffee. I really like the strong button.
You can also just run hot water out of the Keurig in 4 or 6 ounce increments. It’s quite nice having hot water on demand! I’ve used it to dissolve bouillion, and also for steeping a tea bag. I found that I’m not really a fan of Keurig tea k-cup packs, there is a metallic flavor there that I don’t care for. But I do like putting a big mug under the Keurig with a tea bag in it, and running in two 6 ounce dispenses of hot water.
There are also other, interesting options that don’t really have an explanation yet. It seems that Keurig is likely planning on expanding their line of products, and I’m anxiously waiting to see what these other selections will do.
This machine also holds significantly more water than the first version. This will be great for entertaining, as I won’t need to monitor the machine as much to keep it filled up. Another feature on the Keurig 2.0 that I personally love is that the water reservoir comes with a filter. Yes, this will be something I will need to replace, but filtering the water is far preferable to having to descale the Keurig every once in a while, or having to trouble with using filtered water in the first place.
The one complaint that I’ve heard so many negatives about is that with the Keurig 2.0, you have to use their specific branded k-cups in the machine or it won’t work. This is true, and it is also true that you can find ways around this on Youtube. For us, this is a complete non-issue, as the K-cups that we prefer are already branded for this specific machine. I bought one of those reusable pods a while back and we really didn’t care for the results of using our own ground coffee in the Keurig. It maybe was a little annoying that upon getting the Keurig 2.0 I did have a collection of k-cups that were now unable to be used, but we know so many people with a Keurig in their home, that it wasn’t difficult to pass them on to someone else.
Overall, I am thrilled with the Keurig 2.0. If you asked me if it is worth the expense of the upgrade, I would say that it depends on how you plan to use it. For entertaining, hands down, this one is far superior to the first version. For every day use, I really like the added details and functions, and the K-cup limitations don’t bother me. But if you’re one of those who prefers a specific off-brand of K-cup, you’re better off waiting to see if that brand will eventually work with the Keurig 2.0. As for me, I love it, and should this one bite the dust, I’ll be replacing it with the same.