The Mrs. and I stay frequently at Hilton properties, and we enjoy a good cup of coffee as soon as we get to our room. Hard to find a good brew for years, but here's what we've done to at least make it more drinkable.

On the two cup brewers, we only brew a single cup at a time, otherwise when trying to brew both cups from the two bags (one in each slot) we always seem to wind up with half a cup (or less) each, no matter how full we fill the water reservoir. So we brew one cup at a time, filling the water tank almost to the line for two cups. Still not a great brew, but passable.....although..... we found what seemed to be messing up the taste of a decent cup of coffee in many of the hotels (not just the Hilton properties)! Those little plastic cups of "coffee creamers" in all the hotels really ruined a decent cup of coffee for us. About a year ago, we tried an experiment of bringing our own milk, then our own condensed milk to try in the room-brewed coffee. 85% improvement and much more drinkable coffee. Not perfect, but a major improvement over putting the hotel's creamer into the room-brewed coffee. Actually, in one hotel we'd stayed at, where the coffee creamers came in a cardboard three pack along with the sugars and stirrers, the dates on the packs were 2006 to 2008, and this was this year. So while those coffee creamers may still be useable due to something in them that prevents spoilage, we found that they really wrecked a decent cup of coffee.

Of course this may not work for those who are arriving directly from a flight for a quick overnighter before flying out again (we drive to a few of the hotels not more then two hours from here for overnighters or short stays) or when we fly anywhere, but in those cases we try to find a tuck shop or market nearby to get a small container of milk or cream to use in the room.

Makes a big difference in the coffee for us.

bj-21.