Customer Reviews

DeLonghi DCF210TTC Complete Frontal Access 10-Cup Drip Coffeemaker with Thermal Carafe

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Here is a well-made intelligently-designed coffee maker that works well, has some outstanding features, but has some significant differences from common automatic drip machines. Brewing into a thermal carafe with no burner or warming plate below the carafe means the coffee will not get the bitter taste of being kept hot by continuing to cook it. But, it also will probably not be quite as hot as some people would find ideal. It's a compromise and involves personal preference. For me, the coffee is plenty hot and remains at a pleasant drinking temperature for well over an hour.

The way the carafe and its lid have to be designed to keep the steam from escaping and thus keep the coffee warm means it will pour into your cup a bit more slowly than from an ordinary carafe. To me, that's not a big deal.

Some have reported not getting the carafe properly seated, thus allowing the freshly brewed coffee to spill all over the place. I have trouble imagining how that could happen and even more trouble imagining how anyone could let it happen more than once. I would expect any rational person, after having such a mess to clean up once, would make certain to seat the carafe correctly in the future. It's not rocket science.

There have been some comments by others that rating this as a 10-cup coffee maker is misleading. All manufacturers rate coffee maker capacity in terms of 5-ounce cups, demi tasse cups, if you will. I ordinarily use a 10-ounce mug. So being aware of this, I govern myself accordingly. No big deal, and nothing different from any other manufacturer. Frankly, I don't know of any normal person who actually uses demi tasse cups any more. That was a standard serving 100 years ago, but not today.

The instructions provided by DeLonghi are somewhat lacking and it doesn't help that they combine the instructions for several different models with different features into a single booklet, printed in several languages. Not as helpful as it could be. That said, most of the operation is fairly intuitive. It is a little bizarre that the clock shows the hour from midnight to 10:00 a.m. as "0." I guess that's a European standard, but find it strange on a clock that displays a.m. and p.m. rather than a 24-hour clock. That's just a little wierd to me, but does not diminish my enjoyment of this coffee maker.

Operation is reasonably easy and the quality of the brewed coffee is outstanding. I am well satisfied and do recommend this machine.

Searched high and low for a thermal carafe coffee maker with good reviews. Seemed no matter what model or price, at least 1/3 of respondents hated the thing. So, I went for the value priced one and it was a good choice. It did leak the first two times as I was running the water through it but not once since. Preheating the carafe really helps keep the coffee warm. It's so easy to pour the water in with the front load and we all love the aroma button for a more full flavored pot of coffee. It looks great and functions beautifully, if your hand is too big to get inside the carafe to scrub the coffee residue out, get a brush. What's the big deal? Highly recommend.

I had rated this coffeemaker with a 1 star because the plastic top part and handle of the carafe had seperated after less than six months of use. I am uping the rating to 3 star because of the excellent customer support from DeLonghi. I made a phone call to customer support and the carafe was replaced without question and at no charge for the carafe or shipping. I did not have to return the broken carafe. The replacement carafe arrived 4 days after I called DeLonghi. The customer support was excellent.

I've gone through many, many coffeemakers in my life. Granted, I'm not into spending hundreds of dollars on a coffeemaker, but they were still a good cross section of quality brands. This is by far the best coffeemaker I have ever bought. I don't care for the glass carafe type any more - they break too easily, plus the coffee gets bitter towards the end as the liquid evaporates. On the other hand, the thermal carafe type doesn't necessarily keep the coffee piping hot, but that's okay - it's hot enough for the time it takes us to drink it. This one definitely keeps the coffee hotter than the last one we had.

The frontal access on this particular model is wonderful, since we have it sitting under a cabinet. No more pulling it out to fill it up with water. All parts of this coffeemaker feel very solid, especially the carafe which also has a really nice handle. And the one thing we absolutely love about it is the "Aroma" button. It brews the coffee more slowly, dripping the water, and therefore takes somewhat longer to brew. But it's worth the wait - the coffee tastes absolutely wonderful. Without a doubt, the best-tasting coffee I've had from any coffeemaker so far, nice and smooth.

Extremely pleased with this coffee maker. Love the design, ease of filling, cleaning, even pouring the coffee is a pleasure due to the design of the pot and it makes agreat cup of coffee!

