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139 of 142 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic coffee maker., August 12, 2006
This review is from: Capresso 455 CoffeeTEAM Therm Stainless Coffeemaker/Burr Grinder Combination (Kitchen)
I have to say, I'm more than a little confused by the negative feedback this coffee maker seems to be receiving as we've had quite the opposite experience with it-- in fact, we've been nothing short of ecstatic with its functioning. It's a bit counterintuitive at first, but once you get a feel for its system, this is a nice little pot.
My wife and I were committed to buying a suit-all-our-needs coffee maker right after our wedding, and after substantial research, we came up with this unit.
After witnessing my brother and his wife with their grinder/brewer combination, I was filled with envy-- I hate grinding coffee. The CoffeeTEAM combines a burr grinder with the brewer, grinding into a filter basket (with an included conical permenant coffee filter) on a spring mechanism which then swings to allow hot water to be forced through the beans.
Both the beans and water are top loaded into their chambers-- the bean chamber holds enough for about 18 cups of coffee, the water reservoir holds enough for 10 cups and has a cover that flips up that rests on top of the filter basket when it's used for brewing.
The grinder has a handful of sizes you can adjust the grind to-- I've kept mine fairly large as I've been using fairly oily coffee. The beans are ground and deposited into this little chamber. This next triggers a series of springs that push the grounds into the filter basket and swings the basket to receive water.
A few points about this process-- some residual beans are left in the little chamber after the grinding. These are used for the next pot of coffee-- I discovered early on if you clean this out, the next pot will be noticably weak (they warn you the first pot will be weak in the manual, but forget to mention this-- I suspect this is why one of the other reviewers had trouble with coffee being too weak). There's a thin piece of hard plastic with a rubber washer in the middle that fits over the top of the filter basket-- this MUST be fitted evenly and the rubber washer MUST be snugly attached. Additionally, the water reservoir must be down when you push the basket to the grinder. Not doing any of these will result in the spring mechanism not swinging the basket properly-- it took me a few tries to get this right, but there was no mess made and it was more a learning curve than anything else (the good news is that if the basket doesn't swing back, a fail-safe stops the brewing process).
The coffee is brewed into a thermal carafe which must be lined up carefully to prevent spillage-- I've yet to have this spill due to line up problems and I'm pretty impatient, it's not a hard process. We haven't tested to see how long it keeps coffee hot for, but it's at least 3-4 hours. My wife takes her coffee a couple hours after brewing and has no complaints about temperature or degraded taste.
Controls are pretty straight forward, there's two buttons and a knob that serves as a third button. The knob is used to program everything-- for both on-demand and timer-triggered brewing you can set number of cups to brew and strength, the clock, and the time to kick off brewing. The top button starts the brewing process immediately, the bottom button sets the timer-trigger brewing.
You can override the grinding by not swinging the filter basket over in case you want flavored beans, etc. I've not done this. Additionally, removing the carafe during brewing allows you to pour yourself a cup from the carafe, saving those goofy slide-the-carafe-out-and-cup-in games. I just revised my review concerning this functionality as I used it for the first time this morning-- it is flawless-- carafe comes out, coffee stops, carafe goes back in, coffee restarts. Finally, the last feature of the coffee pot is a "descale" warning to indicate when you need to clean the coffee pot. In a previous review, I said this was missing, but it just came on for our maker.
All the coffee we've made tastes superb-- admittedly, I've been starting with good beans, first what we brought back from our honeymoon in Hawai'i and then from a favorite coffeehouse near where I grew up, but it's as good as any coffeemaker I've used.
Cleanup has been pretty easy so far-- we've had the maker maybe six weeks and the carafe has a wide mouth when you remove the lid so it's easy to clean (something I've hated in other carafes). The filter basket and associated components all come out and are easy to wash. I do wish the bean container could be removed, but so far, I've just been wiping oil deposits down per recommendations. The burrs are not accessible, so there's no way to clean then other than grinding no beans per recommendations.
Things I wish the maker had: a large bean container-- I'd love to have a unit that could just fit a half pound or a pound of beans-- I'm constantly having to pour more beans into it. This is a minor annoyance. Somewhat more lacking is a water filter-- my last coffee maker had this and it was a nice feature-- I've gotten around this by pouring filtered water into it, so again this is a small complaint.
