I rate this coffee pot so far at 5 of 5 stars for an $89 maker. I've also done some testing on brew temperatures so read farther below if you are interested.
I've haven't paid much attention to coffee quality until recently because I dose my coffee with French vanilla cream and drink as much as a pot of decaff per day. My old $40 coffee maker died and I had noticed that my friends Capresso MT440 always had good coffee even without French vanilla. Coffee strait out of my old drip and burner coffeemaker tasted like swill. I'm also looking to cut calories and want to drink my coffee black now and it has to taste good.
I was heavily leaning to a Capresso, but not conditioned to spend +$180 on a coffee maker right now and the Zojirushi EC-BD15 had 4 of 5 star (same as the Capresso). They both looked close in performance with the exception that my friend claims his Capresso brews above 195 degrees Fahrenheit and this is reported to be the best temperature to brew at (195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit). So to compare I've brewed 10 pots or so far and here is what has happened.
* Brewed water then brewed first pot of coffee using a Medelco #4 Cone Permanent Coffee Filter. Coffee tasted HORRIBLE...starting to worry now.
* Buy unbleached paper #4 filters per others recommendations and add more coffee than I did before. Ahhhh...starting to taste good. Coffee drained to fast with the Medelco filter and coffee is stronger now and tastes better.
* Measure coffee temperatures using a TrueTemp digital thermometer using hot and cold tap water:
o Cold Tap water: 66 degrees F. Pour cold tap water into carafe and then into coffeemaker. Measured water temperature in basket at cup 5 of 10 brewed was 174 F and by the final cup at around 180 F with final steam bursts bringing it to 186 when finished. Final coffee temperature in carafe immediately after brew = 165 F.
o Hot Tap water: 125 degrees F. Pour hot tap water into carafe and then into coffeemaker. Measured water temperature in basket at cup 5 of 10 brewed was 180 F and by final cup at around 186 F with final steam bursts bringing it to 190 F when finished. Final coffee temperature in carafe immediately after brew = 174 F.
* I also measured coffee temperature in the carafe after 2.5 hours post brew once...forgot to right the number down, but around 135 Fahrenheit and still hot enough to drink (don't remember if I used a cold or hotwater tap brew).
Conclusions...coffee tastes good though maybe not best possible because my unit didn't reached the perfect brew temps using either hot or cold (I've repeated cold and hot twice and results are about the same). The difference in coffee temperature between using hot or cold tap water wasn't as big as I thought it would be based on previous complaints about this coffeemaker that it makes lukewarm coffee and using hot tap water helps. However, using hot tap water does brew the coffee at around 6 degrees Fahrenheit hotter during the entire brew cycle possibly improving taste. I'll probably rinse my pot with hot tap water in the mornings and to get maximum temperature, but if I don't the difference isn't as severe as you would expect.
My final recommendation is that I'm keeping the Zojirushi EC-BD15 and may buy 2 units to have a spare carafe and backup pot for parties (plus backup unit in case the first breaks). I do wish the unit did brew at the higher temperatures so I knew I was getting the best, but as I said at the beginning for $89 bucks the coffee tastes very good and the unit works well and I'm not compelled to buy the Capresso right now. Carafe is great, brews in 5 to 6 minutes, relatively quiet, unit looks nice...no real complaints worth mentioning. If this coffeemaker was twice the price I would have to drop to 4 stars or more for not brewing above 195 F. However, for the price this is a good value in my mind!
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