I’m sure many of you have already heard of Keurig home brewers, especially if you were watching commercials around the holidays. They quickly became a hot gift item due to their ability to quickly brew single-cup servings of coffee, tea and hot chocolate. Though not coffee drinkers, we do enjoy our tea and cocoa and I couldn’t resist the vision of Keurig’s beautiful, sleek design sitting on my countertop.

Thank heavens Keurig had a wait list for review units and my name came up sooner rather than later! Winter is the perfect time to give this baby a test run. Keurig sent me their Keurig Select Brewing system, which retails for about $160. This model actually offers users four cup size options when brewing, an auto on/off setting and the largest available removable water reservoir, which holds up to ten cups. I didn’t realize until reading the user’s manual it has a removable drip tray so you can fill your travel mug before heading out the door. (If only it also “brewed” vanilla-flavored Diet Coke…)

The girls oohed and aahed over the Keurig brewer when I first set it up on the counter. They couldn’t wait to try it out, so we hurried and washed the reservoir and then filled it with water. After returning the reservoir to the brewer it only took a couple minutes for “ready to brew” to appear on the LCD screen. In went the hot cocoa cup and out came the chocolate:

Though the brewer was a hit, the hot cocoa definitely was not. The brand is Green Mountain and I noticed they didn’t get stellar reviews on Keurig’s site or Amazon.com. The girls wouldn’t touch it, even my “loves anything hot cocoa” daughter Lauren, so down the drain it went. I noticed the Ghirardelli hot cocoa received pretty decent reviews, but those are packets and not K-cups.

I then tried the lemon zinger tea. I popped in the cup, hit brew and a few seconds later it was ready. The flavor was really good, although next time I might up the cup size so it’s not so strong. Cocoa and tea aside, most of Keurig’s coffee selections receive rave reviews. I wish I’d had a chance to invite some coffee-drinking friends over but the brewer arrived too late to do so.

If you’re a serious tea (great selection of teas!) and/or coffee drinker with a penchant for sleek appliances, Keurig home brewers are totally for you. If you’re more of a cocoa drinker, I’d wait a bit longer until they add a little more variety—and some better-rated selections—to their current line.—Emily

tags coffee, home brewers, hot chocolate, Keurig, tea

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under Daily Dish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.