Customer Reviews

Zojirushi CD-LCC30 Micom 3.0-Liter Electric Dispensing Pot

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just received this for Christmas, it's something I've wanted for a while. Ever since my tea kettle died of old age, I've been boiling water for tea with a regular sauce pan and what usually happens is I forget all about it and only remember after it has been boiling for a while. Also, I didn't like the long wait for hot water. I want instant gratification! And now I have it with this Zojirushi dispensing pot. It's perfect since I'm an avid tea drinker, consuming several pots of tea each day.

A long long time ago, I used to have the "air pot" style dispensing pot where you just press on the top and it pumps out water. This one is a much newer design and dispensing is handled electronically. What I like is the "safety" feature which was lacking in the old "air pot" styles. You have to press the "unlock" button before the "dispensing" button which prevents accidentally dispensing hot water. You can set this to keep water at 205°F, 195°F, or 175°F. You can also set it to give you hot water in 7 hours, but this is a feature I really don't need to use. I'm using the 195°F which seems to be a good middle ground for making black (requires hotter water) and green (requires lower temp water) teas. This is also handy for making instant noodles, oatmeal, hot chocolate. Also handy when needing hot water for a dish I'm cooking, or making chicken/beef broth for a dish I'm cooking. This is very convenient ... no more waiting for hot water! (This beats getting a replacement tea kettle because with a tea kettle I still have to wait for it to boil/whistle, and it usually whistles shortly after I've sat down and gotten comfortable.) This pot will automatically reboil when it feels the temp has dropped too much. The water level gauge is easy to read, the lid lifts up easily for refilling (also removes easily to make pouring water out and cleaning a cinch). Another nice little detail is a removable power cord. It makes me feel a bit "safer" being able to remove this before cleaning out the pot in the sink.

I am confident that this will last me a long time. My in-laws also have a Zojirushi water dispensing pot and it has never failed on them. And I know people who have other Zojirushi products and have had no problems with them. So I feel comfortable with this brand, and I may look into getting one of their rice cookers.

Oh, I have to mention one more nicety of this dispensing pot. The base will swivel around (think lazy suzan style), making it easy to rotate it without scratching your kitchen counter top.

The only thing I need to be careful about is where to put the dispensing pot since there is a steam vent on the top. I don't put it directly beneath any kitchen cabinets, just in case the steam might damage the cabinet over time.

ADDED 11/19/05:

I just wanted to mention that I have had this for 2 years and it is still working as well as it did when I first got it. I have used this pot everyday for the past 2 years. I refill it at least once a day in the summer, 2-4 times a day in the winter. I use it mainly for making tea (big tea drinkers in this house) and cooking. It's easy to clean. No staining on the inside; of course this would depend on your local water quality. Not bad at all considering the use I get out of this. I still highly recommend this pot.

I have a baby now. I have found this dispensing pot handy for quickly warming up bottles from the fridge... instant hot water to immerse bottle in. My screaming baby doesn't have to wait long for her milk. Perfect! The pot has also been useful when mixing cereal... mix cereal with some cold water, then a splash of the hot water to bring it up to a nice warm temp for her.

I drink a fair amount of tea, and so this 3 liter size water pot is perfect for myself. I typically only refill it once a day, at night before I go to bed. It has a 7 hour delay timer that I use so that I have hot water as soon as I get up.

I use the hottest water setting that maintains the temperature at 208 degrees F. It heats up relatively quickly if it's left at 195 degrees or at 175 degrees to save electricity, but I'm impatient and don't like to wait.

I also use it for hot chocolate, apple cider, ramen, you name it.

It is very easy to refill thanks to the removable cover and removable power cord. The cord attaches magnetically, which makes plugging and unplugging incredibly easy.

I do have to turn the pot around so the back is facing me when I open the cover and remove it to refill the water. If I don't, the steam hits me on the wrist when I open it, and since I keep it on the hottest setting, the steam is scalding.

There is a safety feature where you press the "unlock" button before the "dispense" button so it doesn't accidentally dispense hot water, but it hasn't been that important to me.

It's super easy to clean. I bought a 1-lb package of citric acid. I weigh out 30g, dissolve it in water, and throw it into a full pot. Then I press the button to put the pot on clean mode. It takes about an hour and a half Afterward, I dump the water and boil another pot of water to rinse it. I dump that, and the next pot of water doesn't taste like citric acid at all. There are cleaning instructions in the manual.

I clean it every few weeks, or whenever I feel like it. Our water is very hard, and even though I use filtered water, a layer of calcium will accumulate on the inside of the pot, but the cleaning takes that away without any problems.

The interior is Teflon coating, I believe, but as long as I don't scratch it, it's perfectly safe. It hasn't shown any wear or tear yet.

The outside is plastic and easy to clean even when it gets splatter from the nearby stove top.

I have had my pot for 16 months and it hasn't given me any problems. For tea lovers, I can't recommend this enough.

Okay, this is going to seem like a silly purchase to a lot of people. And before I seriously considered it, it did to me too. The only reservation for me was the price. Now that I have it, I think it is worth it.

I bought it a month or so ago (and got the $25 off if you spend $125 on housewares discount amazon usually runs). It's a great machine. There are two people here and we drink a lot of tea, all day long. I refill it at least once a day, and that's without using it for cooking much. People who don't make a lot of tea will probably still go through a pot a day if they use it several times for hot water for drinks or soups, and then maybe for a pot of water for pasta. It's great for things like pre-heating a thermos or tea pot, which can really help them stay hot longer. (Doing that the old way, with kettle-boiled water was a lot more time-consuming, and I might not bother.)

