Last week, I made one call to QVC's order line a little after 2 o'clock in the morning and scored the last Melitta Clarity 10-cup coffeemaker they had at the time. I was told I could expect it to arrive on March 24. UPS delivered it to me a little before noon on March 22. Its own packing box was packed into another box which was half again the volume needed to pack it propperly. The rest of the volume of that outer box was about 1-3 filled with those yucky foam packing "peanuts". The coffeemaker had shifted to the bottom and to one end of the outer box, a good reason not to use those foam peanuts.
Two more-or-less form-fitting heavy foam inserts cradled the Clarity and kept it away from the sides and ends of its factory-sealed shipping box. A flat piece of thin bubble wrap material kept the bottom of the carafe from directly touching the warmer plate, and a folded cardboard insert was placed between the carafe lid and the bottom of the filter basket, with a cut-out to protect the dripstop valve. The carafe was wrapped in one layer of bubble wrap around the sides and held together with a piece of tape. The hinged covers for the brew basket and the fill tank were held down by small pieces of tape. The plug pins on the 1-meter long heavy polarized power cord were protected by a cover and the cord was folded over four times and tied with a bread-bag plastic tie. The machine was placed inside a heavy plastic bag before it went into the foam cradle inserts. The factory did a nice packing job; QVC less so, although there was no damage to either box, no bashed corners, no scars made by forklift tynes, no indication that the package had been dropped, banged around, or been dropped on by something larger and/or heavier.
By comparison, CostCo had shipped my Presto in its factory box alone, no outer box with any kind of energy-absorbing packing material. That package also arrived here, and just after the Christmas package rush, with no camage to the package or its contents.
Now, we open up the machine for first impressions.
When I got it all unpacked and untaped and unwrapped, I found a machine that somewhat reminded me of the form factor of that Technivorm I saw at the SCAA conference in Atlanta last year. I do like all that stainless steel on the base of the unit and around the housing area for the pump and electronic elements. The smooth clear plastic of the water tank seems to be a bit thin and not very smoothly finished off on its top. At least Melitta did not cut a hole in the back of the tank, chosing instead to have some slots cut into the tank's hinged plastic cover.
The filter basket is among the largest available for machines that take the Melitta No. 4 style filters. The large no. 4 gold-tone permanent filter that came with a Krups Cafe Aroma 12-cup model barely fits inside the basket, filling it up completely. That filter won't even fit inside the considerably smaller basket of a Presto model.
I can see why some people have already broken the glass on that straight-sided pot-style carafe. I don't particularly like that thin handle, but it is at least large and comfortable to hold. It would also be nice if the carafe lid had been designed to actually more completely cover the top of the carafe.
I notice that the carafe also does not completely cover the warmer plate, if the carafe is placed toward one edge of that plate, there's half an inch of potentially hot plate to catch an errant finger, a design feature I haven't seen on any other machine, Melitta models included, since the 1970's or maybe 1980.
There's that less-than optimal dripstop mechanism, a dripstop that probably won't. A spring-loaded valve pushes the stopper up vrom the bottom when the carafe cover pushes it up. Gravity and a spring lower the valve plugging the drip hole with the small rubber stopper inside the filter basket when the carafe is moved out from under the valve. This is the same design as they use in the Presto. I wonder if that's a feature of that "scandinavian design" both models crow about on their makers' respective websites. At least, the Clarity's cover is design such that, the valve will have time to do its thing and those last few drips of liquid will fall onto the cover and be channeled into the carafe instead of onto the hot warmer plate the way it does thanks to the poorly-shaped and much smaller carafe cover on the Presto.
You could get just about any carafe that is at least six-and-one-half inches tall and up to at least six inches in diameter to fit comfortably with the Clarity. The stock carafe is only about five inches in diameter, and does not even completely cover the warmer plate. Though it looks like it might be bigger, measuring with a measuring cup shows that the carafe of the Clarity and the one with the Presto hold exactly the same amount of tap-temp cold water, just over about 50 ounces. We're talking ten very small cups here. What with the Scandinavians? I thought they are famous for drinking great vast quantities of coffee, and all day, you know, that "Swedish gasoline" thing I used to hear about all through the 1960's and into the
1980's.This Clarity is not very heavy, but it's a relatively big sucker. It will won't counter space about six inches wide, about half an inch less than the Presto, and at least 14-1/2 inches long, at least four inches more than the Presto. Clarity stands about 13-1/2 inches tall and you'll need to pull it out from under any modern American standard overhead cabinet to swin the covers open. Stand that vrew basket cover straight up, and you're looking at about a 22-inch overhead clearance requirement.
The form factor of the Presto goes almost perfectly with the form factor design of the Solis Maestro grinder. You'd almost think they were made to go together. Aesthetically, the Clarity doesn't go with anything in my kitchen, but then again, I tend to favor function and practicality over form and style if I have to choose one over the other.
