The market for coffee pod machines is becoming more and more varied by the day, adding new features and fancy bells and whistles at a rate that the major review sites can barely keep up with. Some of the more advanced units are truly impressive in what they include for the price of admission, let’s take a look at what you can expect from one of these pod coffee makers:

Advanced User Interfaces

Gone are the days where your only option for a coffee maker was “on” or “off.”  Some of the nicer coffee pod brewers like the Keurig B150/B155 brewer feature touch screen interfaces, allowing the user to directly tap on the display surface to adjust all the parameters.  When you look to Keurig’s marketing, it becomes obvious why these advanced features are being added:  These coffee pod machines are aimed mostly at medium sized businesses and bigger offices.  These are industrial-strength features designed for efficient, constant use.

Perfectly Sized Portions

All the competitors in the coffee pod market, whether they be Senseo, Keurig, or one of the many other companies making a name for themselves in the field, have their own patented single-serving packets.  For instance, Keurig uses a system called the “K-cup” portion packs.  Most of these names are just fun marketing terms that generally refer to a general concept:  Single portions that are already prepared and ready for hot water, cutting down on waste and bringing a maximum of delicious coffee, cocoa, hot chocolate, etc.

Miscellaneous but Useful Features

Not everything needs to be as fancy as a touch-screen or a trademarked single-serving packet, though.  Some of the lesser-noticed features of the advanced coffee pod maker units deserve to be mentioned.  For instance, the ability to brew multiple cup sizes so that the serving size is tailor-made to whatever cup you decide to use.  Another cool one is the ability to feed a direct line from your plumbing right into the coffee pod unit in order to bypass the need to refill the water reservoir.  Water dispenser units have made similar advances over the years, so it’s nice to see the coffee brewing world catching up to this particular convenience.  Last, buy not least, the best coffee pod machines will feature energy-efficient auto-shutff features so that the brewer is not constantly drawing power when it doesn’t need to.  I’ve been blow away in the past by just how many coffee machines, whether they are single-serve or otherwise, don’t have this ability!