Single cup coffee maker also known as single serve coffee maker is one of the most popular way to brew coffee currently. And it has grown from a mainly domestic machine to a main stream food service machine.  By being a food services machine, it meant that this single cup coffee maker can be found in cafe, restaurants and even offices. Of course, office coffee supply is currently the main demand driver for this genre of coffee brewers.   The beauty about these coffee brewers is the ease of use and maintenance. Everything is one step, one button. To brew your coffee, simply insert the coffee pods and press a button. To clean the coffee maker, press a button and take out the empty coffee pods.   This ease of use and maintenance, is the main reason for the rapid growth for the single serve coffee makers. Of course, by serving one cup of coffee everytime, it also ensure that no coffee goes to wastage, another reason why it is preferred over the drip filter and even espresso coffee maker.   But, like all things (even Superman) has its weaknesses. There is this thing in single serve coffee industry known as closed system. And this close system has turned off many consumers.  

So, what is the closed system? In a nutshell, closed system meant that you can only use what the machine manufacturer allows you to use. Most supplier of single cup coffee makers either have their own coffee or is in a relationship with some coffee supplier.   Take Senseo and Keurig as examples. To be using Senseo, you have to be using Douwe egberts coffee, they come in a package. And if you are using Keurig, then you would be using Green Mountain coffee in their patented K-cups.   But, by having such a system, some coffee lovers that look forward to trying new flavors would think twice about buying the machine.   In fact, if not for this closed system, I believe the single cup coffee makers would be much more higher than what they are reporting now.   Now, we always said that if there is a weakness, then there are rooms for improvement. And since the start of the rise of single serve brewers, there are many people seeking to "improve" this coffee makers.   But, they exist undergrounds and are considered unethical and even illegal by many of the coffee maker companies.   

This underground movement main task is to improves the single cup coffee maker by allowing us consumers to use any coffee on the coffee machines. The most popular machine that is "improves" by this underground movement is Senseo.  There are so many articles, videos and even e-book on hacking the Senseo that it is amazing to know that no one person is being charged for infringement on copyrights or piracy on the Senseo.   There are many feedbacks from Sara Lee calling such actions illegal and threathening legal action. But, this underground movement continues, in fact, this is the ground where our secret grew from.

Well, most of us that uses single cup coffee makers know that there are  many sites teaching you how to "hack" the single cup brewer. But, we would never try it, for fear that it would void our warranty. 

That fear is unwarranted for now. Maybe it is due to competition or the need to widen its market share. Companies are now allowing different company coffee to be served on their machines.

To make this option even more attractive to consumers, companies like Senseo allows third party device to be used on its brewer so that consumers can use any type of coffee on Senseo.   In the end, what Sara Lee wants is more sales. So, as long as the consumers purchase their coffee maker, they no longer cares what type of coffee they use on the machine. From the various reports, this has grown Sara Lee Market share of Single cup coffee maker and overall their coffee sales as well.

So, the secret is that you no longer have to worry about using underground method to brew other coffee on your single cup coffee maker. It is commercial, if it is being sold in Amazon and ebay, it meant that this method is main stream and is accepted by the coffee maker companies themselves!

Personally, I think no news has been better than this ever since the launch of single serrve coffee maker. Hope you news just as interesting as I did...