Keurig

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Keurig is a coffee machine manufacturing company that is a subsidiary of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.. Their machines are all designed to brew a single cup of coffee at a time, in under a minute. The coffee grounds are in prepared, single-serving K-Cups. The user is required to insert a K-Cup, place a mug under the machine and press a button.

Keurig machines brew coffee by piercing the foil seal on top of the plastic K-Cup with a spray nozzle, while simultaneously piercing the bottom of the K-cup with a discharge nozzle. Coffee contained inside the K-cup sits within a paper filter. A measured quantity of pressurized hot water is forced through the K-cup, passing through the ground coffee and through the filter, into the waiting cup or mug below.

Keurig has ties to a number of coffee roasters, tea makers and other beverage makers, which have created K-Cup versions of their products. Through these partnerships, their machines are also capable of producing hot tea, canarino and hot cocoa.

Commercial Keurig machines pull the K-Cups into a receptacle within the machine, so there is typically no clean up required to ready the machine for the next user. Machines intended for home or small office use require the used K-Cup to be removed manually after brewing. Another difference between the two classes of machines is that commercial machines are connected to a water supply line, whereas some of the home and small office machines instead have water tanks that need to be refilled manually.

Since the flavor of each beverage is contained within each single-use disposable K-Cup, it is possible to use the machine for different beverages with no carry-over from one user to the next. Both features are advantages in the multi-user office environment.