Coffee and Coffee Maker Accessories

RT Cunningham — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:03:53 +0000

As any coffee connoisseur could probably tell you, coffee and coffee maker accessories are almost as important as the coffee beverage itself.

You don't have to take my word for it. Bear with me as I list some accessories that you may or may not be aware of.

Coffee Mugs

I really had to start with this one because coffee drinkers use coffee mugs, not coffee cups. There really is a difference. There are companies that specialize in nothing but coffee mugs, some plain and some with logos or writing on them, and they don't need to expand into other areas. There are so many coffee drinkers in the US alone that they really don't need to diversify.

Travel Coffee Mugs

The only thing travel coffee mugs (or coffee travel mugs, depending on how you word it) have to do with regular coffee mugs is that they're designed to hold coffee. The difference is that the travel mugs are usually designed for safety while driving. Some of them have special lids and some are designed to fit into coffee holders, either on a console or hanging from a door window.

Since a lot of people are on the go all the time, especially while traveling to and from work, many convenience stores (and I won't bother to name them) offer several pots of coffee to choose from. They usually offer a limited amount of free or discounted cups of coffee with each purchase of one of their travel mugs.

K-Cups

Although K-Cup portion packs are used specifically with the Keurig single cup brewing systems, other coffee manufacturers are taking that idea and adapting it to automatic drip coffee makers and other coffee makers.

The K-Cup is a plastic container which includes the filter and the ground coffee beans. The Keurig coffee maker punctures the foil lid and forces hot water under pressure through the K-Cup and into a coffee mug. The brewer is pretty simple to use; I've seen a Keurig coffee brewer in action.

Flavored Coffee and Flavored Coffee Creamers

The flavored coffee I'm talking about started out as flavored non-dairy creamers. They were offered in groceries stores and then expanded to the convenience stores to go along with their "coffee on the go".

The dairy people got into the act and started offering flavored dairy coffee creamers and then the coffee people got into the act and started offering coffee products with flavoring in an attempt to steal that market share back from the dairy and non-dairy people.

I really don't know what order it all transpired in, but it seems that's the order as I remember it.

Specialized Water Filters

While some people (including me) use bottled water to make coffee with, others have started buying specialized water filters to purify the water that ends up their coffee mugs. I haven't personally seen one, but I've seen them advertised.

Regardless of how you purify your water, anything tastes better with coffee than tap water that has too much chlorine added.

More Accessories?

There are more coffee and coffee maker accessories available than you can shake a stick at and I'd be naive to think that I could even begin to list them all at once.

I'll end the list here and leave myself the option to list more as I find the time to look around.

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Coffee and Coffee Maker Accessories