Keurig B70 Platinum Brewing System
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Keurig B70 Platinum Brewing System
Customer Review: Great coffee, great hot chocolate, great coffee maker
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd been searching for a coffee maker for some time. So many look good and the price range is ridiculous, what does a girl buy? I knew I didn't want a coffee maker with a large pot, my husband doesn't drink coffee and I typically drink one or two cups. I owned a Senseo at one time but primarily used it for tea, the coffee always had a funky cardboard taste to me. To get a decent selection of coffees or teas I had to go online, it just wasn't convenient to have to order my pods and wait for them.
The Keurig is a whole different story. I was at at store and saw the B70, I was still on the fence until I saw this new model could make a glass of iced tea as well. Needless to say I was sold, yay for impulse buying!! I love how quick this makes coffe, tea and hot chocolate. The manual says it could take over a minute for a cup but I've found it's always less than a minute. I also love the fact I can locally buy the K-cups if I run out or I can use the mycup if I want to use my own coffee or tea.
My in-laws came out for a couple of weeks and they fell in love with this too. They are the typical older parents, they know what they like and don't want to change. They like their Folgers Classic and that's what they wanted to drink. I knew they could use the Mycup but I had no idea on the amount or if the taste would be different. I had only used Mycup for tea, which it worked fine for. They came out, I should them how to use it and I think they liked this machine a little more everyday. About a week into their visit they said they wanted one for home and the Keurig actually made the coffee taste better.
Oh, and I like the light for the water reservoir. It's bright enough to act as a night light in the kitchen but not so bright it's annoying. The light also blinks when the water gets low, again a nice, non-annoying way to let me know to fill it.
Pros:
Easy to use
Easier to clean than a coffee maker
Saves money, no wasted coffee
Brews a better cup of coffee
Brew good hot chocolate, we use the Cafe Escapes K-cups
Easy to find K-cups locally and are cheaper than online
Everyone can get the coffee, tea, hot chocolate they want
Brews quickly
Cons:
Now we have to buy one for the in-laws
Reservoir could be bigger but then I suppose it would make the foot print bigger, which I wouldn't want.
Customer Review: This is a work of modern art that makes great coffee
Summary: 5 Stars
Edit: Early April 2010 - Our Keurig has been making wonderful coffee since mid-December. Unfortunately the portion size was getting ever smaller. The largest size yielded about as much as the smallest size did when it was new less than 4 months ago. Fortunately running white vinegar through it for about an hour solved the problem. A bottle of white vinegar costs about a buck at a large box store and this was not a significant issue and may be due to our water being hard.
Initial review: For years, I've had an individual coffee cup machine that used ground coffee from the stores. We have friends who purchased Keurig coffee makers, and finally decided to give one a try.
It wasn't hard to go with the B70, as it produces the largest cup, and it seemed the largest cup the B70 could make was about the smallest cup acceptable to me.
The unit arrived, and seemed to have been shipped to Amazon from another store. It had no warranty card in it, which concerned us. It also appeared the box and booklet which describes the machine had been opened.
However the machine itself seemed fully sealed in original wrap. We decided to try and hope for the best. There is a quick start guide, and the Keurig started right up, we let the first couple of cups hot water it dispensed go down the sink. Then using a clean cup, we tried a coffee pod.
The coffee is very good, so is the hot chocolate, so is the tea. The water comes out at 192 degrees (F) which seems hot enough. An LCD with menu controls the defaults, including the default cup size.
The unit is black and plastic with blue lights. The water reservoir also has blue lights, in the dark with the blue LCD display and blue lights it makes a very attractive display. I tend to think this isn't very energy
efficient.
If you can get by on the smallish portions, and the somewhat expensive k-cups, this is a great product. It brews a fresh, very tasty beverage, consistently, quickly, and without any mess. The LCD instructs when to add water to the reservoir and when the unit is ready to brew.
I'm a bit concerned about durability. However for the past couple of weeks, there has been no problem, and we have been going through more coffee and hot chocolate than ever at about 55 cents a portion. Beware, this is addictive and supplies are not inexpensive.
Customer Review: Best Single Cup Brewer On The Market
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently purchased the new Keurig B-70 Gourmet Single Cup Home Brewing System that was released on October 1st, 2006 and have been very happy with it. The machine is extremely well designed, simple to operate, aesthetically pleasing, and most importantly, brews an excellent cup of coffee. I am very impressed with how quickly it is able to brew a cup of coffee, the selection of brew sizes, and how simple clean up is.
There are a variety of single cup brewers on the market now, many utilizing pre-packaged coffee "pods" for brewing. Personally I was not comfortable purchasing a product where I would be locked into the selection and pricing of a specific manufacturer, or one that would only brew coffee and not tea and cocoa. This is just one area where Keurig really shines above their competition.
Keurig has gathered support of a variety of gourmet coffee, tea, and cocoa manufacturers and there currently there are over 140 different types sold pre-packaged in K-Cups including Green Mountain, Diedrich, Gloria Jean's, Timothy's, Van Houtte, Tully's, Coffee People, Newman's Own, Celestial Seasonings, Bigelow, Twinings, and Ghirardelli. Not only is there a large selection to choose from, there are a variety of resellers online offering K-Cups, and pricing is extremely competitive.
