As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently brought a new coffee maker.  I love coffee.  I love a good hot cup of tea as well, but I have to confess that coffee is my first love in hot drinks.  I had a coffee maker that I liked; it had a great looking design that was different from most of the standard makers on the market.  It also made a great cup of coffee when it was new.  However, as so many products tend to be today, it was made cheaply and after about a year of use parts started failing.  The final straw was when the warming plate gave up the ghost.  The coffee would start cooling as soon as it entered the carafe and only the first cup of coffee would be warm enough for my tastes.  I like my coffee hot, not lukewarm.

Last week I decided to go in search for a new coffee maker.  I wanted something that was different, something that would be attractive since it would always be on display.  I don’t keep a lot of clutter on my kitchen worktops preferring to keep the blenders and food processors and other tools stored out of the way when not in use.  However, as I sated above, I love coffee and sometimes I will end up making it several times a day.  Therefore, the maker has a permanent place on the worktop beside my cooker and as such, I wanted something attractive.  Finding a coffee maker that was a bit different without breaking my budget proved to be a bit difficult, so I had to skimp a bit on that aspect.  I did want a coffee maker with a thermal carafe instead of a warming plate.  Warming plates only end up cooking the coffee and the first cup is the best.  The longer the coffee sits on the warming plate, the worst it will taste.  I have dumped a lot of cups down the sink because of this bad side effect of warming plates.

The maker I ended up buying was a DeLonghi DC55TC.  This maker comes from an Italian company and their products have been known to be excellent.  However, before I buy any products, I do a good lookup of reviews from actual users.  I found a mix of reviews for this coffee maker.  Most of the reviews complained of problems with the water not entering the carafe and making a mess on the worktop.  I also found a couple of reviews in which the reviewer had encountered this problem on first use and stated that it was not the maker; they had failed to place the carafe completely under the drip.   Most of the reviews stated the maker made an excellent tasting coffee, so I decided that I would give it a try and if it did spill coffee onto the worktop, I would take it back immediately and get a refund.  I am happy to say that I have had no problems from spillage when the maker is brewing the coffee.  Furthermore, the carafe pours without dripping; a problem that I had with the carafe from my old maker.  My boyfriend poured coffee all over my worktop one morning when he went to get a cup of coffee.  I am glad that I won’t have to watch him when he is getting a cup with my new maker.  The only problem I have found is that the coffee isn’t as hot as I would like it to be.  I like my coffee hot and while the coffee is hot, it is not hot enough.  I add cream to my coffee and of course the cream cools the coffee down a bit.  The thermal carafe does a reasonable job of keeping the coffee hot.  Of course it will cool down if it sits long enough, but a pop into the nuker will take care of heating it and since the coffee isn’t cooking on a warming place, tastes as almost as good as a fresh brewed cup.

I have only had the maker for a short period, but so far it seems to be a nice coffee maker.  If that changes, I will let you know.