Review: Keurig K-Mini single serve coffee maker

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Sometimes you need coffee so bad, you can’t be fussed with grinding the beans, measuring water and then waiting for a true brew. When your morning looks like this, a quick coffee solution is in order.

The Keurig K-Mini Plus is one of the smallest single-serving coffee brewers in the market. With the introduction of the K-Mini Plus, Keurig has refined the design, aesthetics, size, as well as the brewing prowess of its newest single-serving coffee maker.

The Keurig K-Mini Plus doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles of some of the larger and more advanced Keurig coffee makers, but that’s okay. This machine is meant to be small and compact and to be used for single cups of hot coffee. WhenI saw it I thought it would be perfect for my camper van, or my desk at the office.

Setting up Keurig K-Mini Plus

Getting this machine set up doesn’t take much. Plug it in and you’re basically ready to go after running a test batch through the machine.

To use this brewer, first power it on, add your water and let it come to temperature.
Add your coffee pod of choice, and close the lid firmly and press the brew button. You’ll hear the machine suck the water inside to heat it. That takes about a minute, and the machine is silent while its works. That made me think it wasn’t working. But about a full minute later, there’s fresh hot coffee.

I have to say I fussed with how to operate this machine initially. I thought it was pretty simple, but even the instructions were’t super clear on exactly what to do.

At first I couldn’t get the lid to close properly on the machine. I felt like I was forcing it and I’d break it. Eventually it seemed to loosen up and get easier.

You’ll need to pick up some Keurig-compatible coffee pods; there are in abundant supply at the grocery store or on Amazon, and you can find many different brands’ coffees, and a variety of styles and roasts.

Pod recycling

There’s been a lot of talk of late about the enormous waste of disposable single-use pods. While competitor Nespresso includes an envelope for you to return your used pods for recycling, Keurig does not. Instead, they leave it to you. Kind of.

Keurig’s solution is simple: the pods are designed so you can peel off the foil lid, compost the coffee grounds, and recycle the plastic #5 cup, alongside other recyclable containers from your home, in local community recycling programs. Nice idea, except in most cities, Calgary included, doesn’t accept such small pieces of plastic, so even if you flip these into the blue bin, they’re getting sent to the landfill anyway. The City of Calgary says, “Coffee pods and discs are too small and light for to be sorted properly at the recycling facility.”
https://www.keurig.ca/recyclable-kcup-pods

https://www.calgary.ca/UEP/WRS/Pages/What-goes-where/Plastic-Single-serve-coffee-packages.aspx

This for me is kind of a big downside of going with Keurig. There’s definitely a lot of extra waste with no real solution.

How long does it take to brew?

The brew time feels long with the K-Mini Plus. I timed it at over 50 seconds.

Keurig K-Mini Plus: Features

Small footprint
The Keurig K-Mini Plus is a mere 5 inches in width, which is perfect for small kitchens. This Keurig has such as tiny footprint, don’t be surprised if you can squeeze this thing even is the most congested areas of your kitchen. When I was doing my review, I wedged it easily between my TV and the Thermomix cooking robot. Compact is indeed the name of the game!

Portable and Travel-friendly
Coming in at less than 5 pounds, the Keurig K-Mini Plus is incredibly portable. While I wouldn’t recommend carrying this thing around in your backpack or suitcase while traveling, it is an ideal companion for the aforementioned campervan or an RV—or even the smallest desk. Plus, the K-Mini fits most travel mugs up to about 7″ tall. All you need to do is remove the drip tray to create more room. This is a nice feature for making that last cup of coffee to go!

Removable drip tray
The K-Mini brewer has a handy drip tray that can hold up to a cup of liquid in case you accidentally forget to slide your cup/mug under the brew nozzle. To make emptying and rinsing easier, the drip tray is removable.

Pod storage container
I actually really like this feature; the K-Mini coffee brewer features a semi-cylindrical pod storage container that can store up to 9 K-Cup pods. You store the pod storage container under the brew nozzle when you aren’t using the machine. It keeps coffee handy, but concealed and the whole thing looks tidy.

The Keurig K-Mini Plus is a capable little single-serving coffee maker especially if you aren’t an avid coffee drinker and not comfortable committing to a larger coffee brewer or pounds of coffee bans at a time. The Keurig K-Mini Plus sells for about $89CAD

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