It's nice waking up to hot water using the 7 hour timer. It's also nice for people who drink green tea or oolong, as opposed to black tea, because it has different temperature settings.

By the way, I used a lot less hot water before I purchased this thing--but I used to wait a lot for the water I did use. This is my second Zojirushi product, and I think they're really well made (I also have a fuzzy logic rice cooker). I've learned that a well-designed, well-made product lasts much better, and gets used much more often, than a poorly designed one. I fully expect this will be the case with this machine.

I purchased the Zojirushi 3 liter dispensing pot, and it runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in my house. We drink tea constantly, and it is wonderful not to have to wait to boil water. The Zojirushi allows you to set the desired water temperature based on your needs (i.e. 175 for green/white teas, 195 for other teas, 205 for cooking). The unit is tall enough to fit even our tallest to-go cup under the dispensing spout.

It also has a "7 hour" delayed start so that it can be off during the night, but you wake up to hot water.

The only downside is that it doesn't appear to be insulated as well as it could be. For example, the outside of the unit is warmer than an insulated thermos-style container containing equally hot water. This suggests to me that it is not as well insulated, and therefore not as energy efficient as it could be.

I recommend it, and would buy another one in an instant if anything happened to this one.

I use this for more than just tea, defrosting frozen veggies, making broth, a few drops on a sponge for cleaning, this thing is the greatest!

After two years' of continuous use, interior coating is coming off. A few rusty spots have developed in the past 6 months. The company's website does not provide a replace container. I liked the Zojirushi brand but this one seems a disappointment.

I like a cup of tea, but sometimes have been too lazy to put the tea kettle on the stove and wait for it to boil. It seems like a "sin" to heat tea water in the microwave.....so I decided to buy this Zojirushi. It is wonderful. Just what I wanted. It is so easy to make a cup of tea now. The water is always ready when you are. You can set it so the water is always hot or you can set a 7 hour timer to bring it back up to 208 degrees. This is handy for overnight. That way it doesn't waste power.

Now it is easy to reach for a nice hot tea instead of a can of soda and better for me.

You have to fill the pot with fresh water. They have different sizes. I recommend that you buy the biggest you can afford. I think they have a 2, 3 and 4L. Maybe other sizes. I have the 3L and it is about right, but I have to fill it every other day.

It is very simple to operate and there is no problem with the hot water and no steam. Enjoy your tea!

Update Jan 10 2008
Now, over 3 years after I wrote this review, the Zojirushi is doing great with the heavy use we put it through. If this one ever dies....I will buy another one just like it.

Update June 19, 2009
I've had this unit 5 years now and use it every day that I'm home. No problems at all. 3L model is just right for one or two tea drinkers. Well built.

We started drinking lots of tea and I was tired of nuking it in the microwave, plus sometimes you just want some lukewarm water but it comes out of the faucet freezing cold in winter. So the electric hot water pot seemed to be the ticket.

I had such good experience with Zojirushi's rice cooker I figured why not. Wasn't cheap, about 1/3 more than the next on the list but what the heck.

It does its job well, but you have to remember all it does is heat and dispense water.

When you turn it on or refill it the unit brings the water to a boil and then lets it cool to one of three settings. 208, 190 or 178. Different teas work best with different settings I guess. I wanted to be all fancy about it but we end up leaving the thing on 208 all the time.

Its got some real safety features, you won't accidentally undo the lid, but when you do open it up with a chopstick or something, steam comes out.

Its got a magnetic cord so if you pull it too far it unclips. But the lock is well done, unlike others I have seen where the cord falls off at random.

The bottom has a built in rotary system so you can rotate it without need another device.

There is a large tube that shows you the remaining water level. When you dispense it shoots the water up the tube and out the spigot. The water then settles down to its new easy to see level.

To dispense you have to push the unlock button first, then dispense. After a few seconds it locks itself again.

There is the reboil function if your at a lower setting and need a quick hot reboil. The device is fairly fast. I haven't timed it but its comparable or better than the stove for large amounts of water.

It sure is nice to have hot water at the push of a button.

Thats about it, after all its not like there are lots of things you can do to hot water. I like it, glad we have it, But if you don't need the multiple settings you'll probably be just as well served with a cheaper quality unit like Tiger.

Update 3/30/2011
Its still cooking (water). A note about cleaning. You practically MUST buy water pot cleaning tablets. They seems expensive (few bucks a pop) but are worth it. The inner coating on this pot is very fragile and easily rubbed off.

I got this for my mother who has arthritis and was having trouble lifting a coffee pot. With the one-touch electronic button, that problem's solved. To refill the pot, she doesn't have to lift anything -- just uses the sink's sprayer hose. No cleaning necessary with the descaler and dechlorinator. Being able to control the water temperature is also helpful. She keeps a folded hand towel close by so that just in case she should spill, no hot water would reach the floor.

The photo on this page shows the pot kind of a creamy color, but I was glad to see that the pot's actually a soft white. The pot's really expensive, but I'm glad I got it for her.

I think this would also be great for people like myself who drink hot water instead of tea or coffee.

For Christmas, we replaced our 20-year old Zojirushi air pot with a brand new, shiny Zojirushi Panorama Window Micom Electric Dispensing Pot. We could have changed the seal and chipped out the calcium, and the air pot would have probably lasted another decade or so.

But we liked the coating, and descaling mode on the new pot. The temperature display and timer are nice new features, as is the electric pump.

If you are in the market for a hot-pot, this is the one to buy. You can buy less expensive pots; but, you won't get the reliability and durability you would get from this exceptionally well made Zojirushi pot. By the way, it also looks nice.