I'm a big fan of my Chemex pour-over. There are for sure some downsides. Most notably, it's not a push a button and leave sort of deal. Due to this, though, you control the water temperature, and pour, because it's your own hand doing it. It also uses proprietary filters that aren't the easiest to get. I live in downtown Boston and have found a few places within walking distance that carry them. But it's not a matter of going to your local supermarket and grabbing them off the shelf. Coffee geeks also will note often that said proprietary filters impart a "papery" taste into the coffee. I do a rinse with about a cup of hot water and then dump it down the drain before I add my grounds and that takes care of any sort of taste. The final plus? I think it looks beautiful sitting on my counter :)

I was curious about your statement since Technivorm is supposed to be be one the of the few that brew at the correct temperature so I went to see what they say at sweetmarias and found the following statement. They do measure it in the cup and find it at 156 but they feel that's plenty hot for drinking as do I. I'm not sure how you'd prevent temperature drop off in a drip maker unless you only brew a single cup like the Keurig. I suppose you could reheat in a microwave right after brewing?!? "We have had some feedback from folks who find the coffee brewed not hot enough in the Technivorms. There is a steep drop off once the water hits the grounds and then drops to the pot - that is to be expected. Testing the machines at our warehouse in Oakland (elev. 8 feet) - I get the following temperatures: 195 to 205 degrees F at the brewhead; in the grounds, 160 degrees F; and 156 degrees F in the pot. I find 156 degrees too hot to actually taste anything - so I let it cool a bit. Some folks find this too cool - they are used to the coffee being heated on a hot plate above brewing temperature but I can't taste anything in a liquid that hot - so reheating the coffee does not make much sense for me. I know that some folks are used to coffee that hot though - that is what they are accustomed to. -Tom"

We've always had a programmable coffee pot that we set up the night before & it's brewed by the time we get up. Finding a pot we like is hit or miss; the last one was krups KM4065- has a dual timer; so we can push 1 for it to brew for hub & 2 for it to brew for me. Nice if you get up at different times. There were various things I dislike about it; mainly the top lid where you fill the coffee & water; I hate that it's one piece. We like pots where there is a lid over the grinds & another over the water fill. Can't count the number of times I spilled the grinds into the water. It died this morning; so we'll be looking for a new pot. Thankfully we keep one in the basement for days like this. It's one of our old ones that the teflon came off of the burner; otherwise it works but burns the coffee We've found that pots that take the #4 filter have a better flavor then the Mr Coffee type filter. The reason is that it takes longer for the hot water to pass over the grinds.

Sorry Snidely, gotta disagree with you on this one. You're representing totally subjective terms as being absolute fact, which they're not. I totally disagree that drip is "more flavorful". There certainly is no documentation to that claim, since there's no objective way to quantify the claim. It's all subjective, it's a matter of taste. A good number of people agree with me that a percolator is a far more flavorful coffee than drip. Saying coffee was poorer in the past is again totally subjective. Today's foo-foo coffees that are so fashionable are generally favored by those who need to have it diluted with creamers, flavorings and sugar in order to drink it since they don't want a coffee taste. They need it adulterated to drink it. Hardly makes that a better coffee than the past. Different, yes, but not better. My position is the same holds true for cooking a ham. I prefer it be the meat, and appreciate the quality and taste of it rather than covering it with sugars. I don't think a steak needs to be covered with ketchup or steak sauce but some will tell you unequivocally better so buried. Today's society requires the addition of ridiculous amounts of sugar to make things "better". Sweeter isn't always better to a developed palate. To those raised on fast food, frozen food and prepared by mediocre cooks, sugar saves the day for them. Not for me. The other point few people understand is the quality of water required. IMO, you don't make good coffee with lousy water. And all the Starbucks and foo-foo "coffees" (which calling them coffee is argumentative anyway), together with an uncleaned maker of any type, using tap water as most all of them do, is what people want to call "better" when IMO it's far from it. Many of these places might filter their water which can help but it doesn't help when they don't change the filters which is a common negligence. Many people don't know good coffee from bad because they've never used good water, never clean their maker and never drink it unadulterated. They don't really know how coffee actually tastes.