Customer Reviews With Photos

IN SHORT, It makes coffee, BUT these coffee makers are stupidly simple machines with no expensive parts. There is shockingly little to drip coffee makers and for what I paid this is a cheap piece of equipment, poorly made, and overpriced. I had always associated Hamilton Beach with quality in the past and thought this was a good deal, boy was I wrong. But don't get me wrong, it does make coffee, it works, you just aren't getting any value for your dollar in my opinion. WHAT I HAD BEFORE: I had a great Mr. Coffee that worked like a charm for the better part of a decade with the hardest water I have ever seen in my life. So bad that I am constantly buying vinegar to remove scale from my drinking glasses. The plastic was strong and thick(likely glass fiber reinforced), very sturdy, no slack in the hinges of the lid and drip head mechanisms, it felt very well made and lasted me a very long time under brutal conditions for this type of coffee maker. The Carafe was thick glass with a very sturdy, firmly attached handle, and I was very happy. Sadly, being in my last year of college and just needing something, anything, to make coffee I am stuck with a cheap coffee maker now until I graduate in a few months and can afford another proper, quality, coffee maker. THIS COFFEE MAKER: 1.) This coffee maker feels like it is made of the thinnest, cheapest plastic they could get away with. The only mold marking was >PP< which is polypropylene, judging by the weight and avg. prices of raw material I'd guess there is a total of ~$3 worth of plastic in this coffee maker assuming 60 cents per pound cost(molds discusses further down). It flexes in your hands when you handle it and the components are just poorly made, it feel so incredibly cheap in your hands. See the photos showing how easily I can bend it with two fingers. While the plastic is cheap and too flimsy for my liking, I would guess that if the machine fell it would merely bounce and not crack as that is a benefit of using this type of plastic(One downside to this plastic is its sensitivity to mold and fungus). However, I am not sure that your carafe would survive, but if your coffee maker falls or gets dropped you are doing something wrong on your end. 2.) A burn test, and lack of any other mold markings, show there is no glass fiber or other fill material that I could see to strengthen this plastic, hence the low rigidity and my disappointment. Polypropylene being a soft plastic they would not have a high cost associated with molds for making these plastic parts as there is no abrasive fill material to wear out molds faster. Thus no price increase for manufacture. 3.)The carafe glass is very thin, the handle is made of the same cheap plastic as the body of the coffee maker and instills zero confidence it won't break when full of water a year down the road after repeated stress cycles. Lets assume $5 here for price to manufacture/acquire. 4.) The heating plate element and "bubble tube", I am not sure of the name, are also cheap parts to purchase, depending on quality, between $0.50 and $4.00 so we will just round up and say $5 for all heating elements and associated parts, just to be safe, though I doubt it was anywhere near that much. So far these components are working just fine but I have only made 3 pots of coffee so we will see what happens. 5.) There are a handful of inherently cheap electrical components. 2 LEDs, 5 push buttons, a small screen, likely a few thermometers, a crystal oscillator for the clock, likely a 555 or similar IC, all together there is maybe $2 worth of electronics in this coffee maker, though I would have to disassemble it to know for sure. As someone who designs and builds electronics for fun, let me tell you that most commercially used electrical components are stupidly cheap, even when purchased as one offs and not in bulk which gives further discount. 6.) I am willing to bet the only metal parts of this machine are the hot plate, the actual heating element and the water heating tube(because that is all that is needed) These are all accounted for in the heating elements and hot plate. From what I see the rest is all plastic. 7.) Note, in the photo you can see a little red ball valve. This prevents the heated water from pushing back into the reservoir when the water is heated and some flashes to steam propelling the hot water up into the drip head and into the coffee grounds basket. Watching it operate there is good clearance for water to flow when it is open. Likely because they must account for restricted flow when the optional carbon filter is installed. My only concern here is that if you have hard water this could clog up or get stuck either open or closed. THE GOOD THING IS, this valve is accessible from the top of the machine when the lid is open and likely could easily be unclogged if it does fill with scale, so to me this is a nice feature where the ball valve isn't hidden away deep inside the machine. CONCLUSION: In my opinion this machine is overpriced for what you get. I have found an overly generous approximate cost for this machine to be around $15 to manufacture, but with 3rd world manufacturing and discounts for buying in bulk and economies of scale I would imagine I am overshooting the actual costs. The fact that they are selling this machine around the ballpark of $50+, or around $40 if you catch a sale, I would steer clear of this machine unless you can get it on sale for $20 or less. I have no problem with manufacturers selling items for double their expense to make profit, but that clearly isn't the case here. We have a camper with a $10 coffee maker that we got at Wal-Mart that this one reminds me in so many ways, and they both make identical coffee. There simply isn't the quality here necessary to justify this price tag. This isn't even an issue of name brand markup because the quality is so low and so up front and blatant that the brand name is devalued by the materials when you first handle it. It is one thing to put a famous branding and make it look nice but have poor quality components hidden inside where no one sees but this machine doesn't care, they fully embraced it and cut costs anywhere they could without concern for their name and the reputation that may be associated. In my opinion this machine is a rip off and I am now seriously considering disassembling my old Mr. Coffee machine and seeing if I cant repair it and returning this machine. I feel like it is an utter rip off. Basically, them selling this machine for this price is them spitting in your face and laughing because they know the general public doesn't have the knowledge base to see that they are selling a clearly inferior product at a huge markup. Hamilton Beach is no longer a quality appliance company, they want you to buy this so it breaks in a year or two and you come back and pay for an overpriced plastic mess all over again, ever few years, like clockwork. I wouldn't buy this again...I was upset when I first got it and unboxed it, but sometimes you need something, anything, to make coffee in the morning so you aren't wasting time over a stove boiling water when you should be getting ready and leaving the house.

