A Coffee Pod War Is Silently Brewing in Your Keurig

For anyone who has walked past their Keurig machine in the middle of the night and thought that it’s hiding something, you’re absolutely right. Turns out, the K-Cup machines hold a special DRM (digital rights management) sensor that only allows the machine to brew “real” K-Cups and not homemade ones.

The sensor visually identifies a unique ink on the lid of the K-cups. So any cup, off-brand or homemade, without this ink is rejected by the machine.

Contesting this impasse, the owners of Gourmet-Coffee.com have produced what they aptly call the Freedom Clip to bypass Keurig’s design. Essentially, the clip attaches to a Keurig machine and fools the sensor into thinking each cup is an approved K-Cup.

The Rogers Family Company, which runs Gourmet, says they believe in consumers’ right to choose. For this reason, they developed the Freedom Clip. The clips are offered, at no cost, at the Gourmet Coffee site.

Who would have thought there was a war silently brewing in your coffee machine?