iCoffee Opus Single Serve Brewer: Ring in the new year with a new way to brew coffee

Coffee hovers near the top on my list of my most favorite things. Trying out new ways to brew coffee is on my list of second-most favorite things. In light of that information, you can be sure this review was one of the more enjoyable tasks on my to-do list.

I recently had the opportunity to try out the iCoffee Opus single serve brewing system, which immediately proved to provide a more flavorful cuppa joe than many single-cup brewers, thanks to its innovative technology.

 

The Opus single-serve brewing system features an interesting "SpinBrew" technology wherein coffee grounds inside a K-type cup are spun, steamed and stirred as the water flows through the plastic container rather than shooting quickly through is is otherwise the case with single-cup brewers. The stirring rather than shooting through exposes more coffee grounds to the water and ends up providing a more flavorful cup of coffee — all in less than a minute. Or so the brand literature said.

I received the Opus Single Serve Brewer from iCoffee free for review and immediately set out to test the claims. 

From box to countertop and ready to brew, setup was super simple.

One run-through of water to clean the system and I was ready to brew a cup using one of the flavorful samples provided with the system.

One of the first features I appreciated was the ability to choose cup size, thanks to the Dial-A-Brew feature:

The ability to choose cup size is great because sometimes I use a smaller cup (such as the one featuring my sweet Bubby when he was my one and only grandson) all the way up to the big travel-size mugs I fill for my husband each morning before he heads off to work (yeah, I'm a nice wife like that). The cup range on the brewer goes from 4 to 12 ounces, in .5-ounce increments.

Just as the packaging promised, I had a flavorful cup of coffee in less than a minute.

Of course I couldn't see inside the coffee brewer and K-cup to see how the technology did its magic, so I just read the box while the brewer did its thing to get a better grasp of how the magic works:

There was also an additional info sheet in the box that begged me to read it, so I did and learned even more:

Numerous brands of K-Cup or K-type cups can be used with the Opus, as the box attests...

... but it's the iCup Reusable cup I'm most impressed with. I'm not a huge fan of K-Cups because they create so much more waste for landfills but also (mostly) because I like to make my coffee with fresh ground coffee of my choice. Which is why the iCup reusuable cup is pretty awesome. It fits perfectly in the machine — the only reusable cup that does — and makes my coffee exactly how I like it.

Another feature I thought was pretty nifty — though pretty minor — was that the removable drip tray on the Opus is magnetized. Why does that matter? Well, for some reason, I always have a heckuva time getting the drip trays on machines to attach correctly as I line up the little plastic hinges that go in the slots to secure it. This one, though, just sticks right where it should via magnetic magic. And it pulls off just as easily to empty (for those times I mess up and fill a cup too full).

The Opus from iCoffee is a big, sturdy, heavy machine (measuring 13'' L x 10'' W x 13'' H) that requires a fair amount of counter space. The Opus makes a perfect brewing system for baby boomers such as myself (and probably most of you reading this), but I must caution that it likely would be cumbersome for those who dwell in college dorm rooms or other tiny spaces.

The iCoffee Opus single serve brewing system has a suggested price of $139 and is available at Bed, Bath & Beyond stores. For more information, visit www.iCoffee.com.

Disclosure: I received this product free for review; opinions are my own.