Or so I thought.
The Krups that I had wasn't staying as hot as I like it. It was one of the older Krups models, with the original water filter option, 12 Cup, hot plate, cone filter...black. It cost me about $50 back in the day, which I thought was outrageous and quite a splurge.
It was nice.
Now I have a "nice" coffeemaker...
...and even after all of my research, I still wish that I could have just gotten the same old Krups that I had gotten before. (But of course, they don't make that model anymore).
What did I get?
I got a Capresso.
It's a 10 Cup, basket filter model that has an on-board grinder.
It has several nice features like an aroma button (which I still don't quite understand what it does, but it changes from an outline of a coffee bean to a solid coffee bean on the display- cool).
It has a cup setting (only even numbers, though...what's with that?)
It has a timer.
Unfortunately, you always find out what you REALLY wanted in an appliance when the one you purchased doesn't do it. This is what I found I REALLY wanted:
I wanted an on-board grinder....but you can't change the amount of coffee that is ground unless you "trick" the machine into thinking it's going to make a 6 Cup pot of coffee, then turning it off once it's ground, and changing to to the full pot size. Otherwise, it uses HALF THE BAG OF BEANS when it grinds a full pot. YIKES!
It coffeemaker also doesn't come with a removable carboy for the water. I mean, if you're going to pay a couple of hundred for a coffee maker, shouldn't it either have a sink hook-up or have a removable carboy so that you don't have to bring a pitcher over to fill it?
I wanted a HOT cup of coffee. The trend at the time was for all the coffee pots to have these thermal pots and no hot plate....so that the hot plate doesn't continue to cook your coffee, leave you with a sludge that resembles coffee, or be a fire hazard because you basically left a mini stove on unattended. WELL, I DON'T like the thermal pot AT ALL. It never gets hot enough. Give me my old Krups with the hot plate any day. I like my coffee as hot as possible without boiling it (so, probably about 208* F...which is the same temperature you should brew black tea, by the way). Anyway, I like it HOT. I don't like it when it's cooled off. I don't like it when I have to microwave it- it's just never the same as fresh, hot brewed.
So, if you like HOT coffee, not medium-hot coffee, don't bother with a thermal pot.
And let's not forget the "best" feature of the thermal pot- it's narrow, lipped opening. It turns out that the very last 1/4 cup of fluid NEVER comes out! The only way I can get the coffee out of the pot is to fill the whole pot with water...which, when I tip and shake and shake and shake, leaves about a 1/4 cup of water in the pot.
Sometimes, technology really ISN'T better than the old-fashioned way of doing things.
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