Starbucks should be embarassed to have their name on this!
Positive Product Points
Small countertop footprint. Makes a single serving of coffee.
Negative Product Points
Poor design, overflows, water not hot enough results in weak coffee
Detailed Commentary
The design of this machine is flawed in several ways: First (and unforgivably, from Starbucks!) the water doesn't get hot enough to make a good cup of coffee. Second, the water flowing into the filter basket often causes the edges of the filter to fold inward, allowing coffee grounds to escape and drip into the carafe with the coffee. Third, the water flows into the filter basket faster than it can filter through, resulting in overflows more than half of the time. Once it's overflowed, there's coffee everywhere, and the wet grounds get into parts of the coffee maker that are impossible to rinse and hard to clean. Last, the screw-on lid for the stainless steel carafe doesn't fit well, is hard to line up and screw on, and once hot, is very hard to remove.
The 16-oz. capacity is a very nice size for just one person. It's possible to brew less than the full 16 ounces, too.
Because of the overflows, it usually takes 2 tries to make a cup of coffee. Once it's finished, the LED clock becomes a timer to remind you how long it's been since the coffee was brewed. This is a nice touch, but you still have to use the coffee quickly because the carafe doesn't hold heat. I like the idea of not having a warming plate to "cook" the brewed coffee. But to make that concept work, the carafe should be insulated to keep the coffee warm.
I've used this coffee maker for a year but am online now to search reviews for small-capacity filter brewers, anticipating replacing it.
