Melitta Gourmet Coffeemaker, Pack of 1, 36 ounces, Porcelain Carafe

Still just what I wanted
UPDATED 19 Dec 2012As suggested below, I’ve now not only bought one for my father (who loves it), but bought one for home as well, so that makes three of these I’ve purchased. I am still extremely happy with the product. A couple of notes to follow on to the problems mentioned above, which I’ve mostly solved:** Slow Drain Time:This, as advised elsewhere, is best fixed by using a coarser ground. I buy bean coffee at the grocery store and grind it there, and I use the “Regular” setting, which oddly enough is the second coarsest setting on most machines, just to the right of “Coarse.” On this setting, the hot water that gets poured in early in the process goes through relatively quickly, whereas the water later in the process goes through slowly. This is largely what you want, and gives a more even flavored coffee.** Cold coffee:The problem here is that you’ve got a ceramic maker, which is going to soak up the heat when the hot coffee comes through. The solution is actually ridiculously easy — when you boil the water to make the coffee, boil about 8-12 oz. more than you need. Start by pouring about this much boiling water through the filter cone WITHOUT THE GROUNDS and into the carafe, then swirl it around the carafe for about 20 seconds, or until the whole carafe is hot to the touch from the fattest part down. Then dump out the hot water, put the grounds and filter back in the cone, and make your coffee. If you want to keep your coffee extra hot, do the same thing with the mug you’re going to drink it out of, so that’s hot before you pour the coffee in too. Watch at good coffee bars and you’ll see the baristas do the same thing with the steam nozzle.** Cone doesn’t attach to baseI can’t see this as a negative, as never expected it to. But for those who might think otherwise, be advised that the cone just sits on top of the base, and then the ceramic lid fits about as tightly as any teapot lid. Which is to say, just enough to keep it from falling off.** A word on amounts:It took me a while to figure out the amounts on this thing, given that I don’t have measuring cups in the bizarro world of measurement that coffee makers use. This is called a “six cup coffee maker,” which uses the weird definition of a “cup” that exists nowhere outside of coffee makers. (For what it’s worth, a “cup” to coffee makers is about 4.85 fl. oz. of brewed coffee, for which they estimate you need about 6 oz of cold water to start off with.)For starters, the carafe holds just a little less than a quart or a liter of coffee, and most American coffee mugs hold 8-12 oz of coffee, with big travel mugs usually holding 16 oz. The brewing process will lose about 25% of that liquid from the cold water you start with, and you probably want that much again to pre-warm the carafe (see above), so I tend to heat up about 1.5x as much as I want to make.A good base amount of grounds is about 1 tbsp for every 4 oz. of brewed coffee you want, so a full pot would need about 8 tbsp. (In metric, this isn’t far off of 15 ml of grounds for every 100 ml of brewed coffee.) I like it a bit stronger, so I tend to use about 10 tbsp for a full pot, and people who like it extra strong might even go up to 12 tbsp. For a large mug of coffee without the carafe, I’ll use 4-5 tbsp.Once again, I am thrilled with this coffee maker, enough to buy two more after the original (all of which are still in great shape). Review bumped to five stars because once I figured out how to use it, the coffee I make with this thing is better than any but that which the absolute obsessive gourmets make.ORIGINAL REVIEWI didn’t read the other reviews before purchasing, and I’m glad I didn’t, because the negative ones might have scared me away. The coffee pot arrived last week, and I’m enjoying it thoroughly so far.When I was a teenager my father bought a plastic Melitta to take on backpacking trips, because it meant he could have real coffee without doing it cowboy coffee style. He quickly discovered that the coffee he made using this little piece of plastic and a camp stove was better than the coffee coming out of their fancy Braun coffee maker at home, and still uses the little plastic thing to make a single cup in the morning when he gets up if no one else wants some.Recently, our office cancelled our coffee service in order to save money (it was terrible coffee anyway), and replaced it with a Krups machine, allowing us to buy our own K-cups. I tried several different brands of K-cups, and finally decided I’d rather bring in my own Fair Trade coffee to work and make it myself, and started trying to find something to imitate Dad’s plastic Melitta, but maybe not plastic because of the BPAs and such. So I bought this.The negative reviews appear to break down into three categories:1 – Not as good as the ceramic Melitta pot they had 20 years ago.2 – Grounds gum up the filter, so it drains slowly.3 – Pouring the coffee in manually is annoying, and it doesn’t make much coffee.In response to 1, well, they’re probably right. That happens a lot these days. I’m reviewing the pot I got, and it’s pretty good for what I expected. I imagine if it were still made in Germany, it would cost $120, and perhaps be worth it, but this one works exactly as I expected it.In response to 2, I’ve never had this problem. I’ve been using a coarse ground coffee, which seems to be the main response others have. The liquid goes right through it at about the speed of any other drip coffee maker.In response to 3, this is the way a Melitta works. You stand over it with a container of hot water, pouring first around the edges to wet the filter and make it stick to the sides of the cone, then try to keep the grounds soaked without overfilling. It’s not fill and walk away — you have to stand over for the couple of minutes it takes to brew. I find this to be a fun and relaxing break in the morning at the office. If you want something that you can fill and walk away from, find another pot.However, if you’re like me and kind of like this method, this is a great pot. The cone is sturdy and does its job exactly as I expected, working even better than Dad’s old plastic cone. The pot is only as insulated as your average ceramic tea pot, so don’t expect any miracles here, but it has a classic northern European style with smooth lines, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use it to serve coffee after a nice dinner. (Since it’s sitting on my immensely cluttered desk at work, that’s unlikely, but still.) The lid fits on in exactly like my teapot — not tightly, just like your average ceramic with a lip to hold it on. I’m still working out the exact measurements for grounds and hot water, but even with the inexactitude, the coffee from it has tasted bold, full-flavored, and delicious. I would warn that it doesn’t come out scaldingly hot, because there’s obviously no heating element to keep the carafe hot, and the transfer process of pouring it in will obviously cool it down, but it means it’s the perfect temperature for drinking black right away. If you like lots of milk in your coffee (or like it at McDonald’s-second-degree-burn temperature), you’ll probably have to be quicker getting boiling water into the grounds as quickly as possible.So hey, maybe not for everyone, but I love this thing so far. I think Dad might need a new ceramic cone for his birthday this year, come to think of it…

