Almost Perfect & Best Thermal Carafe I've ever seen.
I am coming from a Ninja Dual Brew Pro that I loved everything about except it's brew temperature not extracting enough flavor out of my beans. I also have owned Mocha Masters, Cuisinart, and Delonghi brewers that was SCA certified that I ditched do to terrible carafe designs. Carafe 1. Best carafe I have ever used. I used to be a Coffee Ambassador for Starbucks in the days when they sold brewing equipment and have the and since had a variety of these. I don't use glass with hot plates because they destroy coffee and I'm a purist. 2. The picture is showing the temperature of a slightly less than half full carafe of coffee that sat for 7 hours. At 7 hours the coffee was temping at 148 degrees. Most run of the mill coffee makers only brew at 150-170 and out put a cup at about that temperature. This is highly impressive. 3. The lid design doesn't allow a lot of space for heat to escape - and it's brewing process doesn't require a large opening for the coffee to drip into. 4. The handles is very solid and sturdy and the carafe itself is not light of flimsy - great attention to detail here. 5. Reviews for coffee machines are often littered with people rating down because the "hot plate" doesn't heat a thermal carafe. NO THERMAL CARAFE HAS A HOT PLATE. If you want a hot plate, you must purchase something with a glass carafe. Thermal carafes are insulated and that would destroy them. Beverage Quality & Flavor I ground and brewed Starbucks whole bean Winter Blend - a coffee I am not liking - and brewed a pot in my old Ninja and the Oxo side by side. The aroma that comes out of the Oxo when pouring a cup is amazing and nonexistent from the Ninja. Out of the Ninja, the coffee was fuller bodied but bitter (why I don't like it) and out of the Oxo bad coffee was transformed into a smooth delicious cup.... I was amazed that I suddenly didn't mind what I thought were some bad beans. The body of the coffee is my one and only complaint about the OXO. Because you cannot control the brewing process at all (based on number of cups brewed, the Oxo brews each size in different ways but you can't change a setting to force a longer contact time of the water with the coffee). This results a a more watery, less fuller bodied cup of coffee but a cup that has amazing flavor. I have tried three different freshly ground beans and compared to the Mocha master and Ninja and all of them taste so much better out of the Oxo. I thought the single serve brew basket produced a better cup than brewing a full cup. Usually, these options ( like in the Ninja) don't allow enough contact time with the grinds to do as good of a job in flavor extraction as when brewing a full pot. This was not the case with the Oxo which slows down the drip time based on the size and the insert ensures full coverage from the rain head. The single service uses a cone where full pots at flat bottom - which is actually what you want as those are the best brew methods for those sizes of coffee. The only other negative which is also a positive is the brew time. The water compartment is glass (no plastics exposure which is great!). To hit the 195-205 degree SCA brew temp, the Oxo pre-heats the water in the glass chamber and then uses a second heating element during the brew process. The problem is, the pre-heat cycle for a full pot takes almost as long as it does to brew a pot of coffee. While this model has a timer, you really should pre-heat your carafe with hot water so keep in mind of setting to brew the night before, but not preheating the carafe you won't keep your temperature as long as I mentioned previously. At the end of the day, this machine makes one heck of a good cup of coffee. I would recommend - especially while it's 100 off. It fixes all the things that were wrong with the other two oxo models for sure. Read more
