Cheapest Zojirushi EC-BD15 Fresh Brew Thermal Carafe Coffee Maker

I've been a coffee drinker for the past 15 years and my little Braun 4 cupper did just fine as a "to go" in the morning. My wife decided she now wanted coffee in the morning, so we had to upgrade. At first glance we liked the Cuisinart Grind and Brew, especially to do away with the grinder as an extra appliance on the counter. However, after less than a week with the Cuisinart, I was ready to take a sledge to it due to the mess on all the parts and the *required* cleanup and drying every day. Luckily we were able to return it.

This time I did a bit of research and kept being drawn back to the Zojirushi despite never hearing their name before. I measured our counter space because of comments of it being too tall. However, no worse than the Cuisinart and much slimmer. My other concern was because my wife's morning starts two hours before me. Any leftover coffee always tastes burnt. I liked the "idea" of the thermal carafe, but was then concerned if it would stay hot.

Finally decided to buy it, but then had some last minute misgivings as recent reviews were complaining of leaking and other defects. Fearful Amazon had gotten a bad batch, I looked elsewhere, but decided on Amazon as they have the easiest return policies. Using "Super Saver Shipping" it arrived in 7 days and looked good.

Setup was a no brainer, although I still read through the surprisingly thin, but very adequate manual. Ran a test batch of water and had no leaks and no obvious problems. My wife commented on it being noisy, but it didn't really phase me. (It reminded me of when a coffee pot needs cleaning due to calcium buildup.) However, this will be running when we're asleep anyway.

It does not come with any test/sample filters, but the smaller V-filters from our Braun work fine for 8 cups - a full 10 cups might be pushing it. The best part is that the coffee is rich, strong, and hot! Hot after brewing; hot (and fresh) after 2 hours of sitting in the carafe.

A few final comments regarding other complaints I read:
- The carafe lid - it does have ridges that I can see being hard to open if clamped down tight, but we've noticed no ill effects from simply not screwing it as tight as it goes.
- The controls - extremely intuitive. However, if you press the hour or minute buttons it will change the time (as opposed to having to hold a "time change" button as well). I don't see this as a problem as 99% of the time you're going to keep the timer at the same time, which means just pressing one "Auto" button every night.
- The size/design - definitely measure your cabinet space first as this would be a problem if your cabinets hang too low. I think it's actually very stylish as there's no boxiness like most coffeemakers. From habit most people are used to pulling carafes from the front, so the controls here seem to be on the "side" and out of the way. However, turning this so the controls face out instead of the carafe takes up much less useful counter space, and the carafe can still be pulled out toward you. (The carafe can be pulled out of three different sides.)

This is by far my favorite coffee maker I've owned. I'm almost tempted to buy another and put it in storage should this one fail...
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