Ideus Insulated Pour Over Coffee Maker 20oz, Stainless Steel Coffee Pot Pour Over Set Camping Coffee Carafe BPA-Free with Dripper for Home, Office & Camping (Black)

Good heat retention, overall a nice design
This is a capable little carafe, with coffee and tea making accessories. It comes with a Melitta-style #2 pour-over unit which fits atop the carafe, and also a tea steeping unit which can handle loose tea or bags. The top of the carafe can also easily use other pourover units (both the Kalita 102 and the OXO Brew fit nicely) and the normal sized original Aeropress fits nicely with either the regular cap or the Aeropress Flow Control cap. The carafe holds half a liter (500 ml). I tested the thermal retention with water straight off the boil, with the cap in the non-pouring rotation (when turned halfway round you can pour but it covers the spout the other direction). At the beginning it was 95 deg C, and I stopped checking when the water reached 53 deg Celsius, an impressive 430 minutes (over 7 hours) later. The claim on the box, that it will keep your beverage “hot” for six hours, is pretty accurate; as my attached chart shows, at 6 hours I was at or just under 60 deg C, which is about the lowest heat of what most coffee drinkers would categorize as “hot.” The thermal retention is impressive especially when you consider that the lid just sits relatively loosely on top, with no gaskets or tight fit. Note that my test was with a full carafe; if the carafe were left for hours when only partially full, no doubt the thermal retention would be less. There is a helpful removable lid section on which to place the pourover and tea steeping units to catch drips, a nice thoughtful addition. The included pourover section had a longer drawdown time than the other units I had available to try, no doubt because it has only 2 holes compared to the Kalita’s 3, and the OXO’s set of several holes of varying size. I’m a coffee snob, not a tea drinker, so I can make no comment about using this to make a pot of tea.

There’s just one thing…
Absolutely love it except one thing… I wanted to make 2 cups of coffee at the same time and keep the second one warm while I’m drinking the first one. I’ve used a Melitta style filter for years and this is a very nice one; it fits perfectly inside the opening of the carafe. The coffee stays hot for the advertised six hours. The pour spout is just right (believe it or not, I’ve bought carafes where the spout was so small the coffee literally went everywhere unless you poured in a tiny stream. Who has that kind of patience before caffeine?). My issue with it is that I put everything in the dishwasher that possibly can go. Eventually even black coffee builds up a stain and needs a good scrubbing. It *suggests* rinsing out the carafe is adequate but it does not say anywhere not to put it in the dishwasher. There are two tiny holes in the bottom, presumably to allow for air expansion and contraction around the vacuum liner. Guess where the water from the dishwasher goes? And no, you can’t shake it out easily, and you better put it on a towel to drain for hours because that’s how long it will take for all that water to come out, and it’s a surprising amount. I’m not interested in handwashing a utensil I use every day. My solution was to plug those tiny holes with the tip of a toothpick wrapped in electrical tape and cutting it flat with a pair of flush cutters (yes, I am a DIY kinda gal). Problem solved. It goes in the dishwasher, there is no collection of water inside the vacuum space, and plugging the holes doesn’t seem to affect the performance at all. If it weren’t for that little issue, I’d have given this sweet little carafe five stars.

Good for one!
Getting the coffee to water ratio on this might be a bit difficult compared to using something like a Chemex (which is my daily driver for brewing coffee), I’ve found it benefits from a bit more water and diluting it a bit. This is for drinking black coffee, so your mileage may vary for cream and sugar. Overall, a decent brewer for one or two cups in the morning.