A couple of years ago, my wife wanted the Keurig single-cup coffee maker, so I picked her up the Keurig B75 Platinum Brewing System, along with a box or two of the individual K-cup flavored coffees. It made for a great anniversary gift and we both have loved it and continue to get great use out of it.* But, it didn't take long to see that even the smallest box of K-cups for this thing was fairly pricy, and if you're a fairly regular coffee drinker, could find yourself spending a good bit just on the K-cups, which was probably Keurig's plan all along.*However, Keurig also - thankfully - came up with a K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter (cost of around $15.00), that would allow people to still make their own individual cups of coffee without having to drop $8.00 - $12.00 each time on a package of about 15 or 20 flavored k-cups.*Why would I want to buy and use the K-Cup Reusable Filter? Simply put, by using it you're going to save yourself a bit of $$$. How so? Well in my case, about every 2 months, I'll buy a 1 lb 13 oz canister of Maxwell House coffee at the grocery store and use it with the reusable K-cup filter. The benefit there? Instead of buying the expensive K-cup packages every other week or two, I can enjoy a cup of coffee (or two) every day for close to two months at a time - for a one-time purchase of maybe $7.00. The $$$ savings really does help, and because there's this K-cup filter available to use with the coffee maker, that's definitely a good thing.* Any down side to the K-Cup Reusable Filter? The only slightly negative is that if you want any subsequent cups of coffee after your first, you will need to open up the machine, take out the entire 3-piece filter, and wash out each part. You'll need to rinse out the top, empty out the grounds from the filter itself and then wash it out, and then rinse out the piece the filter sits in. Then, you go back, fill the filter with scoops of coffee to whichever lightly marked line you want (how much coffee you put in varies the strength of what comes out), attach and screw down the top piece, and stick the entire thing back into the coffee maker itself - and then you can make your next cup. As you can imagine, the process can be a bit tedious and a lot of work for some. For me, I've simply gotten used to it and don't mind the little bit of work it takes.*But, BE SURE to (1) put the top piece of the filter on and (2) screw it on securely. On some occasions early in the morning, when I've been quite groggy while making my coffee, I've forgotten to do that and it makes an AWFUL mess that can take you a while to clean up.*Is it worth it to you to buy the K-Cup Reusable Filter? I would say 'definitely', if only because of the monetary savings you can expect by using your own coffee and not dropping much on the various boxes of K-cups that are out there today. The work it takes to clean out the K-cup filter for additional cups of coffee may be a little annoying, but it really is worth it.
