Question:
My favorite thing about my coffeept is the TIMER! Just tell it to, andit makes your coffee at 6 AM so you wake up to the smell of afresh-brewed pot. nice way to get out of bed.

It's a proctor-silex from target. i find that it's more important toconsider the quality of the bean that the coffeemaker itself. I used touse a french press but i just wasn't happy with it. i get whole beansand grind them fresh.

people tell me i have great coffee. i like it too much to drinnk crappycoffee.

Answer: ADC (or any brewing method) is 95% dependant on the coffeeused, how freshly roasted, and how it's ground, and only 5% on themachine/method. The next most important criteria (regardless of allthe aforementioned details, is how soon after brewing coffee isconsumed... coffee is best when consumed within one (1) minute ofbrewing... ten (10) minutes after brewing coffee has already lost 50%of it's flavor, because 95% of coffee flavor is actually aroma... ifyour smeller doesn't work well then any darkly colored bitter liquidwill suffice. No human over age 30 can decern good coffee anyway, byage 30 the human olfactory organ has lost better than 50% of it'sability to perceive any odors acurately, simply a biological fact. Sonext time you see old geezers as coffee tasters you will know that it's100% charade/showmanship. So don't believ anyone over the age of 30 wholectures you about the particular benefits of how to brew coffee...their comments are as accurate as a totally blind person describing thecolor nuances of fall foilage. And I'm being very, very generous withthe age 30 cut off.

I drink way too much coffee to move up to espresso. I believe theproper brewing temp is 205F and a good bean is one you like the tasteof. So get a brewer that brews at 205F and find a bean and a grind youlike (harder than it sounds). I like dark european roasted beans thebest. I like the taste they have. And I like a real fine grind. Butthat's just me...find your own preferences.

Tying the brewer method plus machine and the bean roast you like cantake a long time. But inroads can be made fairly cheaply getting in theballpark, so to speak, on the type of roast.

I love a good old fashioned French Press. Tried a Mr Coffee and Braunelctric coffee maker, but the flavor from the French Press is thebest.

coffee makers only matter if you're SELLING coffee makers.

What matters more than the coffee maker, even more than the coffee perse, is the water... after all, brewed coffee is better than 99.9%water.And if you drink your coffee with anything added, ie. milkk, crem,sugar, flavorings, then the coffee or how it is brewed matters not awhit... mixing anything with coffee is no different from using topshelf booze to make whisky sours. If yoose drink lattes you ain'tdrinking brewed coffee at all, may as well be instant.

But if you have your heart set on a drip machine, I like Melitta orbraun.

One of the secrets to good coffee (other than the obvious point of notbuying cheap, canned "brand name" coffee) is to use DI water and_unbleached_ coffee filters! Once I got used to the raw paper coffeefilters, I could taste the chemical taste in the coffee from thebleached filters.

The other real advantage to using distilled/deionized water in thecoffee maker is that the machine "lives" longer and you never have torun vinegar thru it to clean it out. No hard water deposits

FWIW: While "manning" a booth at the Specialty Coffee of AmericaAssociation (it is SCAA but can never remember where the 2 "A"sgo)--anyway, I was told many times, that the gold filter imparts theleast taste. I was told, white filters impart a white paper taste tofine coffee and brown/natural impart a brown bag flavor, so only usethose "gold" kind.