
Great, convenient, single-serving coffee maker
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
I got the Senseo machine for my office. The idea was -- instant, high-quality coffee on demand in a small space. The Senseo fits the bill very nicely.
First, 5 "cups"?! Hardly! Certainly not the 8-oz. cups I'm used to. A "cup" is like a double-shot espresso -- about half a regular cup of coffee. In fact, the traditional American coffee mug will take 2 "cups".
Now the good news. It has a 2-cup setting (although can overflow some mugs. Watch out for that. And, as soon as it's done with those 2 cups, you can pop out the pods and pump out another 2-cups. Water's low? Easy to refill. I keep a Brita pitcher right next to it (not just for coffee, but it's conveniently located for that nonetheless. So, even is 5 "cups" is really 2.5 cups, you can easily exceed that by refilling the water.
The pods can run up the price on your coffee pretty quickly. A number of companies have come out with "fill your own" pod replacements. Ecopad is one. But I typically see the Euro style on eBay -- hard to find the brown American ones. The downside of those is that they require the 2-cup tray for a 1-cup serving. That's mitigated by the fact that you can run the 1-cup serving twice, back-to-back to get your bargain Senseo coffee.
Okay, how 'bout the coffee? It's good. It's an expresso/Turkish ground, and water is pumped through it (a la espresso). So, not surprisingly, it tastes like espresso. I like it.
The Senseo is very easy to use. I've been making my own espresso drinks for years, but the Senseo is dirt-simple. Press the power button to warm it up. If you're busy like me, set a time to go back and make your coffee after about a minute or two. Put 1 or 2 pods in the appropriate tray. Push the top down -- nice easily recognizable click indicates it's closed properly. Push the button for the appropriate number of "cups" (1 or 2). Come back in about a minute and you have your coffee. Some say to run plain water once to allow the heating element to come up to full temp for a properly hot cup of coffee. I'm a little heat sensitive, so I like it as it is the first time.
I probably wouldn't have spent full retail for the Senseo (unless my circumstances changed somewhat dramatically), but I think it's a great value for the prices I see on eBay.
Best regards.
Review ID: 10000000005408117

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