My Real World Experience with Tayst Coffee Pods

Here’s the most in-depth review of Tayst Coffee anywhere on the internet. This article is based on my real world experience with Tayst Coffee Pods as a customer and a fan. In this post, you’ll learn about Tayst as a company, why Tayst pods are so tasty (see what I did there?), and what to expect from your Tayst Coffee pods subscription. I’m going to break it down and show you what my experience is like with my subscription. Caffeine-by-mail is the best!

Why Tayst Coffee Pods?

If you’re like me, you just want a consistently good cup of coffee at home. That’s one of the reasons I like Keurig coffee. K-cups are simple, easy, and consistent. I don’t know why, but when I make a pot of coffee in a regular drip brewer, I get different results every time. Most of the time it’s bad. I’ve tried measuring, not measuring, you name it. That’s what led me to Keurig — plus, my wife doesn’t drink coffee very much, so single serve makes more sense. I’ve tried many different brands of K-cups, and Tayst is the best I’ve ever had.

This page contains my refer-a-friend link for Tayst Coffee. There's no pressure to make a purchase OR use my code, but if you do, it helps me continue to publish here. This review is honest and based on my own experience. Contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

My Coffee Authority

I’ve been drinking coffee since 2003. I graduated to black coffee somewhere around 2013-2014, and I’ve been drinking coffee from a Keurig machine since 2011. In all of those years, I’ve tried LOTS of different coffees and LOTS of different brands of K-cups. My experience was that you had to sacrifice a little quality for convenience if you were going to use K-cups.

Then one day my wife saw a Facebook ad for a different kind of coffee pod — Tayst. As soon as I saw that the used pods could composted to go into my garden, I knew I had to try it…

The rest is history, and I have never looked back.

Out of all the other K-cup brands I’ve tried, Tayst rises to the top. I don’t even buy other brands of K-cups anymore. I still like to try different brands of drip coffee, but there’s only one brand of coffee pod that my money puts in my Keurig machine now. 🙂

Article Outline

If you want to jump to a part of the article, you can click on whatever section you want below:

About the Company

The Owners

Tayst was started by two guys, Craig & Greg, who don’t take themselves too seriously, but they are serious about great single serve coffee. You can watch a video they made here. The video gives you a better idea of who they are and what they’re doing at Tayst. You’ll also get more of their personality later on when I show you the notes that come in the delivery boxes.

The Environment

Craig and Greg set out on a mission to end “crappy” single serve coffee and help us coffee drinkers stop destroying the planet with plastic cups. That is lofty goal, but one worthy of respect. They source their coffee from Rainforest Alliance Farmers, which not only helps the environment, but also helps the communities the coffee farmers live in. Tayst’s coffee pods are “zero footprint” and certified 100% compostable (BPI certified). Tayst single serve pods disintegrate and provide nutrients back to the soil, making them an excellent way to amend your garden soil. Most of the materials they use for packaging are compostable as well.

Convenience

Craig and Greg make it fun and easy for their customers. There are no contracts or commitments with your Tayst subscription. You can edit the numbers and frequency of your order, or you can cancel at any time. This is all made easy right from their website. Tayst’s website is simple to navigate but granular enough to give you premium coffee on your terms.

The Pros of Tayst Coffee Pods

Food for Your Garden

This is my favorite benefit of Tayst coffee pods. Just about everything that comes in the box (including the box) is compostable:

• Used pods
• Bag
• Box

My wife and I recently got into organic gardening. One of the main things I’m working on is a compost heap that I can use to fertilize my own soil. I’m still new to gardening, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of composting yet. I just have a pile of compostable materials sitting in the corner of the yard. For me, it’s convenient to throw my used Tayst pods onto the pile and let nature do its work. It makes me feel like I’m being more efficient while contributing to the “organicness” of my garden.

No Risky Materials for Your Health

One of the things I dislike most about regular plastic K-cup coffees is the harsh, bitter taste you get from the cups. It’s hard to describe, but if you’ve ever compared a regular cup of coffee to a cup from a plastic K-cup, you understand what I mean. Tayst pods don’t have that harsh chemical flavor at all.

