Capresso Elegance Coffee Maker might be no frills, but it makes a great cup
Written: Aug 12 '04 (Updated Aug 12 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Thermal carafe, built in water filtration
Cons: Glass lined pot isn't bulletproof
The Bottom Line: This was a rare bargain at $40. Even at $50 getting one of these is a steal.
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| puckmugger's Full Review: Jura-Capresso Elegance Classic 435 |
Capresso is one of the top brands of coffee makers. They are always a little ahead of the game introducing new features and leaving their competition wondering, “Why didn’t we think of that first?”
Interesting to me is the fact that Michael Kramm, a former executive for Krups USA, started Capresso. His goal was to make high-end coffee makers without the headaches imposed by a large corporation holding him back. (per the Capresso website). This is exactly what Capresso has accomplished.
Now I always believed that Krups was a pretty good brand. They used to be the coffee maker that was always in the prime location in upper end department stores. However, Capresso has far surpassed them in quality since their inception. Krups is a department store brand; Capresso is a gourmet food and coffee brand.
▪ The Elegance
The first thing that is obvious about the Elegance is the lack of the typical glass pot and heating element. This is important because your coffee is meant to be brewed, not cooked. Instead of a glass pot that turns to sludge over a period of time, the Elegance has a thermal Carafe. This ensures that coffee brewed in the machine stays fresh and drinkable for up to three hours.
Capresso claims 4 hours on this carafe, I beg to differ that 2 and ½ to 3 is about as long as it stays hot. Nonetheless, even 2 hours about four times as long as coffee can be held in a traditional glass pot on a heating element. Sure, it will stay hot forever on the burner, but it tastes more like floor sweeping stew than coffee after thirty minutes.
The other nice thing that the carafe does is it minimizes oxidation of the coffee. Air is one of the things that will rob a brewed coffee of flavor. When the coffee is brewed you simply shut the lid and keep the heat and flavor inside.
Now the carafe on the elegance isn’t quite as high tech as the new Capresso MT500 which keeps the air our during the brewing process with its special brew through lid. Still, this is an improvement over the older glass pots which remain open to the air forever.
▪ Brewing
The basket on the Elegance is a #4 cone filter. It comes with an included permanent, gold filter. Generally the use of a gold filter is personal preference. Gold filters are much less expensive in the long run, however because they are more porous, they don’t brew quite as well as traditional paper filter. Essentially a gold filter shortens the brew time and makes a slightly weaker cup of coffee.
Cone filters do tend to give a slightly better tasting cup of coffee than a flat bottom filter in a smaller coffee maker like this one. The Elegance is a bit smaller than many home coffee makers, brewing 8 cups rather than the 12 of some of its competitors. Again, not a complaint, I would rather have eight good cups than twelve cups which I am going to throw away because they taste like burnt rubber.
Perhaps the nicest feature of the Elegance is the built in water filtration system. This has become fairly common in high-end coffee makers of late. However, it was Capresso that first came up with this excellent idea. A small charcoal filter sits at the bottom of the reservoir and virtually eliminates chlorine from the water. This is very important if you are using tap water to brew coffee as chlorine found in virtually all tap water and is one of the most harmful chemicals to the taste of coffee. The filter will actually improve the taste of your coffee dramatically.
If you use bottled water, the machine can be run without the filters eliminating an extra expense. Filters last for about two months in the normal household. Capresso recommends changing the filter after approximately 60 pots of coffee have been brewed. A package of three filters costs $10, adding a mere $20 a year to the price of coffee, a worthy investment in good taste by my account.
The Capresso brews at a solid 190 to 200 degrees. 190 is the recommended temperature for brewing per the National Specialty Coffee Association Guidelines. Further this is a temperature that many home coffee makers don’t quite reach. I check the old Krups before deciding to upgrade and it was peaking out at 180 degrees. I guess they figured the coffee would get hot while it was cooking after being brewed so why bother.
▪ Last Thoughts
The Elegance comes in a couple models. The Classic which I am reviewing here doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. I figured I didn’t need a clock or a coffee maker that brewed my coffee while I was still in bed. I’m not organized enough that it would work for me that way I guess. So I saved a bundle by getting the Classic on clearance. These were selling for $75 originally in my shop. When we discontinued them, I picked one up for $40. The Elegance with the built in clock will cost about $100.
The water tank comes off to make filling it easier. This also keeps you from making your carafe cold before brewing coffee into it. Simply take the water tank off, fill it at the sink and put it back on to start brewing.
Like the water tank, the grind basket is also removable. This simplifies cleanup quite a bit.
There is an automatic drip shutoff to stop the coffee from brewing if you are too impatient to wait for the full brew to finish. It works better than the one on my old Krups ever did. I would suggest patience however, as interrupting the brew cycle makes coffee taste . . . well not as good.
You can buy replacement carafes for the Elegance, either at the shop where you purchased you machine or online at capresso.com. It is nice to have a couple carafes if you entertain and serve coffee often. You can put decaf into one and regular in the other. They don’t cost much more than a standard thermal carafe does at about $25.
The only thing that I don’t like about this machine is the fact that the carafe is glass lined. The new Capresso MT500 has a stainless steel carafe that even I couldn’t break (dargen still could I suspect). However the Elegance is just like a glass pot in one way. If you drop the pot, you’ll need to buy a new one.
This is an older Capresso model and many recent machines have imitated or even surpassed the features of this machine. However, it remains one of the best no frills coffee makers on the market. Further, since it is an older model there is the possibility of picking up one of these for next to nothing. There isn’t another machine out there that can compare to what I got for $40.
Some of my other reviews that you might find helpful:
Capresso MT 500 Coffee Maker
Nissan Insulated French Press
Ethiopian Harrar Coffee
Starbucks Sumatra Coffee
Recommended:
Yes
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