It was mansion passibility for use 120V in US when I was going to purchase. Unfortunately the one that I received is for 220V. Also, it was a damaged as it mansions in photos. I prefer a exchange with one is possible to use in US, for 120V.

This was a Christmas present for my wife. I don’t drink coffee but she’s very finicky when it comes to a hot cup O’ Joe! So far, so good! She has a Keurig and says the pour over is so much better. It also makes the coffee more flavorful.

This is a good 20 oz French Press, so easy to use, love it in the white color for our kitchen and we can make 2 cups of coffee. We like the French press method as there’s no paper filter to take out valuable nutrients, that it’s made of non toxic glass and stainless steel on the inside. This is lightweight and would be great for travel to be able to make high quality coffee & tea in our hotel rooms too. We like the glass pouring spout, but unfortunately there is a plastic pour through screen, never good to pour hot water through plastic for toxins and we wish the glass separated from the plastic container instead of being glued in for easier cleaning as we can see some leftover coffee grounds that I can’t get to after cleaning so for those reasons we are giving it 4 stars instead of 5. Decent price.

Does the job in producing a single cup of coffee from your own coffee grounds, but some of the practical features are a downgrade from our previous single cup coffee maker that bit the dust before we purchased this one. My biggest complaint is the base of the coffee maker is too small for a standard sized ceramic coffee mug to sit flat. I don't use the large carafe that came with it, although my husband likes that it fits his travel thermos. But standard sized ceramic mugs sit crooked and wobble because the base is sized to fit the tapered bottom of the carafe. My other complaint is the opening in the top where you pour water is somewhat narrow, which makes it difficult to pour water in without spilling. Our previous single serve coffee makers had larger openings. My husband's chief complaint is sometimes the water seems to channel down the sides of the filter and skip some of the grounds, making a weak cup of coffee. He gets around this by brewing all of his coffee twice (pours brewed coffee back into machine and brews again using the same grounds). All in all, not major issues, but still items I was disappointed with in comparison to previous single serve coffee makers we have owned.

Broke after 1 week poor quality. Getting replacement to see if this is consistent.

