8-Cup Cuisinart CPO-800 Pureprecision Pour-Over Coffee Brewer w/ Glass Carafe Expired

One commenter said that many people cannot taste the difference between a $30 coffee maker and a$300 coffee maker. I'm not at all suprised by that. After all, the vast majority of prepared coffee available for sale is either under or over extracted, and made with coffee that is pre-ground, stale, and most often roasted very darkly.

For someone spooning unweighed folgers into a filter, anything beyond a Mr Coffee is probably a waste of money. If however you're freshly grinding coffee that is less than say, 30 days off roast, you'll benefit from improving every step in preparation.
1) how consistent is your grind?
2)are you weighing water and coffee to insure a proper ratio
3)are you using water at the appropriate temperature to extract the parts of the coffee you want to extract.
4)are you getting that water delivered to the coffee at the appropriate rate.

All that being said, there are lots of great coffee makers that can deliver water between 202-208 degrees F. What you're getting from that basic point is more advance shower heads *(for better distribution of water) more advanced pumping systems (for more consistent water delivery rates) and better build quality (for longevity).

The Technivorm Mochamaster is a machine that you can reasonably expect with care to last a lifetime, and it does everything well. It is not however all that terribly convenient. The pieces fit together in an odd fashion, it requires your time and attention to make a beautiful cup off coffee, and its a bit bigger than many of its competitors.

As you go away from the Mochamaster, you can often find either more attractive machines that do things similarly, or get similar performance made with cheaper parts and assembled in Taiwan instead of The Netherlands. Those machines will do a great job, but most likely won't last all that terribly long in comparison.

Hope this helps.

SCAA certified, looks solid. I have a motif essential that does a pre infusion/bloom, and it makes a huge difference.

T

The difference between them is usually down to consistency and control. Most cheap coffee makers lack the ability to rapidly bring water to temp and MAINTAiN it there for the whole brew cycle. While you probably won't taste the difference between multiple machines, you would be able to tell if one of those machines fluctuated water temperature or just drops off temp at the back end. The other part of a good machine is being able to do things like a bloom cycle and even having flow control and just good flow in general. Either way though, if you aren't grinding beans that are relatively fresh then you probably would be wasting money on a nice brewer. Spend money on a good grinder first and get a $30 Mr coffee machine and then worry about upgrading later. When you're ready, just buy based on features and reliability. I went with the Breville Precision Brewer because I wanted timer functionality and a large capacity. It also allows you to fully program your brew from bloom time to water temp to flow rate - very cool stuff to mess around with. I will say that I'm not like a super crazy coffee person but getting that brewer very much improved my coffee so take that as you will.