The Keurig Mistake That's Ruining The Flavor Of Your Coffee (And How To Avoid It)

If you're a true coffee snob (err, connoisseur), you might spend half your morning tinkering to get the right water temperature, grind, and bloom to achieve the perfect pour-over. If you can't be bothered, like me, then you're probably all about K-Cups instead. These handy little pods fit all kinds of single-serve coffee makers, not just Keurig-branded machines, and they're available in generic varieties from retailers such as Costco. One quibble some people have with them, however, is they make a weak cup of coffee. According to Shonali Paul of Paul John Caffeine, the problem may not lie with your Keurig, but with how you're using it.

"K-Cups are designed to pass a certain amount of water through the cup," Paul told The Takeout. "Various brands decide how much coffee to fill in each cup and what grind size they want to fill the cup with as well. Both these factors impact the end result to either slow down the extraction or increase the extraction of coffee, giving you various amounts of coffee in the cup." 

K-Cups typically hold between 9 and 14 grams of coffee grinds, so some coffee pundits suggest using them to brew nothing larger than a six-ounce cup (that's one way to cut down your intake). Paul feels this may not be necessary, though. "Depending on what the roaster is looking to do with the coffee, the strength could vary. For instance, depending on the roast level, the coffee could be stronger-tasting."

One way to get a stronger cup of coffee from a Keurig involves using two pods to brew coffee into the same cup. Apart from the obvious downside of costing twice as much, Paul pointed out this won't do anything to improve the taste. "If you take just the coffee flavor into account, then it should be consistent and therefore just give you more quantity of the same flavor," she said. "If you like a strong coffee drink and add milk, you may like it better with more than one cup brewed into your cup, but that's all a personal preference."

Paul's preference is to use different types of coffee depending on how she plans to drink it. "I like to decide based on the coffee I'm using," Paul continued. "I will generally use darker roast coffees if I want to add milk to my end cup or a lighter roast coffee when I'm looking to just have a black coffee." K-cup varieties marked bold, extra-strong, or intense will tend to have a stronger flavor and can be used to brew larger cups of coffee without watering it down too much.

Another trick for getting stronger coffee (at least, if you own certain models of Keurig-branded machines) is to employ the strong button. Pressing this before the coffee starts brewing tells the machine to increase its pressure and also reduces the water content slightly. This makes the coffee a bit more concentrated without having to dial back to a smaller cup size.