Single-cup coffee maker: Hate all you want, I like it.

[seebs]

Okay, I spent a long time dismissing these as stupid. And then I noticed that per pot of coffee made, I was usually drinking around two cups, and that making coffee was annoying enough that I often didn't get around to it.

So I read some reviews and decided to try one of the Keurig single-serving coffee makers.

It's actually pretty awesome.

The basic gimmick is that the coffee maker has a standby state where it has about enough water for one cup of coffee prepared and heated. Note that "heated" is about 192 degrees F, not boiling. You open the bolt-action part (roomie refers to this as a "45 millimeter bolt action coffee maker"), put in a little cup containing coffee, close it, push a button. About 30 seconds later you have coffee. Pretty decent coffee, as such goes. A lot better than I was getting from a conventional coffee maker, anyway.

It can also make various other things. Tea, for instance. Chai latte. Hot cocoa. They have some things designed to be brewed over ice for iced coffee and the like.

Drinks are pricey, say, 60-70 cents a pop. This sounds bad until you compare it to even McD's coffee. It's more expensive than brewing a whole pot at a time, but not as much as you might think; "cups" for most coffee makers are small (a 12-"cup" pot is about 60 oz, give or take), and these can do 10-12 oz or so in some models.

YMMV. It's a spendy toy, but it really is improving the amount of coffee I drink, which is in turn reducing the amount of pop I drink.