Rated 5 out of
5
by
DCLivingston from
Met my needs
Technically, the coffee maker has mature features without being over-engineered. The drip system into the thermos is quite good; the prebrew saturation works quite nicely; keeping the coffee warm post brewing is a nice method without overdoing it. It's easy to keep clean, takes up less space than I thought it would, and, if it's important to the user, it looks quite good and timeless in design. The digital control is easy, but does take a little learning initially. My drinking habits in the morning are that 8 cups of coffee are made at 6 am and drink on that until late morning. First cup is around 175º F and by 9 am it is still above 150º F or more. In fact it stays hot for at least 2 hours, I would say, then begins to cool somewhat. I usually microwave it by cup as I need to and don't find the taste degraded at all. Cleanup is easy. I used to habitually make K-cups or perhaps French press in the evening but the Zwilling is so quickly cleaned, I'll make a fresh pot of coffee in the evening. I can't say I have any complaints about it. The only thing that comes to mind is, when cleaning and lifting the drip mechanism, water remaining in the dripper runs down into where the filter basket would be and goes onto the thermos stand. A little messy.
Date published: 2025-06-11
Rated 1 out of
5
by
sltckt from
Disappointing - Poor Design - Stains Easily
The box and advertising says the part that the water comes out of is stainless steel. Does not seems like stainless steel - seems like shiny plastic - that has to be cleaned after every use because coffee splashes up onto the part. Having stainless steel part to dispense water was a huge selling point for me, so this was disappointing. Also, I honestly thought it came with a Stainless basket for the coffee as well, because the photos show it. Water cavity markings are FAINT and very hard to read. Have to run hot water into the carafe before use so the coffee stays hot for a few hours. CANNOT use carafe for water into the maker because the water cools the inside of the carafe and makes the resulting coffee not as hot. Carafe hard to clean. Top hard to clean - I have the silver machine with white trim. The white trim - especially on the the top of the carafe - is hard to clean. Stains after each use. Can see stains inside top - but can’t get in there to clean properly. EVERY time you remove the top filter portion of the coffee maker, water drips down onto the tray. You have to slam it down 3 times to get the residual water to spill down - after every use. There are pools of water at the tops/hinge of the machine. It’s super annoying to have to clean it up after every use. The carafe seems to be aluminum inside - not sure really - but it is stained and has been since first week of use. Soap and water have to impact on stains, and I am not going to do harsh cleaners in the carafe. No matter the angle of the pour, the speed of the pour or any other trick you try, you cannot pour coffee without drips. The top lip of the carafe has an edge that has to be scrubbed after each use to get coffee stain off of the plastic. You will miss the smell of coffee brewing in the morning. Because the coffee drips into a sealed lidded carafe - you cannot smell the brew, and you will miss that. And, frankly and most important - the coffee is not any better than other machines. I kept my old machine in storage, and today after trying this machine for 3 full months; I am trashing this zwilling and going back to my cuisinart. This was a huge disappointment.
Date published: 2025-03-13