A few years ago when visiting the company office in Munich Germany I was introduced to this “Bean to Cup” concept that wasn’t a vending machine. They literally had the same coffee maker. While I thought the maintenance, and extra work seemed like a little too much to have to deal with every time you wanted a cup of coffee. I quickly got over it.
When I returned home I started looking at them.
Krups Espresseria (< $600 now)
$900, $700, are you kidding me? So I turned to ebay, and bought a ‘barely used’ like new model for about $300. When I told Claudine I had purchased a $300 coffee maker she gave me that look.
The look I had seen once before, when we were first married, over 27 years ago, when I had to explain to her that I spent the rent money on a new camera body. It was not a good look.
Needless to say it didn’t take long to convert her. This thing makes excellent coffee. Is it worth over $600? (These are now under that new, because they are a little long in the tooth). I’d say yes. Hard to believe but yes.
The red one in the photos is the original used unit that I purchased about 3 years ago. It has been back to the factory for repairs, twice. Once for the grinder, and then when we got it back it wasn’t right so we sent it back and the put new brains in it. It has over 4400 coffee cycles today and had over 3600 when that event happened.
We drink a lot of coffee. There are at least 4 of us that have multiple cups per day. Word on the street is that they really only last about 3,000 cycles. But we’re going strong at over 4400 after the last rebuild.
It is not perfect though, and there are things I’d change and be willing to pay money for. So if you know of a similar sized unit that has some of these features for less than $2000 let me know.
- This is a single bean unit. Which means you can have any flavor coffee you want as long as it’s the kind that’s in the hopper.
- I’d love a unit that would let me side-load decaf now and then (for guests of course).
- Or some other flavor, or even pre-ground coffee.
- The ability to brew more than 10 ounces (a double) in a single button push (actually two button pushes but who’s counting?).
- Ideally a larger used coffee hopper, since most of the folks in my family are doing double or long coffee’s and you have to empty the thing about every 4 or 5 cups. (both the drip tray and the grind hopper).
- Would be nice to have a larger cup area so you could put a tall travel cup. Today we have to make 2 or 3 coffee’s and dump them in. Not a deal breaker but would be a nice to have.
This thing get’s two thumbs up from the disher household.
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