Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've tried - and failed miserably - to make a decent cup of coffee at home. Since the late 80's.... Two coffee makers. French press. Pour over. Grinding my own beans - beans that were hand picked by elves, roasted under a rainbow, and carried to the store by unicorns. No matter what I try it always tastes awful. Always. And my standards aren't high: My favorite coffee has always come from donut shops and Dennys - and the rare specialty shop that serves a decent cup of dark, smooth, non-bitter, non-sour coffee. I recently bought a house in the hinterlands - and though we have an excellent coffee bar it closes very early - and it was costing me a fortune. And with no Dennys or donut shops close by it was time to exorcise my coffee demons once and for all and begin making coffee at home. After a ton of research I bought the Bonavita 5-cup in spite of the bad reviews. The larger Bonavita TS1900 was highly rated, but larger coffee makers often don't make 4 cups very well and I wanted a coffee maker optimized for smaller batches. Waiting for this thing to arrive made me feel 50% like a kid at Christmas, and 50% like the guy who bought the Brooklyn Bridge. A coffee maker just heats up water a drips it over beans - why should it cosdt 14x more than a comparably featured unit at WalMart? But the coffee snobs seemed to think Bonavita was magical, so I took the leap. When the unit arrived I made my first batch with finely ground beans from my local gourmet-ish market. And.... it was awful: no wonderful fresh-brewed aroma, strong, dull. And it was lukewarm. LUKEWARM! A big reason for buying the Bonavita was because it was capable of brewing at 195 - 205 degrees, but I didn't see any way to adjust the temperature. Bonavita's website FAQ's said nothing, nor did the user manual, so I called tech support. No answer, so I left a message.... And then requested a return from Amazon. I knew that there wouldn't be any way to adjust the temperature, and 195 - 205 is a large range when brewing coffee - the Brazen unit would have let me adjust the water temp in 1 degree increments. This unit would definitely be going back. But the next morning something unexpected happened: Bonavita returned my call. The first thing the tech support person asked was the grind of my beans. Turns out that fine is a no-no, coarser is better. I was also advised to make the full 5 cups if I wanted the coffee to be hot. And to let the hot water stand in the carafe for a minute or two before brewing. And to buy a coffee scoop. Also, as I suspected, there was no way to adjust the water temp. I was skeptical but decided to experiment before returning the unit. I bought more beans, ground one batch at the Drip setting and another batch at the Coarse setting. I also bought a coffee scoop and a thermometer to measure the water temp. Using the Drip grind beans my next batch of coffee was amazing. Strong, smooth, not bitter, not sour. The best coffee I've ever made, possibly the best I've ever had. As an FYI, I measured the water temp while brewing and it was a couple degrees shy of 200. Unfortunately, donut shop and Dennys coffee now tastes awful to me. And the coffee at work... let's just say I've contacted the UN human rights folks. I can't justify buying a 2nd Bonavita for my office so I tried a Presto My Joe: lots of work for a diabolically awful cup of coffee. My coffee-snob friend brought in his Aeropress. Better than My Joe, but not by much. And just for good measure I tried a Cuisenart coffee maker - same beans, same grind, sour taste. So now, thanks to the TS1500 and Bonavita's nice tech support lady, I can only drink coffee made at home.