Beautiful design -- good cup of coffee
Written: Jan 08 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Attractive design, fantastic aroma release, easy to use/clean, solidly-built carafe; good heat retention.
Cons: Brew water not quite hot enough, poor design on carafe pouring.
The Bottom Line: Obviously, if you find a deal like I did, snatch it up pronto! Otherwise, look for it used or on sale. A fine coffee maker, but not necessarily worth $120.
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| chadley25's Full Review: Krups Aroma Control 229 10-Cup Coffee Maker |
I picked up this coffee maker at a thrift store here in town, but it was in new condition, so perhaps it was an unwanted or duplicate wedding gift. In any event, I liked the way it looked, so I thought I'd try it out. Krups did well with this machine aesthetically. Its attractive design blends glossy black, matte black and brushed stainless steel, along with a shiny faux stainless steel "brew nozzle." One note here: once the carafe is removed, the appliance that remains is a bit cheap-feeling. Nothing but light plastic. This isn't what I would call a FLAW, but a heavier, weighted unit would give the appearance of higher quality (even if it were not the case). As it is, it's perfectly functional despite its lightweight chintziness. It does, however, make me wonder about its durability and longevity over a few years' time.
I use a goldtone permanent cone filter in my machine, and it really does produce an excellent brew. I grind good-quality beans with a conical burr grinder (typically just prior to brewing) and have always been pleased with the flavor. It does a fine job, has a good timer and looks very sleek sitting on my counter. The "Flavor Release" system provides above-average brew timing, allowing hot water two minutes of "steeping" contact time with coffee before dispensing into thermal carafe. Most traditional drip coffee makers just drip the hot water into the filter basket and immediately allow gravity to take its course, thus allowing water/coffee contact for typically less than 45 seconds.
One thing I truly love about this machine is the confusingly-named "Aroma Control" feature. (Is the aroma really being CONTROLLED?) There are several grooves cut into the area around the filter basket and this allows a fantastic, rich coffee aroma to be released. I can easily smell the freshly-brewed coffee in my kitchen when I'm upstairs in my bedroom. This is a great feature.
However, the filter basket -- for all its wonderful design innovations -- ultimately terminates in a single, tiny hole for the brewed coffee to feed into the carafe. I think a better design might have been to have multiple drain points from the filter basket all dripping into a funnel-shaped reservoir to THEN drain into the carafe. This would allow more uniform and complete saturation of the coffee.
A pause-and-serve feature allows you to remove the carafe to sneak a cup, but most of the time, you'll also get a couple of random drips for your trouble. I rarely use this feature.
The only pronounced negative aspect I've noticed in the several months I've had this coffee maker is that it doesn't seem to heat the water sufficiently during the brew cycle. Being a bit anal retentive and wanting to quantify my suspicions, I actually conducted a couple of tests. When I filled the reservoir with roughly room-temperature water (75°F), the resulting brew water was right at 180°F. When I filled the reservoir with cold tap water (about 55°F), the brew water only hit about 175°F. So I tried putting warm water (110°F) in the machine and brewed with that. Again, the brew water only managed to reach about 180°F. The proper temperature should be about 15-20°F higher.
From what I understand, few drip coffee makers can consistently achieve 200°F brew water, so this may not be a serious drawback of the Krups machine specifically, but of drip machines as a whole. However, since "cold water" is recommended for use and the temperature of the resulting brew water in that test only hit 175°F, I think that's a liability. 175°F brew water absolutely causes underextraction and the end product is a slightly weak cup of coffee. I find that using about 1.5 tbls of freshly-ground coffee for each cup of water yields a pretty good pot of coffee, so given that, I'd love to see what this machine could do with proper 200°F brew water!
The brushed stainless steel thermal carafe is attractive and very solidly-constructed, but I don't particularly love the functionality. I would prefer a pushbutton-style valve for pouring, coupled with a more angular spout. As Krups designed it, you just twist the lid until it's loose enough to allow coffee to dribble out around the threads, but still threaded securely enough to keep the lid on. Pathetic. The flange of the "spout" (which isn't remotely a spout) is entirely circular and doesn't lend itself well to ease-of-pouring. It's not a "deal-breaker" with regard to the appliance as a whole, but it's definitely not the most thoughtfully-designed carafe I've seen. It does keep the coffee warm for quite awhile, though, so that's good. For best heat retention, remove the carafe from the coffee maker as leaving it in depresses the fill valve on the lid and allows heat to escape. Sufficiently warm drinking temperatures are maintained for a solid three hours in my experience. It would likely be over four hours easily if the initial coffee was hotter, as it should be.
A built-in filtration system reduces chlorine taste and odor. Krups recommends descaling (with plain white vinegar) every two months. I live in an area with relatively hard water, so I do the descaling a bit more frequently. Routine cleaning is really very easy. The filter basket is handily removed from the machine and is dishwasher-safe. Every area which is exposed to coffee is readily accessible for thorough cleaning. Krups gets points for making this coffee maker so easy to clean and maintain.
All in all, it's certainly a good appliance, although I'm not sure the $120 list price would be justified. With a few little tweaks in design and performance, this could easily be one of the best consumer coffee makers out there. I paid much, much less though ($2.50 was my price to be exact), so I'm easily getting my money's worth.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
chadley25
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Reviews written: 19
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