Its the needle in the top part that you pull down on top of the cup. All I did, because the cleaning pod wasn’t working, is I tipped the kuerig up over the sink and sprayed the needle with the kitchen hose connection, wiped it off being careful not to hurt myself on the needle ( I really shouldn’t need to type that but good lord people are stupid) once I had rinsed it aggressively and wiped it clean making sure no bits of coffee were coming off or out of it still I closed the lid, plugged it in and ran a 6 oz rinse. Worked like a charm