None of these shortcomings are big enough to make me regret purchasing the unit, even at its price, it's served us well for the past several weeks and the coffee it makes it consistently fantastic.
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90 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not really worth the price, October 31, 2006
This review is from: Capresso 455 CoffeeTEAM Therm Stainless Coffeemaker/Burr Grinder Combination (Kitchen)
The Capresso CoffeeTEAM Therm is the most feature complete coffee maker being made right now. It offers automatic burr grinding and a thermal carafe.
Comparing this coffee maker to the CoffeeTEAM S, which is a similar unit but without the thermal carafe, it turns out you are paying about $100 just for the thermal carafe.
I require automatic grind and brew in a thermal carafe, and after our Cuisinart gave out, I decided to shell out the lucre for the Capresso. I was primarily attracted by the burr grinder and the fact that the grinding mechanism does not need to be cleaned with each use like the Cuisinart.
After having the unit for a couple of weeks, I think I can fairly say I am slightly disappointed.
If you prefer dark roasted beans to make your coffee, do not buy this unit. Oily beans stick in the bean hamper and do not make it into the grinder unless you actively push them. Since the main feature of this unit is supposed to be the ability to grind and brew while you are still in bed, I consider this to be a serious design flaw.
The unit works well with light and medium roasted beans. I'd like to have a little more control of the amount of beans used in a brewing cycle though.
Update:
I made the unfortunate discovery that the pour while brewing feature (pretty much standard on most coffeemakers these days) does not work very well on this unit. The valve under the basket has a tendency to stick, even after a thorough cleaning. A sturdier spring may fix this problem.
Other minor issues:
It isn't idiot proof. There are a few things that are not obvious about this coffee maker.
The pour dot on the thermal carafe is difficult to see.
For nearly $300 I expect a coffee maker that works flawlessly. This unit is definitely not flawless.
I plan on modifying mine to fix some of the flaws. Too bad Capresso can't be bothered with functional design issues.
Another update (07/01/08):
After having my CoffeeTEAM for a while, it has grown on me a little. I will say this- if you are trying to decide between this Capresso and the Cuisinart Grind and Brew, go with the Capresso (unless you are really into dark roasted coffee). The CoffeeTEAM is MUCH easier to clean between pots. I am pretty sure the Capresso has paid for itself in under a year in the time I've saved.
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53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Also surprised by the negative comments...., September 1, 2006
This review is from: Capresso 455 CoffeeTEAM Therm Stainless Coffeemaker/Burr Grinder Combination (Kitchen)
I bought this coffee maker recently as I was looking for an all in one unit that allowed me to automatically brew coffee every morning. After reading the negative reviews I held off my decision to buy for a while and then decided to purchase and boy am I glad I bought this baby.
I am extremely happy with this unit. My ONLY negative comment is that the Strong coffee setting results in coffee that is a little wealer than I like. It would have been nice for Capresso to include a feature for over riding the nominal coffee strength settings. Still, you can get around this by selecting strong setting, and 10 coffee cup servings and only filling water resovoir to 8 or 6 cups.
Yes, this unit is a little more complicated than a standard drip coffee maker so you will have to have sufficient intelligence to read the manual and absorb the material. I have had no problem with the grinding, filter basket movement or brewing issues described in earlier reivews. It all works perfectly IF YOU READ THE MANUAL AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.
This machine meets all my needs. I can set timer and fill water container in the evening and wake up to freshly brewed great tasting coffeee in the morning. The thermal carafe actually keeps the coffee hot for 4 hours or longer without scalding the coffee like standard coffee machines. The best part is that it takes less than 30 seconds to clean the gold filter, filter holder and carrafe. The grinder is removed from the brewing and so is not contaminated by steam like some of the cheaper units.
All in all this unit meets all my expectations and I am extremely happy I purchased it.
After using this coffee maker for a couple of weeks I am still very happy with it BUT I have to admit that the placement of the filter basket, filter and filter cover are very finnicky. You must have them positioned just right otherwise the basket will not swing back and lock under hot water spout. I think a lot of the problem is from these parts being maunfactured from plastic. One other thing to do to make sure you don't end up with coffee all over the counter is to ensure the caraffe lid is on tight before brewing!
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