Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As one does, I spent a lot of time researching the world of coffemakers before this purchase that involved perusing the SCAA website as well as countless coffeemaker reviews, and there were relatively few reviews of this coffee maker, so I was a little nervous. I need not have worried - this baby makes awesome coffee. Having had our normal drip coffee maker die, and having read the NYT article about coffee several months earlier, we were excited about changing up our coffee routine. We switched from a rotary grinder to the Baratza Encore burr grinder. We bought a scale. We got this coffee maker. In my research I also looked at the Technivorm Moccamaster, but that seemed to be something you needed to potchy with while it's brewing, and I don't need to be that actively involved - why not just get a regular pour over filter in that case? The Bonavita, most reviewers' top choice, had carafe issues that I didn't feel like dealing with. The OXO Barista Brain had really mixed reviews and seemed unnecessarily fussy and expensive for what it was. Things to like about the Cuisinart CPO-800: 1. The coffee is really good. It took a little getting used to - the SCAA guidelines have you use a LOT of coffee, which we did, on the bold setting. Clearly we are not as cool as the rest of the coffee aficionados who like this bitter, nasty flavor (yes, we tried different coffees). We also tried the medium setting with the same amount of coffee - this was better, but yikes were we using up our coffee supply quickly. Eventually, we settled at about 2/3 of what the guidelines say to use with bold and hot (which is plenty hot enough). We also use the steel filter provided, which really tells you what heathens we are, because everyone knows that coffee tastes better with paper filters. 2. It brews fast! I haven't timed it, but if we forget to set it in the morning to brew while we walk the dogs, it's no big deal because the coffee is done before I've packed my lunch for work. 3. It's attractive. Who cares, right? Well - it's a nice feature. It doesn't have a really big profile and looks nice (in a Jetsons kind of way) on the counter. 4. The hot plate keeps the coffee hot without burning it. (See - heathens. Real coffee elites would have gotten the thermal carafe version). Things I don't like: 1. Really, only that the carafe is pretty small. It's just about big enough for one cup of coffee each and then one person to selfishly fill their travel mug while leaving the person who leaves for work later with about 1/2 a cup. However, as mentioned above, it brews so fast that it's easy to make more.