In addition to the pre-packaged offerings, Keurig offers the My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter allows you to use your own gourmet ground coffee in your Keurig home brewer. This option provided the extra level of comfort I personally needed to make the jump into a single cup brewer. Frankly I don't find myself using it very often as I had originally thought, as there are so many options available in pre-packaged K-cups.
The pricing of the Keurig brewers are extremely reasonable, and brews gourmet coffee in just a fraction of the cost of purchasing it from a Starbucks, Coffee People, or similar. I expect that my machine will pay for itself in savings in just a couple months of use.
The only suggestion I have for Keurig is that the My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter be included with the sale of the brewer, and not an optional accessory. It is such an inexpensive accessory that I am surprised it was not included. Overall the Keurig brewers are excellent value and quality and would recommend them to anyone interested in a single cup brewer.
Customer Review: I love this beautiful machine, but it's not for strong coffee drinkers!
Summary: 3 Stars
My new machine is gorgeous, works perfectly, is fast and quiet. I love it, looks beautiful in my new kitchen. All the blue LED's are beyond cool! I'm keepin it! But I've tried several of the "Extra Bold" darkest Roast coffees -- they are almost as strong as Starbuck's 'House' drip coffees, certainly not as strong as a cup from a Peet's Coffee Store.
I guess there is only so much coffee that can be placed in one of the K-Cups. I tried all the samples that came with the machine, they're pretty much watery and tasteless -- at the smallest cup size, 5.25 ounces.
So I'm operating at the limit of the B-70! I find I can live with one 10.5 oz. cup of coffee in the morning, made using two consecutive K-Cups, each at the B-70's smallest 5.25 oz. setting. That's for black coffee, adding cold cream certainly dilutes it too much for me. I'm not even a coffee freak, Starbucks house blends are what I like!
Seems to me that Keurig screwed-up when originally making the K-Cups -- if they were a little larger there would be space for more coffee grounds, enabling making larger cups of stronger coffee. I don't know why weak coffee drinkers would want to pay $200 for this great machine, when they could simply mix a cup of "Instant" coffee?
There is a cost factor involved too. "Van Houtte" Extra Bold K-Cups taste good, but cost about 60 cents each directly from the manufacturer. That means my 10.5 oz. morning cup runs $1.20. I've also bought Amazon's Green Mountain "Dark Magic" which is about as strong as Van Houtte, and runs half that cost, which is reasonable. I pray that Amazon remains in the K-Cup selling business!
Bottom line? A great coffee maker which is oriented toward making weak coffee. But it's not the machine's fault, as the K-Cups are too small. I used "Senseo" machines for years, its "pods" contained much more coffee, but its machines were cheaply-made and not well constructed.
I've contacted the K-Cup manufacturers asking for their strongest coffee, and asking which cups held the most grounds. Their Customer Service folks might as well be in Bangalore, I don't receive accurate replies!
Oh, enough!! Even if I don't use the B-70, it looks beautiful and is well made. Maybe I'll get used to slightly weaker coffee than I've been drinking? I have to remind myself that 'nothing's perfect'!
Customer Review: I'm A Convert! Single-Cup Brewing Rocks!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been skeptical of all single-cup brewers (as I am an admitted coffee snob), and had resisted even trying them until recently. A friend had the Tassimo system at home, and I found my trials with his machine acceptable, but not remarkable. It wasn't until I had opportunity to try a commercial version of the K-Cup system at a business recently and was impressed with the coffee it produced, as well as the variety of coffee options. However, I was still skeptical that a home version of this same system could produce the same quality level, but I was willing to give it a try. So, we ordered the B-70 based on its' feature set and larger reservoir size.
We're a month into the trial, and this brewer is NOT going back. This machine rocks and has quickly become our favorite appliance. The coffee is great and above all, consistent. We love the flexibility of the brew volume, the huge variety of available coffees and teas, and the fact that it is brew-ready whenever we want it (= fresher coffee). The brew flexibility is probably our favorite aspect in that I like a bold cup, and prefer a double of the Extra Bold cups with a 5.25oz brew volume, whereas my wife prefers the standard cups (often flavored) at a 7.25oz volume, or Extra Bold at 9.25oz (the 11.25oz is too thin for our liking). Guests love the novelty to select from our variety of coffees and teas, and we haven't found the brew time to be an issue at all.
Other benefits we've discovered along the way include that we're making fewer stops to our favorite local coffee shops (and saving money as a result); the whole process is so much cleaner than traditional methods of brewing (particularly as one who had ground his own beans); and that it really is a good idea to set the auto-off timer so that we aren't tempted to brew a cup of caffeine in the late afternoon/evening. I did acquire a "My K-Cup" system in case I wanted to use my own coffee, but have yet to use it as we've been too busy exploring the available K-Cups.
Bottom line - the initial outlay is not low, but the overall cost to us has been less, and we are very satisfied with the coffee and convenience. We recognize it's not for everyone, but if you're so inclined, we believe the Keurig and its' wide variety of available K-Cups is the best of the single-cup brewers. Good luck!