dmatsumo's Full Review: Philips SENSEO HD7810/6 5-Cup Coffee Maker
Philips must really make a ton of money on those coffee pods, as they are doing everything they can to get a Senseo in every house! This week, they had a promotion in San Francisco, where you bring in your old coffee maker, and they'll trade it with a brand new Senseo! You can even do it over the web by taking a picture of you trashing your old coffee maker, and they'll send you one. This was way too good of a deal to pass up. My wife actually ended up purchasing a brand new coffee maker for $7, and brought it in to trade for the $50 Senseo.
Our box was dropped off today, and this evening I opened it up to try it out. Setup is extremely simple, but it's very important that you follow the instructions and "prime" the boiler first! All you have to do is fill up the reservoir to the maximum mark, ensure that no coffee pods are loaded, and then push the "1 cup" and "2 cup" buttons simultaneously. The Senseo will start to make some loud noises that sound like some kind of pump mechanism, and eventually a bit of water will come out of the spout. Be sure to have something there to catch the water.
Once this priming step is complete, you're all ready to use the machine! Making coffee has never been simpler, provided that you're only interested in one or two cups. The definition of a "cup" is relative, as the "2 cup" setting makes what I consider to be one cup. To make your coffee, ensure that there is a sufficient amount of water in the reservoir. The reservoir is a clear plastic piece that rotates back from the rear of the machine. Filling it with filtered water from a refrigerator is challenging, as the mouth of the reservoir is wide and shallow. I typically fill a jug with filtered water, and then pour this water into the reservoir.
Once you have enough water, open the top of the Senseo and insert a coffee pod of your choosing. A coffee pod resembles a circular tea bag. I don't know how much they cost, but in bulk, I believe that they are pretty economical. Close the lid, and then push the "1 cup" or "2 cup" button. If you want 2 cups of strong coffee, you'll need to add 2 pods. I tried the coffee with the "1 cup" setting, and though it was a bit strong, I enjoyed it. However, there wasn't enough coffee dispensed to satisfy my needs, so I then proceeded to make another "1 cup". The second cup (using the same pod) was noticeably weaker, and didn't taste all that great. I then decided to combine the two, and was pretty pleased -- the coffee tasted decent, and there was enough to fill my cup!
Perhaps the greatest feature of this coffee maker is in the cleanup. You only need to clean a few pieces -- the reservoir (periodically), the nozzle, and the pod holder. However, you can bypass the tedious cleaning steps by simply making a cup of coffee with the "2 cup" setting, but without a pod! This ends up passing a large amount of boiling water through the system, which flushes out all of the residual coffee. It doesn't get any easier than that!
The Senseo comes with an 18 pack of Douwe Egberts Medium Roast coffee pods. There is a huge selection available, and I plan to try them out at some point. These include: mild roast, dark roast, decaffeinated medium roast, vanilla-caramel (Paris), hazelnut-chocolate (Vienna), and irish cream (Killarney). There are also other pods from other companies, but I don't know if they are "approved" for use in the Senseo. I will probably buy a couple to find out.
If you often need to drink just one cup of coffee and don't want to brew 10 cups in a standard maker just to get good results, then I highly recommend the Senseo! You certainly can't beat the easy cleanup!
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