Often referred to as the breakfast of champions, coffee is consumed by millions of people every morning. The arrival of specialty coffees has been at the forefront of introducing more clever and innovative concepts in marketing coffee to the masses, and why not? Consumers are very particular when it comes to the selection of their breakfast beverage of choice. Do consumers really want need these fancy new contraptions? This requires more scrutiny.

Continuing to grow in popularity are the single serve coffee makers that are appearing in a wide variety of designs and offering a variety of features for the home or office. One in particular is designed to be used anywhere you can obtain hot water and utilizes nitrous oxide. Of particular note are the missing notes, or the fact that this is not freshly brewed coffee from grounds but coffee pods that are pre-made, pre-portioned, flavored coffees. That, in and of itself, does not seem to offend the purist as these coffees offer so much in variety with features to rival those concocted by your local barista.

There are single serve coffee makers by Keurig, Krups, Cuisinart, Aerobie, Chemex, Bosch Tassimo, Douwe Egberts Senseo, Mypressi, Black and Decker, Bunn, Capresso, Grindmaster, Melita, Nespresso, Hamilton Beach and so many more to name. Deciding which coffee maker to own encompasses far more than just what the machine can do. Modern brewers combine space-saving designs, energy efficiency, and a speed and freshness factor in their offerings. That’s even before you consider the particular coffee pod varieties and interchangeability.

Modern coffee machines now come in three varieties:

• T-Disk (Tassimo)
• K-Cup (Keurig)
• Coffee Pod (other)

Essentially, the brewer determines which type of sealed coffee pods, T-discs or K-cups you will need for that machine. Both Keurig and Tassimo have very limited selections of media, although they have both been designed to be extremely consistent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering that some machines are capable of responding to the bar code on the top of the Tassimo T-disc to ensure the correct water temperature, the amount of water, and the brew strength for the perfect cup-a-joe.

Brewing doesn’t get any easier than with these single serve coffee makers: insert the coffee media, add water and push the button resulting in a freshly brewed hot cup of coffee with none of the clean-up of filtered and wet coffee grounds. The selection of beverages available to consumers of these brewers increases with each passing year, and manufacturers have now developed latte and tea variations. People find these single serve coffee makers enjoyable, fun and very satisfying to the coffee aficionado. Testimonials from those who use these brewers often read the same: these machines and blends offer convenience and consistency to consumers.