Keurig Single Cup Brewer Wins Excellence In Design Award

from AMOnilne.com

Keurig, Inc, a subsidiary of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., announced that its B3000 commercial single-cup brewer has received a Silver Excellence in Design Award from appliance DESIGN magazine.

Keurig’s B3000 (available for offices in NYC and NJ from Corporate Essentials) brewer was recognized in the commercial/vending appliances category of appliance DESIGN’s 21st Annual Excellence in Design competition. An independent panel of industrial design experts evaluated entries based on aesthetics, human factors, innovation, and technical merits. Award-winning products exhibited sophisticated technology, intuitive features, an eye-catching appearance, and a focus on consumer convenience.

The Keurig brewing system and proprietary K-Cup portion packs were first introduced in offices in 1998 and were highly successful due to the system’s speed, convenience, and gourmet-tasting coffee. The B3000 brewer is designed for large offices where back-to-back brewing by several people is the norm. The brewer makes a fresh cup of coffee in less than a minute and includes features such as direct line water plumbing, multiple brew sizes to vary brew strength, and automatic K-Cup ejection and storage. The brewer is also vending compatible.

“The B3000 brewer offers the most advanced single-cup brewing technology, and the design of the product garners raves from our distributors and customers,” said Dave Manly, vice president of marketing at Keurig, in a prepared statement. “We’ve succeeded in creating a bold, distinctive look for our brewers, while making it easy to brew gourmet coffee, tea or hot cocoa one cup at a time.”

Keurig leads single-cup brewing in both the home and office. With the Keurig single-cup brewing system, users can choose their favorite coffee, tea or hot cocoa packed in the patented K-Cup portion packs, brew a single cup at the touch of a button, and enjoy a gourmet cup with no mess or clean-up. Keurig provides a range of brewing solutions, available from over 450 office coffee distributors, for small, medium, and large offices. For the home, Keurig brewers and K-Cups are available at over 10,000 retail stores, including Target, Bloomingdale’s, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and online at shoffee.com.

About Corporate Essentials

Corporate Essentials is Manhattan, Northern New Jersey and Westchester's premier office coffee service. Stocking more than 1,200 products for your office pantry, including hot & cold beverages, paper products, cleaning supplies and health aids, Corporate Essentials is the only Office refreshment vendor you need.

WSJ: Speculators Put Jolt Into Your Cup of Joe
Managed Funds Main Driver of Coffee Prices


By CAROLYN CUI
from WSJ (March 1, 2008; Page B1)

Get ready to spend more for your morning pick-me-up.

Coffee prices are on the march, and the costs of the milk, sugar and even paper cups also are climbing. But whereas other commodities like copper or oil have been pushed up by demand from developing countries, coffee is a different case. Demand has only edged up, and much of the recent surge is due to speculators hopping into the commodity.

Oren's Daily Roast, a boutique coffee store in New York City, has charged $2.95 for a medium latte for the past two years. Now, owner Oren Bloostein is considering a price increase of perhaps 3% for a cup of coffee and up to 10% for the coffee beans it sells.

"It is very disconcerting," said Mr. Bloostein. But after an 11% increase in ingredients since the beginning of this year, Mr. Bloostein said, "I need to raise my prices so that I can remain in business."

The price pressures on a cup of joe began building last year. The price of the coffee itself rose 7.7% last year, while milk climbed 24%. Now, spurred by tight supplies of coffee beans and investors looking for the next commodity run-up, prices are boiling over. The price of green coffee beans has risen 22% since the beginning of the year in trading on ICE Futures U.S.

Click here to read the full article.


About Corporate Essentials
Corporate Essentials is Manhattan, Northern New Jersey and Westchester's premier office coffee service. Stocking more than 1,200 products for your office pantry, including hot & cold beverages, paper products, cleaning supplies and health aids, Corporate Essentials is the only Office refreshment vendor you need.

Too Hot for Coffee from a K-Cup? Never!

After a week of vacation (and a week away from the office Keurig Brewer), I was happy to arrive this morning and see some summertime, iced drink recipes for Keurig K-Cups setting on my desk. I was so excited, the first thing that I wanted to do was make sure that I shared them with everyone who visits the Corporate Essentials' Java Cafe. So without further adieu, here are two great summer (iced drink) recipes that can be made at your office Keurig brewer:

Iced Tea: Fill a 16-ounce mug or cup (even plastic) with ice. Brew your favorite tea K-Cup at 8 ounces, and you'll have a great 16-ounce tea in seconds!

Iced Carmel Latte: Pour 1.5 to 2 ounces of half-and-half into a cup, and swirl about 2 ounces of caramel syrup along the cup walls. Stir the caramel and half-and-half together, pack tightly with ice, and brew about 4 ounces on top (I used two separate cups to make it easier). Then you can top off with whipped cream, a bit more caramel and cinnamon (as you can see from the cell phone pic below, I went with the low-fat version and left off the whipped cream). The same recipe can be used to make a mocha latte by simply replacing the caramel syrup with chocolate.



In my personal opinion, the second recipe works best with any of our Extra Bold K-Cups from Timothy's or Green Mountain; but I strongly recommend trying it with Green Mountain's Kenyan AA Extra Bold or Timothy's Kona Blend k-cups (these are the two that I tried so far).

Do you have any summer drink recipes that your office enjoys? Send me an email about them, and we'll send you a free gift.