I’ve heard plenty of anecdotal evidence about dangerous chemicals leaching into your beverage when the plastic is exposed to high temperatures. It makes logical sense to me, but I haven’t tested it scientifically or read a peer-reviewed study or anything like that…just some blog posts.

If you want to read some articles on this topic, here are some I’ve read:

• https://coffeeinformer.com/are-k-cups-bad-for-you/
• https://www.coffeedetective.com/is-the-plastic-used-in-keurig-kcups-safe.html
• https://owlychoice.com/k-cups-bad-you/
• https://www.yourdoctorsorders.com/2014/11/why-you-dont-have-to-kick-your-keurig-to-the-curb-or-does-your-keurig-harbor-ebola/
• https://wellnessmama.com/natural-home/coffee-pod-problems/
• https://dranthonygustin.com/8-reasons-not-use-keurig-cups/

On a blog post from Tayst, they mention that some countries have banned single-use plastic products. The reasons for this are primarily environmental, but there are ongoing studies on the effects of plastics in our bodies, some of which is still unknown. Our bodies happen to live in the environment, so it’s all connected. We either take in things, like air and water, directly from our environment, or we take in things that were made in and from our environment, like food.

Tayst is intentional about the quality of their product as well as their impact on the environment. According to Tayst’s website, their pods are:

• Made from Non GMO specialty beans
• Mycotoxin Free
• Chemical Free

Variety of Roasts to Choose From

Tayst offers multiple roasts to choose from, so you can find one (or more) that you want to include in your subscription.

Here are the roasts they offer in Keurig-compatible pods:

• Bold & Brazen
• Bold & Brilliant
• Medium & Magnificent
• Medium & Heroic
  • My personal favorite!
• Happy Hazelnut
• Vintage Vanilla Cream
• Defiantly Decaf
• Pumpkin Crush

My Personal Favorite

I’ve tried just about all of these flavors, but my personal favorite is Medium & Heroic. I drink my coffee black, and I prefer a smooth, rich flavor. For me, Medium & Magnificent didn’t quite hit the mark like Heroic did. If you like bold coffees, definitely try the two bold flavors. I tried them, but they just aren’t my thing. Still good if you like that sort of thing, but I’m sold on Medium & Heroic.

Customizable and Convenient Subscription

You can update, pause, or cancel your subscription at any time. I have used this feature several times when we’re going out of town or as my coffee drinking habits fluctuate. They make it easy for you on tayst.com.

At the time of this writing, you can make these adjustments to your subscription (check their site for current/new settings) :

• Shipping address
• Number of cups you receive
• Roast/flavors (all the same or mix & match)
• Shipping frequency
• Next ship date (this is how you can pause your subscription)

You can mix and match multiple brews in batches of 10 in your subscription. After you try them all, if you like two different roasts, you can divide the number of cups however you decide.

There are also one-time purchases you can add to your next box (i.e. mugs, ground coffee, storage containers). I’ve used this several times, and I love it:

Your Eco Footprint

“Your Eco Footprint” is a fun feature on your account page. When you login to your account at tayst.com, one of the first things you see is “Your Eco Footprint”. This is way for you to see how much waste your Tayst subscription is keeping out of landfills.

More Than Just Coffee Pods

Tayst also has regular ground coffee, whole beans, Nespresso capsules, and they even provide Corporate packages — Office Coffee & Hospitality Coffee. I pretty much exclusively buy the Keurig-compatible K-cup-style pods, so that’s what my review is focused on. My wife ordered some ground decaf once, and it was fine. I just prefer the consistency of K-cups. It’s a repeatable process, so you know what to expect.

Tayst’s Medium & Heroic roast consistently makes the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had from a Keurig. That’s no exaggeration.

Seen enough? You can start your own subscription now.

