-Capable of producing a pot of coffee that will shock and awe

-Cheaper than top of the line drip brew models such as Technivorm or Capresso MT500

-Long learning curve

-Lack of a thermal Carafe

After making the decision to upgrade my drip coffee experience, I read numerous reviews. The only coffee makers which uniformly got high marks were the Technivorm and Krups Moka Brew. Given that the Moka Brew was half the price of the Technivorm and there were many reviews stating that it made coffee better than any drip system could, I thought it was a no brainer. I  have to admit though that I entered the purchase with some trepidation. Afterall from experience I pretty much thought of 2 phrases when Krups products came to mind: Krups=Krap and high on style, low on functionality.

The first pot of coffee I made I followed the instructions pretty much exactly. The system is somewhat unusual but if you read the manual it is pretty easy to figure out on your first attempt.
Coffee takes slightly longer to make than a regular autodrip because room temperature water has to be steamed, but it is definitely fast enough to use as an everyday coffeemaker.

With my expectations running very high, I was expecting a god pot on the first sip. But I got think I got his illegitimate second cousin instead. It wasn't bad but it was not what I expected. So the journey began. The Moka Brew is a finicky beast that needs to be prodded and cajoled into giving you what you seek. There are many variables which affect the final outcome much more so than any autodrip I have dealt with. Of course the Moka Brew really isn't a plain  drip.

Quantity- Small changes in amount lead to great differences in taste. This pretty much necessitates the use of a scale to get reproducible results. If you don't have a scale pay strict attention to your volumes of both water and coffee and you will be ok.  

Grind- Between drip and espresso. Start halfway and adjust up and down.

Tamp- Hard, soft or medium?  I found more bitterness with the hard tamp but others use it all time.

The problem is that for me it wasn't a 3-4 pot learning curve it was more like 20. This coffeemaker really makes you pay attention to detail for reproducible results and I think if you are impatient you may not be able to deal with it.  If you really wanted to be methodical you could probably spend the afternoon changing one variable in small increments while holding all the others constant and arrive at a system that works best for you or you could do what I did which is make one pot everday changing varibles somewhat randomly. One day I would cringe at a overextracted/underextracted pot and the next day I would be elated with a special brew. I eventually figured out how to get the pot of coffee I wanted.

There were several times in the first 2-3 weeks I owned the Moka Brew where I came very close to getting rid of it and cutting my losses. I stuck it out and I am glad I did.

Bought online with free shipping/no tax no problems.  It took a 10 days to receive which was longer than expected.