It's only about three months old and I have to agree with J. Vivarelli. I wanted to get something unique, having tried all of the name brands over the years. I had never heard of DeLonghi. The coffee from day one has been cold. The first cup after brewing is tolerable but no where near anyone's definition of hot. In addition, after brewing I find that there is still 4 to 6 cups of water remaining in the machine and have to push the "brew" button at least two more times. I've tried preheating the carafe by flushing it with hot water (which tends to waste the savings I thought it might give me over the always hot Bunn) prior to brewing but the coffee just cools it down. This is not a manufacturing fault - the machine was engineered to be easier to prepare using the front load but then the engineers went home. The drip comes from one small hole into the side of the coffee basket - other brands "shower" the coffee thereby wringing the flavor out of the grounds. I've wasted $65 and will now call that a lesson and spend another $100 for a decent coffeemaker - if I can find one!

Generally, I agree with previous reviewers. Yes, I had the carafe not fully in position once, though it appeared to be, and the result was coffee and grounds all over the counter top and inside the machine's water reservoir. The flavor of the brewed coffee seems much better than the same amount and type used in competing machines. And the fold-out fill tray allows one to place the machine under cabinets, without the need to pull it out for filling. The machine appears to have a functional warming plate, though there is no 2-hour auto turn off. The warming plate and "on" light both turn off at the end of the brew cycle. So what's the flaw? The screw-on lid of the carafe must be fully closed for brewing, opened to the "pour position" for pouring, then screwed closed again to keep the contents hot. The lid must be rotated to the "insert" position to either insert or remove it from the carafe. Unfortunately, the seal between lid and carafe is a rubbery, O ring type seal made of very pliable material. As the lid is repeatedly rotated between the various positions, this seal is stretched, squeezed, deformed, and pushed from it's locating groove in the lid. This causes difficult turning of the lid and failure to seal effectively. The seal must be removed, massaged back into shape, and reinserted in its groove. And unfortunately, this may be required several times per week. DeLonghi has no spare parts for the carafe and must replace the entire carafe under warranty. They had no issue doing so. But unless they redesign the lid seal, carafe replacement will be a short-lived fix.

Update 8/10/11 - The problem with the lid gasket was an oddball that I'm sure won't happen to anyone else - I seem to get the weird problems. It was caused by a countersunk screw beneath the gasket that wasn't tightened flush with the surrounding surface. This elevated the seal at that point creating binding and destroying the seal. The replacement carafe provided was perfect and has given good service. I've updated my rating to 5 stars with the caveat to make sure the brew basket is closed COMPLETELY flush with the body of the machine before brewing - it'll snap into place at the last 1/8" or so. If it's not tight, get a mop ready.

This model replaced our older 8 cup DeLonghi model, that could no longer "think" about how to make coffee. The newer DeLonghi 10 cup model is a wonderful replacement.The frontal access for filling is a much needed improvement. I no longer spill water all over the counter while filling it. We are very impressed with this model.

Rated at 5 after one month. However, after two months:

We now only make coffee on the weekends though we love having it waiting on us every morning. Why? Because this machine no longer brews the entire pot at once. It makes 1/8 to 1/4 of a pot and you have to press start again, and repeat, and repeat, until it finally brews the whole thing.

I haven't thrown it away yet because I really haven't had time to look at it to see if something is sticking or moving wrong somewhere to set it off but, regardless, a quality product doesn't flake out like this in the short time we've had it :(

BUYER BEWARE: The 1 year DeLonghi Warranty (as of Nov 2010) is a hollow warranty.
I was very happy for the first 5 weeks I had this coffee maker. The design is clever but enough reviews have already mentioned this so I'll just concur.
PLEASE NOTE HOWEVER, that while DeLonghi warrants this coffee maker for 12 mos from time of purchase, you have to bear the cost of shipping, and pay it before they ship a replacement and they charge you $30 which is clearly more than the actual cost of shipping a new coffee maker to you.
Thats a sham warranty in my opinion (I'll spare you the Prod Liability legalities which mandate that its the responsibility of a mfr to warrant its products to be functional as marketed for the stated term and bear the costs IN FULL when they fall short of this req't) and when an appliance maker can profit off of warranty claims, they create a conflict of interest for themselves in that they now have reason make appliances that break before the warranty expires, rather than right afterwards which is now, I suppose, the old and busted method of quality control.
I myself will no longer purchase DeLonghi products for this reason alone, no matter how clever their product design might be.