Coffee and Caffeine FAQ

First off, it is not a manufacturer issue if it becomes a consumer problem — or an overflow! Secondly, we're talking Cuisinart and Krups, both of which dominate the market alongside Mr. Coffee. These aren't off brands by any means. My gripe is that standards need to be standards that are adopted across the board — or they aren't standards at all. Third, I would not categorically claim that weaker coffee is better. I am saying that the *manufacturer* is making that decision for us to a greater extent then most people appreciate. The workaround is to brew partial pots. But some households and office environments go through more than one pot per day so it is a big deal. Unless the manufacturer directions endorse the 2TBSP standard, brewing a full pot using the proper measure is risky. Better to let people know that such limitations exists on a good many of these machines than not.

I've literally read hundreds of reviewers while shopping for coffeemakers and it is astounding how many overflow complaints exist across all makes/models. Having recently purchased one of these "problem" designs, the Cuisinart DTC-975, one reviewer astutely pointed out that there is an upper limit, something like 16 TBSP, to avoid troublesome overflows. A lot of machines use a #4 filter, but many of the 5 oz carafes cut off at 10 cups, so even if you accidentally measure for a 6 oz cup you're upper limit is a 10 cup brew so there's some measure of safety built in. The problem arises when trying to add enough coffee for what you mistakenly *think* is a 6-oz measure for a 12-cup (5oz) carafe, in part because the filter is the same size filter that they use for the 10 cup models. (The paper or permanent filter hasn't gotten any bigger to accommodate those 2 extra cups or 4TBSP that users following this standard are pairing to 10 oz more water vs. 12.)

This sounds confusing, but it boils down to this: The manufacturer would "endorse" the 2TBSP per cup measure if 1) it would fit at full capacity, 2) the specific coffeemaker in question used a 6 oz carafe. But go download a couple of owner's guides and you will be shocked to find that many of these manufacturers aren't using 6 oz at all. And that doesn't even take into account that there are a whole host of people who assume that a "cup" of coffee as marked on the side of a carafe is equal to the 8 oz variety.

I don't claim weaker it is better. This isn't about how I measure my coffee but how *they* measure theirs, and in turn the limitation that puts on us. If you read some of the terrible reviews on Amazon and elsewhere, the common denominator in complaints is overflow issues. Moreover the split between people who assign a positive rating to a coffee machine, even those costing over $100 is about 60/40, and sometimes 30/70 on *name brands*, not the drugstore makes nobody has ever heard of! Those are lackluster marks overall, and it can't be that there are so many lemons so what else explains it? Just possibly, confusion over this very point. Where else, except the BUNN website that I know of, are you even going to get a hint that you need to downscale that measure depending on what machine you own?

The reality is that people new to this information don't know what they don't know so the awareness isn't going to be there —— just the frustrations of not knowing why these machines are sometimes prone to overflow and other times not, why some coffee is good and other times not (because somebody is following their user manual and it doesn't mention using 2TBSP). Meanwhile, the people who DO know the "proper" way to measure out coffee in all likelihood aren't going to think they need to brush up on coffeemaking by using an owner's guide as a reference because, well, they already *know*. That's two camps of people who, for different reasons, aren't going to be pulling out their calculator and doing conversions. Instead they'll either suffer bad coffee or frustrating overflows — hence the value of an FYI to first and foremost follow the directions that come with your machine because those directions will vary.

Whether the resulting coffee is weak or not is a matter of my personal taste. This is what a significant portion of the coffee manufacturing "industry" is TELLING people to do. A #4 cone filter, as I pointed out, won't even hold 1.5 Cups worth of grounds comfortably. If that is "incorrect" the place to object is with the manufacturers for designing misleading carafes that are not compatible with official coffee brewing standards. I'm just the messenger here trying to help a fellow coffeemaker out. One of the reasons people are going to land on your site is that A) They want their coffee to taste better — chances are it is weak because they aren't adding enough coffee because, just maybe, they read their owner's manual and it didn't clarify this; and B) They are trying to figure out what they did wrong if and when doing it the right way doesn't "agree" with their machine and the coffee is all over the counter. I could have posted this to my own blog, but instead I decided this warning/fyi needed the exposure of your website. I hope the site owners/readers appreciate the effort because you aren't going to find it spelled out quite so clearly somewhere else.