This is the best coffee maker I’ve ever had
This is the best coffee maker I’ve ever had; the second-best was the Melitta I had before this one. I still use my French press occasionally but if you have the 10 minutes or so it takes to make the coffee, this is the best thing I’ve found. It does take about 4-5 minutes of tending to do the pour-over, but 4 minutes is about what produces the best extraction and it’s almost impossible to find an automatic that can do it correctly (they are working on it though).Yeah, it’s made overseas (Germany is overseas from here anyway), but the current version is made in Thailand and not China, although they may make it in various countries. The ceramic carafe and cone hold heat a little better than glass and the carafe is more durable, though the ceramic one I just bought (August 2014) is a little thinner and lighter than what I purchased a few years ago–also an Asian import. I was a bit worried at first by the lack of heft, but it doesn’t seem to lose heat any more than before and they’ve made several very noticeable changes that vastly improve the performance:The ceramic, though thinner, seems perhaps of a higher quality and also less porous. It’s certainly less prone to staining. The filter cone holder now has deeper ridges and a better design, so fine grinds are less apt to adhere to the sides and bottom of the cone, which previously created slowing or clogging of the drip (especially with cheaper filter papers). The handle shape has changed so it now protrudes less from the carafe but is longer, so it’s better grasped by a large hand. (The older version, which I still have, didn’t comfortably fit a male hand.) And finally, the thing my wife has noticed is that the water now easily drains completely out when the carafe is overturned flat on the drain rack. The previous version never completely drained when overturned flat, the spout had to be tilted lower. It might seem like a small thing but it resulted in many “teachable” moments for me.Above all, what I appreciate most in the current version is the fact that the pour never drags out to 8-9 minutes and I don’t have to babysit the filter. If I have my preferred fine grind, there’s no need now to keep tugging on the sides to try and encourage a consistent drip. The new ceramic cone produces a very consistent 4-5 minute pour with out any hiking of the sides or artful arrangement of the paper.As an aside–I’ve never left any coffee in the carafe anyway, so if it’s slightly less heat retentive than before I might not notice it. Once it’s finished I pour it into mugs heated with hot water, and the leftover goes into lidded thermal mugs or a thermos for later. Then I rinse the ceramic in hot water and let it drain. And then I drink the coffee!

I absolutely love this item and wonder what I did all these years without it. So simple and really does make the best coffee – light and full flavoured. It seems the ‘pour over’ method is popular in the US and as usual we are behind here in UK, but in time it will catch on here I am sure. There is a technique to brewing great coffee and this does not really come with instructions so be sure to watch plenty of YouTube videos on the pour over method. Anyway throw away your Nespresso machine and invest in one of these!!

Nice pot hard to track down now we are enjoined to use filter rathar than cafetiere.Myhusband points out tht the spout is disproportionately big, and the white glaze on the filter is a different shade from the pot.