The coffee maker you use can make or break your coffee. With the right machine, you will enjoy rich cups of hot brew every day, while a cheap or poorly functioning one will never turn out the right kind of coffee. Selecting a coffee maker is serious business and it helps to inform yourself ahead of time as to what is available. 

The majority of people don’t have time for fancy French presses or other methods of brewing their coffee, so we’ll be looking at automatic drip machines, of which there are quite a few different kinds.

If you are the only person who drinks coffee in your house and you either limit yourself to one or two cups a day or prefer to brew a fresh pot each time, a single serve coffee maker is ideal. This type of coffee maker uses coffee pods, which look like tea bags, to brew just one cup at a time. These types of coffee makers are fairly limited in the manners of usage, you can usually only choose the size of the cup and nothing more. However, if you want to make more coffee, whether for sharing among several people or to be taken throughout the day, a more traditional style brewer might be better. Of these, you have the choice of a hot plate or carafe style.

The hot plate is the most common, with the glass coffee pot sitting on a heating pad to maintain the coffee at a hot temperature. This tends to create a not so pleasant coffee if it sits all day, though, so you might be better off serving this style of coffee immediately.

The carafe is basically a thermos that uses the coffee’s own heat to preserve the temperature and it tends to produce a better tasting coffee over the period of a day. While this is a nice feature if you are looking for a new coffee maker, you can simply use a thermos if you already have a hot plate version. The carafe tends to be a little more costly than a hot plate, as well.

A hot plate or carafe coffee maker will likely have a timer so you can set it to start brewing right before you get up, ensuring fresh, hot coffee to start your morning. These larger coffee makers also tend to have quite the array of features, each one making it a little more expensive. It is usually in your best interest to ignore the features you don’t want or need and go for a simpler maker.

Choosing a coffee maker is a big decision and if you select the right one, you will not regret it. Having a great cup of coffee every morning is easy with the correct brewing machine!

Filed under: Coffee Machines, carafe coffee maker, Coffee Machines, coffee pods