I bought this to use with nespresso capsules while traveling, and this does it, but does not do it well. I filled the little reservoir to the top, even above the max fill line, and I get about 1.85oz from a capsule. Presumably, that means you'll get at most about 1.85oz from either the large capsule or the grounds option as well, which is just the wrong ratios for coffee. At worst, you're getting even less coffee as more water is stuck in the larger mediums versus the small Nespresso pod. Silly me thought I can get 3 or maybe 4oz out of it, but under 2oz of poorly extracted Nespresso is just not effective. You'll have to wait 4-5 minutes to heat up another 2.5oz of water to pass through to make an americano, but then the coffee itself will mostly be lukewarm and a total of 10 minutes will have elapsed, for maybe 5 ozs of mediocre coffee. This coffee maker did what it can do, the description does not exaggerate beyond the image of the plastic cup being 3/4 full when the reality is about 1/8, but the entire product category can only provide weak and small quantities of coffee. You'll have to pair it with another device to provide additional hot water.

I am pretty happy with my Keurig coffee maker, the only problem is that to make latte or cappuccino is a pain, because uses a magnet covered on plastic and if you don't put it on the right side it will fall off and will stop making the cap or latte. You need to learn how to find the best side of the magnet.

For 100$ spend it elsewhere. We had this for less than 2 months and it over flows just about every other time. We have spent so much time cleaning the machine, wasting coffee and having frustrations with this product. Thank goodness coffeemakers.us.com is offering a return due to this malfunction and issue because it clearly is a waste.

My biggest concern with camping is not having fresh, hot coffee in the morning. The Wacaco Cuppamoka solves this issue for me. Went on a four-day camping trip in the U.P. with my son and knowing I could have a fresh cup of coffee every morning definitely made it easier to wake up and start the day. The build quality is excellent. I expect to the product to last a very long time. The process is simple once you have done it once or twice and the results speak for themselves. I would suggest practicing a few times at home with the coffee of your choice before using it in "the field". I found with my simple Folgers Columbian Blend I only needed two scoops to get the flavor I desired. Yes, the utility of everything packing inside the cup is really for longer-term storage as when you have coffee in the cup and you are packing up to leave the spoon and other components have to go elsewhere. Also, you will want to use the cup itself because it kept the coffee very warm for a long time; I was really impressed with that. I wasn't as impressed with the pour when you are taking a sip. It doesn't flow out as easily as I would prefer. But, the pour flow and packing issue are minor. I am happy with the results and can recommend it.