The Cons of Tayst Coffee Pods

Busted Pods

Every now and then I’ll run across a pod that bursts in the bottom during the brewing process. That’s pretty rare, though. When a pod bursts, it is pretty annoying, because you have to clean out your Keurig. For me, this is just wiping out the top side and maybe running some water through it without a K-cup in there. You end up either wasting a cup and starting over, or straining the coffee grounds out of your coffee cup.

There was one time where it seemed I had quite a few pods that busted like this, and I reached out to their support. I didn’t have the best experience with their support – it wasn’t a bad experience either. They didn’t offer to replace the order, but they did exchange several emails trying to help us troubleshoot our Keurig coffee maker. My next shipment seemed to be much better. I didn’t persist with Tayst customer service, so the issue was dropped.

Bursting pods are not ideal, but for me they are rare enough that it doesn’t shake my confidence in this product. At the time of this writing, I don’t even remember the last time I had a pod rupture in the brewer. Whatever the problem was, it seems to be cleared up now.

I wanted to note all of this above for full disclosure about my personal experience with Tayst Coffee Pods. I’m not just trying to get you to click on my affiliate link. I want to be helpful! 🙂

Price

If you’re using Keurig K-cups, you’ve probably already accepted the fact that you’re paying a premium. Welcome to quality coffee 🙂 With a coffee subscription like Tayst, it’s worth the price to me to have a consistently great cup of coffee. You have to evaluate that for yourself to tell if the price is a Pro or a Con for you.

That being said, I did a quick search of Target, Walmart, & Amazon’s websites to get a rough baseline of the “other” brands. I searched for “keurig k cups coffee pods”, sorted by Keurig type and set the price to least to greatest. Then I picked some of the more common brands/products.

Here are the results of what I found at the time this article was written. These exact prices will vary as time goes on, but here’s a snapshot you can use as a general comparison:

Target

Walmart

Amazon

Tayst: $0.73 – $0.77 per cup

If you buy in bulk from Tayst, the price per cup goes down a little. At the time of this writing, it looks like their largest offering (over 4,000 cups in a month) is around $0.58 per cup. Keep in mind that prices could change, so use the information provided here as a reference point, not absolute truth.

To be honest here…before I did this research, I thought Tayst Coffee Pods were a lot more expensive per cup than most of the brands and stores. Now that I see the relative numbers, to me Tayst is quite competitive, especially compared to some of the “premium” brands out there, i.e., Starbucks K-cups. Considering the product and overall experience you get from Tayst, Tayst is a better deal.

I really tried to find another downside of this product to discuss, but that’s apparently difficult to do.

It wasn’t necessary to do any more extensive research on current K-cup prices, since the prices will change. I did a quick search and found this site which lists some prices for “cheap” K-cups if you want to look closer at their write-up of price-per-cup numbers.

Customer Service

As I mentioned above, the only issue I have had with the Tayst pods is that a few times, the pods have ruptured in the brewer. I reached out to their Customer Service, and I was not blown away. It could have been the person I worked with, or it could have been a fluke. If they would have offered to replace the pods that ruptured, I would be praising their Customer Service from the rooftops.

However, I work in Customer Service, and I know that one interaction doesn’t necessarily apply to an entire company. The good news here is that this has been the only “problem” that I have had to contact Customer Service about.

Just as I stated above. My perception of the product and the company has not be tainted by this. It’s just the only “negative” I could come up with that I could tell you about here.

See How It Works

Here’s where it gets fun. I’m going to show you what my experience is like with Tayst, complete with real photos of my box from Tayst. I hope this helps you make your decision. Feel free to message me if you have any questions not addressed here.

Special Delivery

Once your account is setup, you can sit back and look forward to the day when you open your mailbox to a beautiful box of Tayst coffee pods. As you can see from the photo below of me opening my mailbox, the shipment fits inside a standard US mailbox. This means your box is protected from the rain and shenanigans like front porch package thieves.

However, I’m sure if you get much more than 40 cups, your box may be a little bigger than this. If you have package delivery concerns, you may want to reach out to Tayst first to find out what size box you will be receiving specifically for your order.

