As I mentioned before I adore my Keurig coffee maker- let me count the ways… it’s fast at making one cup, it heats only the water it needs, has auto shut off (if you remember to set it up!), and the variety of coffee is pretty good offering fair trade and organic options…
BUT, those little disposable cups pained me every time. They aren’t recyclable because of the attached filter and I couldn’t bear to throw them out as we have been known to go through 6-8 a day between the two of us. That’s another topic for another time. Ok so now what?
The people at Keurig tried to come up with a refillable K-cup which while ok in theory just sucked in practice. You have to take the original cup holder out, not cut yourself on its little blades, replace it with the awkward holder for the refillable mesh filter, screw a lid on and hope for the best. Ugh.. the coffee was weak when on the short cup setting, the water overflowed everywhere even after continuous attempts to make sure we didn’t have too many grounds in the filter. The filter clogged no matter how well we washed it between uses- just not a good option. So we went back to the disposables… I know there are some crafty folks out there taking the time to rinse and repack theirs- best of luck to them I’ve heard mixed reviews on that and figured there still had to be something better.
Success! At last we can have a mostly guilt free coffee experience by using the Solofill filter. www.solofill.com These little guys can be found on amazon.com (seriously, what can’t you find there?) or through the website. I ordered 2 so we can always have one ready if one is in the dishwasher. They were on backorder for 3 months! I thought these must be awesome. Oh yes. The coffee tastes good, they clean up nicely and they solved the issues Keurig couldn’t. You use the existing cup holder, the water flows through the filter and over the coffee grounds in a logical way- enough said. I couldn’t be happier with my Solofills.
The best thing I could come up with to reuse my disposable cups is to plant seedlings. They already have a drain hole and filter in place not to mention the plants seem to like the coffee residue. I do recommend rinsing out the cups for long term storage so you don’t get a mold issue.
Happy coffee drinking.. that reminds me it’s well past time for afternoon coffee.