So, as you can see by my rating, I love this machine. At 4.5 stars as of this review date, I see most of my fellow purchasers are also satified. Out of complete curiosity I browsed the bad ratings- to be as helpful as I can with my review instead of singing the phrases of my machine like other reviews I'll address some of the complaints about the machine and give my counter view. Price. Ok, we're not including the basic machines out there, I'll assume if you're looking at this machine you're looking for a PREMIUM machine. Maybe like me looking for a machine certified by the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) or its European equivalent association. I pulled 3 familar branded machines from their website and got their current prices and ratings on coffeemakers.us.com (dropping the cents) Bonavita BV1900TS $133 (4 stars), Cuisinart Pure Precision Pour Over Coffee Brewer $167 (4 stars), Kitchen Aid Pour Over Coffee Brewer $149 (3.5 stars). So they hover around the same costs and their reviews aren't terrible, but they're also not higher than this machine. Yes. This machine is expensive when you compare it with some of the other SCAA certified machines (basically 2x the cost). I am willing to bet that at least 2 of 3 of those machines are made in countries where the labor is typically cheap (sorry Asia), that's not a ding on their quality per se, just how they get costs low. A quick glance at their coffeemakers.us.com descriptions didn't really seem to say. ALL OF THEM likely made by machines supervised by people as opposed to a handmade coffee maker such as this (again addressing costs). HANDMADE speaking generally- is a lost art, is usually higher quality, longer lasting, and more beautiful than its machine made counterparts, and always more expensive. My personal machine is also brass. It's freaking gorgeous by the way, but brass DOES cost more than plastic. A cursory view of the other 3 machines are all black, plastic, and no premium metal choices or COLORS that I can see. Yes, yes, to some that doesn't matter, BUT plastic IS cheaper. Not saying plastic can't be quality, just saying metal is going to be more expensive. These are all things that will add to cost, and really, what's wrong with also wanting a GOOD LOOKING machine, they do sit on the kitchen counter. Options are nice. So the majority of coffee experts and/or coffee snobs agree, pour over is the BEST way to make coffee. The machines that are SCAA certified SIMULATE A POUR OVER. I ran a quick cost comparision for the tools to brew a proper pour over. For a MANUAL burr, pour over kettle (WITH a thermometer) and a pour over carafe with filter approximate cost is $104. If you do the same set up but with an electric burr about $160. Costs are low here, however, this requires also that you have the time to fuss over the temp of your water, grind your beans if you're going manual and have the patience to properly pour your water over the grinds. I'd be willing to do this on my days off, I love a ritual, but that's exactly what it is, a ritual that takes time. One of the most adament reviewers against this machine doesn't like the way the holes in the machine's arm distributes the water. Says that at least on their machine it doesn't come out ALL the holes. My machine doesn't have this issue, I'm sorry they do. The water, as it is heated, comes out in bursts, so yes sometimes the initial holes get some of the water but during the peak of the bursts all the holes have water coming out. My grinds get fully saturated (and I'm attaching picture proof). What I find kind of amusing about the reviewer's beef with this is that just looking at the other machines I don't believe that reviewer would even be ABLE to observe how the water is distributed in order to complain about it, they are enclosed units. That's one of the VERY neat features of this machine, you see just about everything that goes on and I find it rather mesmerizing. I'll admit until I read that review I didn't think to take the lid off the coffee filter portion to observe the water arm, the lid keeps the heat in while the water soaks the grinds. The way this machine dispenses the water definitely seems to simulate a good pour over with proper temperature and good timing to allow the grinds to soak properly. Now to address another gripe that has been mentioned, the plastic parts that DO exist on this machine which is few. My initial reaction is, um, SO? Again the 3 I pulled from the SCAA list are primarily plastic. Here is my counter for how this particular company does it. Yes, the lid of the water reservoir and all of the coffee filter basket come off the machine. To some they feel flimsy, to me they are light but very sturdy, and I personally very much appreciate the ability to take them entirely off the machine and give them a good cleaning. Try and do that with a hinged lid on a water reservoir or the permanent filter basket on a traditional machine and I say no fun. Also, having worked with a lot of kitchen appliances and tools, hinges can often be a weak point in design with a LOT things, I really like how this machine has so very little that could go wrong with it. Simple is wonderful. I also appreciate that the company boasts that ALL of the parts of this machine are fully recyclable. I will also mention that I don't find that the tabs that hold the brew basket in place are at all flimsy either. The glass carafe. Also apparently a point of contention with some reviewers. They say it's too thin making it feel cheap to them and they'd expect a machine of this cost to have...better(?) glass. My counter, some of the best/finest glass out there is not pyrex people. "The best" wine glasses are butterfly wing thin. Ok, fragile, but the best tool for the job. Then you have the other end of the spectrum, gorilla glass and the equivalent on your cell phones. Thin, and durable. Imagine that. This carafe is gonna fall somewhere in between all that in durability. Yes, the glass on this carafe is thin, light, elegant dare I say- but I don't think it's any less fragile than the other glass out there on coffee machines. I don't know what other people are doing with their coffee machines but I've yet to break one. It's got a wide mouth, the lid comes off (though it has a hinge) and it is all very, very easy to clean. There is also a complaint about how the carafe itself pours. It does have a smaller lip and I'm willing to bet this is also by design, to keep heat in. You can't expect to pour "quickly" as the lip of the carafe can be overwhelmed easily. Personally I've yet to spill a drop of coffee. It's just different. No, there are no clocks. No timers. These would negate the whole "best way to brew is a pour over". Grinding your beans the night before per the coffee experts would be a "no no" (though I'm not personally against it, and have done it with other machines). So if you want all of that I'm pretty sure that there isn't going to be an SCAA certified machine that does that. I like that there is a simple on/off, and LOVE there is a lower/higher heat button on the hot plate (I've never had a machine with that feature). No buzzing, or dinging, just the simple sound of water boiling. If you need all of that fancy stuff then the likelyhood is you'd be better off with your basic drip coffee brewer, this machine or its equivalents are not for you. There is nothing wrong with just going to a traditional drip coffee maker, to me these are two completely different monsters. Like the difference between an espresso maker and a drip brewer. Yes, this is a European machine. It's going to have measurements in European terms. The cups are not as big over there as they are here. That happens to suit my personal tastes, it may not yours. The cord is long and thick, to me that's a durable thing- to others it is cumbersome and unnecessary. I tethered mine with a cord keeper. It does not sit on the counter in a traditional way, you can place it any way you want but because of the design I prefer it sideways on my counter as the product pictures show. It's easier for me to operate that way and I can see it better, for once I have a coffee brewer that I LIKE to see on my counter. So yes, it's definitely not something most people are used to coming out of a traditional brewer market. These are all things to consider! So I hope I've addressed some of the things that would put doubt into your head about quality of this machine if you were on the fence- maybe I even convinced you to go another direction and buy another SCAA certified machine (and there are quite a few more you can look into), go with a traditional drip brewer or do a pour over set up instead. Any way you slice it, you should be happy with your decision. I am extremely happy with mine. I like to buy quality- that I only have to buy ONCE. I think this Technivorm and I will be together till death do us part. For me, in the end it's about simplicity. Machines and technology don't always mix. I have a 49 year old car in my garage that has seen multiple newer cars run through my fingers and it still runs like a top. More appropriately I also have a 79 year old toaster that works like a dream. What they have in common is no frills, do my job and do it good, simplicity and they're built WELL. I expect that this beautiful machine will do the same.

