A Single Cup Coffee Maker Brews to Order

The love and appreciation of coffee can evolve into a highly personal relationship with the beverage. You like your coffee the way you like it. You want your coffee that way whenever you want it; and you want to brew that cup of coffee just for yourself in the perfect single cupful right when you need it.

Behold the rise of the single cup coffee maker, a personal coffee machine expressly designed to brew just one cup of perfect coffee, whenever you want it.

The single cup coffee maker is not an entirely new concept or invention. Espresso machines were originally designed almost two centuries ago to brew cups of coffee one at a time and quickly. Many automated coffee makers allow you to brew coffee in a range of quantities. French press coffee pots come in small single-serving sizes. And old tried-and-true manually operated drip coffee filters, which you place on top of a coffee carafe and pour water into by hand, also come in single cup models that sit atop a coffee cup or coffee mug.

A New Breed of Single Cup Coffee Makers

The current boom in drinking gourmet coffee, in which coffee lovers order cups to their precise personal specifications, has led manufacturers to offer more and more coffee makers tailored to the individual coffee drinker. You'll find many different brands of single cup automatic drip filter coffee makers, in which a custom cup or mug or your very own cup or mug sits beneath the filter basket where a coffee carafe would sit on a larger model; some versions even come with their own insulated coffee road mug into which the freshly brewed coffee directly drips. Good quality machines can be found for under $50.

One of the most exciting innovations in single cup coffee makers is the coffee pod. Pod coffee makers very quickly brew each individual cup of coffee to order, using prepackaged pods of freshly roasted freshly ground coffee. Pick the pod you want, set the desired strength of extraction if your particular pod coffee maker lets you do so, and in a matter of moments you have the perfect personal cup of coffee brewed just for you. Many good coffee pod machines can be found for less than $100.