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A keurig lover’s dream: new local business boasts nearly 300 k-cup varieties

Imagine travelling approximately 185 kilometres for your favourite cup of Joe.

This is essentially what the Tompkins family has been doing for as long as they’ve been Keurig owners.

“We love, love our Keurig,” said Spring Tompkins. “What we found initially when we bought it at Costco is that it’s really hard to find variety in coffee, they only sell a few and they are in boxes of 90 or 80 or something, so you’re really committing to this huge box of coffee.”

In search of an alternative to purchasing these large Keurig K-cup packs, Spring found a store in Cornwall where consumers were able to mix and match their own variety pack of 24 K-cups.

“We loved that idea. So we’ve been shopping for our coffee in other cities, including Cornwall, for four years now,” she revealed.

That all changed on June 7, when Spring and the rest of the Tompkins clan opened Coffee Trends in the Blackburn Mews, at the corner of Taylor-Kidd Boulevard and Gardiners Road.

“We just kept saying somebody should be doing this in Kingston,” Spring said, going on to note that she finally made the decision to go ahead with the business following a February road trip in a snowstorm to pick up coffee.

“I said, ‘Ok, this is just crazy that we are leaving Kingston to buy our coffee.’ I came home and said to my husband, ‘We’re doing this.'”

The business specializes in Keurig K-cups and provides customers with the opportunity to mix-and-match among nearly 300 varieties of coffee, tea, cappuccino, hot chocolate and cold drinks to create their own K-cup variety pack. They also have boxes of 24 for those with a favourite blend.

“It’s like a candy store for adults, it really is,” Spring said.

Spring’s daughter, Taylor, who manages the store, agreed.

“It’s like when you’re a kid going to the store and getting all those five cent candies, it’s like that but with coffee for adults.”

The price associated with a single ‘regular’ K-cup is $0.67, while a box or mix-and-match bag of 24 is $14.95, ‘Premium’ K-cups retail for $0.75 each or $16.95 for a box or mix-and-match bag of 24.

“There are a ton of different K-cup makers, we’ve picked the most popular ones like Timothy’s, Green Mountain, and Brooklyn Beans. We also have, in some of our premium lines, Starbucks, Wolfgang Puck, Grove Square, and Higgins and Burke-all the brands that you would see in non-single serve that are no available in single serve,” Spring said.

When preparing to launch the business, Spring said she was surprised at the vast variety of K-cups on the market, adding that there are even more than the close to 300 varieties they have in store.

“We’re looking at that every day so we will expand to give as many varieties as we can fit in this store to give people a really good choice, there are new K-cups coming on the market every day.”

While Coffee Trends does, as noted above, specialize in K-cups, Spring did note that the business also carries some products related to other single serve brew machines and is waiting to gain more feedback from Kingston and area coffee drinkers before continuing to expand.

“I think the industry is certainly going more and more single serve…and we will continue to respond to what the market wants. We have the ability, because we are a privately owned and operated, Kingston family business, to respond to what our customers are asking for. We aren’t a franchise, we have no limitations.”

Spring said the response the business has received since opening has been very positive. She has learned that many people, like her, had been previously sourcing their K-cups online or out-oftown-similar stores exist in Belleville, Brockville and Cornwall-and they are excited to now have a local alternative.

“People have come in and we’ve actually heard squeals at the front door,” she said of the excitement surrounding the business’ opening. “People just want to be able to get what they should have been able to get here. I don’t know how we got missed in that whole corridor, but Kingston was just void of a place like this for so many years.”

To pay a visit to the Coffee Trends, the Single Serve Specialists, swing by the Blackburn Mews anytime between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, or 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.