Testing this Braun Coffee Machine as part of the coffeemakers.us.com Vine program. You might be forgiven for thinking that this rather large machine from Braun (picture shows next to full size Nescafe Dolce Gusto machine) with a somewhat hefty price tag ($199 at time of review) does more than make regular coffee. I think it's also a missed opportunity by the manufacturer to have made a combi, or multi use design. Braun already makes the excellent Tassimo pod coffee machines (more prevalent in Europe than the USA) and this does make a great up of coffee, but it seems a lot of money for basically just another machine. Has a permanent mesh filter if you don't like paper ones that needs washing after each use. 7 size settings from cup to carafe, and a fast brew for a full pot in under 8 minutes when you need it quickly. Has Light, Gold & Bold for strength settings, and dispenses over ice, or hot water for tea. That's about it. It has a very large footprint, and looks very high tech and chic, and of course has the German made pedigree, but I'm not convinced for almost $200. The Cuisinart Flex brew makes drip coffee and K-cups for around $50 less, and the Hamilton Beach Flexbrew does both again for around half the price. With so much choice for coffee today, I really don't see the attraction in having an old fashioned drip brewer. I rated it 3 stars

Good Coffee Flavor.

I really, really wanted to like this coffee machine. Aesthetically, it’s beautiful, clean lines, the color I wanted (white/stainless steel). But functionality...wasn’t as functional as I thought it would be for the amount of money I paid for. A bit too tall for under my cabinets and required pulling the machine out each time I had to fill the water reservoir. I’m 5’1, so filling it in general was a bit of a nuisance, may work better if you’re a tall person and have it sitting somewhere other than under your kitchen cabinets. The 1-4 cup setting on mine did not work. I followed the instructions in the manual, and after feeling frustrated, got tech support, only to get the same results so I was given the option to return for a replacement or refund. I chose the latter. No point in the bells and whistles if the product doesn’t do what it says, granted I had a defective one, but what a loss! It’s a nice looking machine.

The first one I bought arrived broken but they sent out another one and I got it the next day. Love that it had a handle, and again it is really cute! So far so good, handles heat perfectly and is light and durable. Definitely worth the price.