Consistent Branding

The next thing you’ll notice about your Tayst shipment is the branding. I’m a fan of their design and their choices of materials. I also like the language they use, which is consistent across all of their marketing materials. They really feel like a fun and trendy coffee company that cares about our environment. Kudos to them for successfully conveying that through all of their branding.

Here are some photos of the outside of the box, so you can see what I mean regarding their branding and messaging…

What’s In the Box

Your coffee pods come in a nicely-wrapped bag with 10 pods per bag. I like to open one bag at a time, keeping the rest of the shipment fresher longer. That’s just my own unproven idea though. You’ll see later on what I use for storing used and unused pods. I could probably just open them all at once. It’s up to you.

Now that I’m at least a couple of years into being a Tayst subscriber, I am appreciating more and more all the little touches they add. For example, this note below. Each subscription box comes with a “hand-written” note from the owner, Craig and Greg. I’m pretty sure the notes are mass-printed, but the original is hand-written and probably scanned in. Then it looks like they sign them individually, so that’s cool. That’s a great way to add a personal touch at scale.

The notes are always appropriate for the season or holiday we are currently in, and the owners often inject some light humor. This is another example of how consistently fun their branding is. I’ve actually started looking forward to the notes a little…

Here’s a good shot of the entire contents of my 40-count box from this shipment.

The Pods

This is what the pods look like before you brew them. At this point, there’s not much more to say about the pods. I just wanted to let you see how they look straight out of the bag.

Time to Brew

There’s no difference in how you load the Tayst pods into a Keurig compared to any other K-cup. As far as I know, Keurig brewers have 2 needles — one to puncture the top and one to make a hole in the bottom of the cup. Since these pods don’t have a rigid plastic shell, there’s nothing for that bottom needle to do except let the water (now turned to coffee) flow through. This is no problem, of course. Just making a note of it for you here so you know what to expect.

The Perfect Brew

On my Keurig, the Medium Heroic tastes best on a 10 ounce brew on the regular setting (not “Strong”).

This is one of the things I’d like to highlight the most. As you can see in the photo below, Tayst coffee comes out of the Keurig with oils on top and a nice little bit of foam. You don’t usually get this from other regular plastic K-cups, and it’s my favorite part about drinking Tayst. If I didn’t know that I just brewed this in a Keurig myself, I don’t think I would know it was a single-serve coffee pod. It’s high-quality coffee on-demand.

Here’s a picture of a mug I setup that you can purchase through Zazzle that has the logo from this site 🙂 You can support what I do here, and have a nice souvenir.

After your brew is finished, this is what the pod looks like.

As you can see below, the bulb part of the Tayst pod gets inflated from the water pressure being applied to it.

Post-Brew

Next, I always toss my used pods into a tall mason jar to keep until I’m ready to put them in my compost pile out back.

Now that the Keurig machine is rinsed and emptied, it’s time to enjoy the best cup of coffee I’ve ever brewed in a single-serve coffee maker! (check out my mugshot)

Extras

Tayst also sells extra items like mugs and this storage jar. I’m a bit of a Tayst fan-boy at this point…

Here’s a close-up of the additional items I’ve purchased from Tayst. By the way, those miniature clothes pins work great as chip clips to hold bags closed.

Start your Tayst subscription today.

Pros vs Cons

Pros

• Flavor (Medium & Heroic is my favorite)
• Compostable
• Convenient

Cons

• Price (but not “bad” by much)
• Customer Service may be hit or miss

Final Thoughts

To wrap up this monumental post, I don’t think there’s much left to say. I just outlined the pros and cons above, so I’m not going to do the typical blog post ending here and rehash all of my section headings from the post. My personal opinion is that Tayst Coffee Pods are the best single serve Keurig-style coffee pod on the market. That’s why I drink it exclusively and recommend it here on my site.

If you’ve gotten value from this article and you plan to subscribe to Tayst, you can support my work on this site by using my referral link to make your Tayst purchase.

I would love to hear from you. Do you use Tayst? Do you like another product better?

Leave a comment below or Contact me! 🙂