Auf wiedersehen Herr Braun, hello Mr. Coffee

[unixronin]

For the past 12 years, I've had a Braun FlavorSelect coffeemaker.  It did a great job, made good coffee, made decent tea, and had nice features like a replaceable zeolite water filter in the water tank.  About a week ago, it stopped brewing.

Well, I fussed with it some, restarted the cycle, and it brewed a pot.  Then stopped again the next day.  We tried restarting it several times with no success, ran some dilute vinegar solution through it, tried to brew again, no joy.  Ran a full tank of straight white vinegar through it, at the end of which water seemed to be flowing fairly freely.  Tried to brew again ... no go.  I tried to take it apart to see if something internal was clogged, but it turns out you cannot disassemble it without removing one deeply-recessed screw with a special 3-lobed head.  Clearly, Braun does not intend it to ever be end-user serviced.  So, we started looking around for a replacement.

Turns out I can buy a new FlavorSelect online for about $50.  However, Costco had a Mr. Coffee FTX20 12-cup coffeemaker for $35.  We have a perfectly good spare carafe and two "permanent" filters for the Braun, though, so if price was close, we'd be better off with the Braun.  I wasn't sure about buying a Mr. Coffee, but then we found we had a $10 off coupon from Costco, making it half the price of the Braun.  So yesterday, we went to Costco to (among other things) look at the Mr. Coffee model.

There's a few differences.  Its front-panel clock is an analog LCD instead of digital; but it's backlit unlike the Braun's, and is also used as a timer to show how long ago the coffee was brewed.  It only keeps the coffee warm for two hours, not four, and only has two flavor settings ("regular" and "strong"); but the temperature of the carafe warmer is adjustable, and the water tank level is easier to see and can be read from both sides.  It uses a basket-type filter, not a cone, so it wouldn't take the filters that fit the Braun; but it does come with a permanent filter included.  It doesn't have a 3-month zeolite filter in the water tank, but does come with a 1-month activated-carbon filter that goes under the showerhead (and we use prefiltered water in it anyway).

The big cosmetic issue was that while the coupon showed a black coffeemaker, all the boxes we could see were white ones.  Sure, white appliances look nice ....when they're new.  But white plastic invariably yellows with age, which is why if I have to buy a plastic appliance, I try to buy it in black.  We thought about going to ask one of the staff ... I looked all aroung the display, even lifting up boxes to look into the middle of the stack, and ... wait a minute!  There, down on the bottom layer, in the middle of the stack, was one single FTX23, in black.

So now we are coffee-enabled again.  Auf wiedersehen, Herr Braun; hello, Mr. Coffee.

And you know what?  It makes pretty good coffee, too.  And that's the important thing.

Comments

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

~paints yer coffee maker neon pink with green polka dots of various sizes~

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

AUUGH!!!

*wibble*

Speaking of which .... coffee's done.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

what's wibble?

On the inside or the outside?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

On the outside it's a shudder with a very pained look on the face.

Re: On the inside or the outside?

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

perfect, that's exactly the response my painting should elicit!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

A seemingly-innocent, but damning question from which I brilliantly deduce that you don't read User Friendly! (http://www.userfriendly.org) ;)

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

you deduce correctly!

because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

How did you find out which coffee bush produced our coffee beans? And wouldn't it make more sense to paint it with neon pink polka dots as it is already green?

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

i thought the new coffeemaker was black?

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The coffeemaker, yes. But the bush was green. :)

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

where did the bush come from?

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Kona! Or perhaps India.

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

i'm not paintin no bush in india or kona!

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

But you ~said~ that you already painted the coffee maker... :-)

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

the black, electric device that runs hot water through ground coffee beans and produces hot coffee for drinking!

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

But that's not the coffee maker! That's the coffee brewer! ;-D

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

iffin coffeemaker's good enough for unixronin, it's good enough for me!

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, the original source of coffee is currently believed to be Ethiopia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee)

Re: because he didn't respond when I commented via chat...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Actually, our coffee seems to have come from Columbia so I was off to begin with. But I knew it wasn't Ethiopian. That's some expensive stuff but oh so good. Need to find a Whole Foods around here to get some more.