This is not a comprehensive list of all the machines we’ve considered. It includes models we’ve tested that are still available.
We liked the look of the stainless steel, red-knobbed Wolf Gourmet Programmable 10-Cup, and its ability to brew a 10-cup pot in a quick six minutes. It turned out a creamy, nuanced cup, and the thermal carafe kept coffee hot for hours. We also were impressed by its intuitive features: easy manual and brew-ahead modes, an auto-pause feature that allows you to remove the carafe and pour a cup while still brewing, an audible alert to signal when it’s finished, and automatic shutoff. We were especially impressed by the Accu-brew mode, where you can fiddle with the strength (mild to bold) and number of cups. A built-in digital scale alerts you to add more (or less) coffee or water, depending on your selection. It also comes with a five-year warranty. Nonetheless, we don’t think the machine is worth $200 to $300 more than our top picks.
The sleekly designed Balmuda The Brew made a very good cup of coffee. However, it brews only 12 ounces in total, just barely two cups, which is too little to justify this model’s hefty $700 price. The machine also did not keep the coffee warm.
When we saw the SimplyGoodCoffee brewer promising to be a Moccamaster alternative for less than half the cost, we were intrigued. And on the surface, it appears comparable to the Technivorm Moccamaster KB, with a glass carafe and very similar design. But in our taste tests, we found that a cup from the SimplyGoodCoffee machine was just that—simply good, a little flat, and not very nuanced, while the Moccamaster KB’s brew was consistently bright and complex, with a jewel-like clarity. The fact that the Moccamaster uses a copper heating element, while SimplyGoodCoffee uses aluminum, likely accounts for the differences in the flavor—and the price. If you don’t need the absolute best cup of coffee, the SimplyGoodCoffee makes a decent cup at a very good price (though our OXO pick offers better coffee, more features, and a thermal carafe for not a ton more). But after a decade of testing the Moccamaster, we can vouch for its quality and longevity as an investment, and we would encourage folks who don’t want to spend as much to consider buying it used or refurbished.
The beautiful design of the stainless steel Aarke Coffee System makes it a showpiece. It’s speedy, brewing a full carafe in six minutes, and the machine is extremely easy to use—with just one button (one push for brewing, two pushes for blooming and brewing, three pushes for cleaning). We found the flavor of the coffee too one-note and a tad watery, however. It comes with a glass carafe, and a thermal carafe can be ordered separately for about $100—an extra cost on an already-pricey machine.
With a multitude of brew settings, the Breville Precision Brewer Thermal has a lot to offer to craft-coffee lovers. You can adjust almost everything, from pre-infusion/bloom duration to water temperature to flow rate. But we found it tough to get going—it took us more than two hours to dial in a decent brew. For those who love to tinker or are particular about coffee, the time investment may be rewarding. But if you’re just looking to make a good pot of coffee, the learning curve is needlessly steep.
There is a lot to like about the GE Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker: It has settings for varying strengths and temperatures, an auto-brew function, and a handsome design, and it’s the only machine we tested that can pair with Wi-Fi so that you can control it with an app. It also brewed quickly and quietly. However, despite fiddling with different settings, we failed to brew a good pot of coffee, turning out an acrid, one-dimensional brew each time.
The Bunn Speed Brew was extremely complicated to understand, from set-up to brewing. It requires 15 minutes to initially heat up and brews a pot in 4 minutes thereafter only if the coffeemaker is left on with the water tank full at all times. Worse, it did not produce a good cup of coffee.
Despite its pleasant design and functions such as a brew-ahead timer, the Zwilling Enfinigy Drip Coffee Maker took nearly 11 minutes to brew and produced coffee with an unpleasantly metallic aftertaste.
The Ratio Coffee Series 2 Six Coffee Maker was awkward to use, primarily because of its stacked carafe and basket. The basket comes with a drip tray to “catch” drips after removing the basket from the brewer. Not only do you have to act quickly to prevent a mess, the tray is one more piece to clean. It also lacks a brew-through lid, which causes the coffee to cool post-brewing if you don’t screw the carafe lid on immediately.
The Cuisinart Pureprecision 8 Cup Pour-Over Coffee Brewer with Thermal Carafe has a compact footprint and is easy to use, but we found the flavor of the coffee to be relatively one-dimensional.
For such a clunky machine, the Ninja Specialty Coffee Maker made surprisingly good coffee. But its extra features (a watery single-cup setting and a milk-frothing wand) don’t add a lot of value, and it’s now available only with a glass carafe, which we don’t recommend.
The Zojirushi Fresh Brew Plus Thermal Carafe Coffee Maker EC-YTC100 brewed coffee at a glacial pace, taking more than 15 minutes to make a full pot. We also thought the coffee tasted weak.
The Brim 8 Cup Pour Over Coffee Maker is expensive for what it offers. It’s not programmable, and it has a large gap between the showerhead and the filter basket, which allows a lot of heat to escape during brewing. The Chemex-shaped carafe can be difficult to grip with one hand. And because this model is glass and lacks a lid, your coffee will cool quickly (the hot plate shuts off after 30 minutes).
The Braun 10-Cup MultiServe Coffee Machine is the worst coffee maker we’ve tested. It consistently brewed coffee that tasted awful—like burnt gas-station coffee.
This article was edited by Marguerite Preston and Marilyn Ong.
