Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We have tried several coffeemakers since starting our family (it takes a lot of coffee to fuel our two-working-parents-with-a-new-house-and-two-children-under-two household) and this, my friends, is THE BEST. To understand my rating you may need to know what we were looking for to begin with, and how this machine satisfied our criteria. What we wanted 1) First, we needed hot coffee and fast! 2) Coffee must taste good 3) NO plastic - at least where the nearly boiling hot water comes into contact with it 4) Ease of use - KISS rule applies here, as we're operating on very little sleep these days How it performed 1) This pot knocks this out of the park. It only takes about 6-8 minutes to brew 6 cups. It is HOT and it stays hot for a long time (actually, it will stay hot as long as you have the machine plugged into the outlet, which is a really nice feature when we're home on the weekends). A couple of our other machines actually took longer to brew coffee as we encountered filter problems and other issues. Side note - we keep a huge Brita filter of water in our fridge, and use it for coffee so we don't need all the extra filtering of other machines. 2) The taste of coffee will be affected by many factors, not the least of which is the quality of your selected beans, the roast, how freshly ground it is, and using COLD water to begin, however even with the best coffees our previous coffee makers left something to be desired. This machine consistently makes delicious coffee. Seriously, it is such a pleasure to drink. 3) This one is really important. As we increased the amount of coffee we drink, we realized that pretty much all other machines involve plastic parts somewhere in the brew process, despite having metal baskets and the like. That means there is a pretty good chance some unhealthful substances could be leaching into the water, and into the coffee. We use steel and glass with our other beverages and for our children's drinks - but had ignored the almost 16 oz of coffee a day we were consuming! This entire machine, with the exception of the base and handle, is steel. All that boiling hot water comes in contact with is metal. I suspect that also has something to do with how well it performs on the flavor scale. 4) Again, home run. This machine isn't any more labor intensive to use than a Mr. Coffee or a Cuisinart. In fact, it might be simpler since you don't have to pour water from a carafe into some silly little hole somewhere on the machine, risking spilling water all over the counter. Fill the carafe with cold water. Fill the basket with grounds. Insert bar, basket, and lids. Plug it in. Pour your cereal, hug your kids, pack your lunch, whatever you fancy. 8 minutes later you're pouring a delicious, hot mug of joe. We have a grinder and only buy whole bean coffee. Sometimes we grind the coffee the night before to save time, but plenty of mornings we have grind it just before making the coffee. Still a simple and quick process..even when we are exhausted. Additionally, you can make small amounts of coffee without needing a special setting. The coffee isn't any weaker as a result, unlike other machines. I think this has to do with how hot this machine gets the water prior to brewing. It isn't heating up along the way, like some other machines. So the first few cups are just as good as the rest. You can, however, make a big full pot, which is nice for us because our parents come to visit often and all drink coffee too. And the whole big pot is piping hot. That brings me to a negative aspect of this machine. If you brew a pot, and want another, you have to wait until the pot cools. I've been raving about how hot it makes coffee, and that it's made of metal. Well, it becomes a dangerously hot piece of metal. Clean up is easy with this machine too. We compost our grounds so it is as simple as dumping the basket into our compost container, and rinsing out the parts. Something to be mindful of, though, is ensuring that you UNPLUG the machine before you leave. Best case scenario, you return to hot coffee in the evening, if that's your thing, but I'm afraid of causing an electrical fire so our post-coffee routine is simply unplugging it before leaving for work. Again, it is usually too hot to clean right away so we do this in the evening. You'll notice some features we weren't looking for, and which this product does not have: 1) Brew interrupt for pouring a cup while it is still brewing. We aren't that impatient. We have plenty to do while we wait for the full pot to brew. But some folks may not like that. 2) Clock - we have that on our stove...and our phones...and our toaster oven...and our wall. We're good with clocks 3) Programmable brewing - again, not necessary for us as we find using this machine to be quick and easy. We did enjoy this feature on other products (waking up to coffee brewing for you is so nice!) but the trade off for no plastic parts was worth it to us. Plus, my husband is so sweet about getting up first and making the coffee, so not much has changed for me in this way ;-) Well, this is the longest review I have ever written, but I know how people are about their coffee...because I am one of those people. I hope this review helps. We've had this machine for 6 months, it's going strong, it looks cool on the counter, it's easy to use and it makes one darn good cup of coffee.