What were these designers thinking here? They tout brewing temperature, as Melitta has for quite some time now, yet the water path is going to route the heated water through five and one-half inches of vertical pipe placed right in the middle of the water tank full of water that is at whatever temperature you get when you draw it from the cold water faucet. ON the Presto, the travel path for the water is completely outside the fill tank. That definitely strikes me as being, Not Good! Once that water gets out of the tank, it just flows over a 3/4-inch wide
7-inch long plastic channel formed by the two parts of the filter basket cover, and plops out through a 1/4-inch diameter hole in the filter basket cover, positioned over the center of the basket. No shower head here! The Presto has an actual shower head, even if it is cheap plastic and even if six of its nine nozzles come plugged.I'l brew the first pot of coffee without taking a drill to that water pathway to add more holes for better water dispersion over the ground coffee during the brewing process. I think Ted's "shower head" mod for the Clarity is missnamed. They really cheaped out in that department. I guess you're not going to get what you don't pay for, but I"ve seen even cheaper machines with real showerhead style spray nozzles connected to the water tank by rubber or plastic hoses.
OH, nice control interface. What could be simpler! A nice small but sturdy two-position rocker switch on the back end of the base, under the slightly overhanging water tank, well protect from any stray streams of water. Turn it on, turn it off. No ill-fitting LCD, no tiny pushbuttons connected to the control board via cheap and flimsy contact points.
NOw it's time to make this new toy do it to it. One cup of vinegar and the remainder of the fill tank for cold water straight from the tap. It took about 8 minutes to transfer a tank full of water into the carafe. The water is definitely on the high end of the temperature range, as I expected, but not any more so than the Presto, or the older Melitta IBS-10S, or the early
1990's Krups Cafe Aroma, or the 1990's Braun FlavorSelect models, KF-15X and KF-18X, examples of all of which machines I currently have here.I noticed that as the wter level in the tank drops, I can definitely feel that vertical pipe getting mildly warm, so there is definitely some heat loss to the surrounding cold water in the tank as the heated water travels to the single opening in the basket cover. It must be heated pretty close to boiling vefore the water enters that pipe.
Since the brew basket cover is made of thin plastic, it gets very hot on top, so there is considerable heat loss through that cover before the water drops into the filter to brew the coffee. The design of the older IBS-10S and IBS-12S Melitta units was superior in this regard.
The second "brew" was plain cold water to run out the residue from the vinegar water. It still took about 8 minutes, just a little faster than the Presto, and at little over 20-percent slower than the Braun KF-157 would take to brew the same amount.
Let's brew some coffee! Well, sort of. I don't happen to have any freshly-roasted high-quality single-origin whole bean coffee in the house at the moment, so we're not gonna evaluate fine distinctions here. This is going to be a recently-bought batch of Eight O'clock Colombian Whole Bean
100-percent Arabica Coffee. I'll use exactly the same amount of beans as I would use in the Presto, and the water amount will be exactly the same, since both machines have the exact same "full" capacity. I'll use the same grind setting on the Solis Maestro grinder, and the ginding and the brewing will be part of the same coffeemaking operation.Since it's eight O'clock coffee, even though it ain't exactly cheap by supermarket standards, it's not 10-dollar-a-pound specialty coffee, so it won't hurt too much if I decide to experiment a bit and provide the kitchen sink drain with some extra acid-based out-slushings.
First pot of coffee from the Clarity: I"m not wowed at all. Even with a coffee like Eight O'clock Colombian Whole Bean coffee, I should still notice any difference if one machine actually brews better than the other. I did use the permanent filters in both machines. I doubt that, with this so-so coffee, I would have changed anything noticeably much had I used Melitta No.
4, FlavorPore paper filters in each machine instead of the permanent filters. Maybe I'll do that later when I get some really good coffee in here and see if there is any difference.I had just poured out the remainder of a batch from the Presto before I brewed the first batch in the Clarity. Comparing the two outputs, I did notice a slightly snappier estringent bite in the brew from the Clarity compared with the brew from the Presto. There was an ever-so-faint extra hint of a spicy note in the brew from the Clarity that was not there in the brew from the Presto, but I doubt the overwhelming majority of average coffee drinkers would be able to detect any difference at all between the two brews. I was specifically looking for any differences and barely noticed it. Unless I find myself surprised when I test these two machines using a good-quality specialty coffee, I'd say that the Presto and the Clarity definitely brew to a draw. I don't think the difference is even enough to claim that the Clarity "wins by a nose" over the Presto. The results could even be different if I repeated the test a couple hours later for all I know.
I noted that the Clarity turns on with the rocker switch pushed down instead of up, the exact opposite of what most North Americans would expect. That doesn't do anything to the qulity of the output, but most people would definitely notice that design quirk.
One more test for this first round: The Presto, which is controlled by a programmable interface, shuts off the warmer plate after two hours if you don't interveen and shut it off immediately after brewing stops. I have noticed that while the Presto keeps the coffee hot, it never has that burnt, caramelized convenience-store coffee taste and smell even after it has sat on the warmer plate being kept warm for more than an hour. Clarity seems to keep hotting up indefinitely if you keep it turned on. I poured off my 20-ounce mug full and let the rest of the brew sit there on the hot plate for about an hour and 20 minutes. It definitely had that burnt caramelized smell, which might have been partly due to the fact that more water could evaporate more quickly through that rather large opening in the top of the carafe, whereas the Presto's carafe would significantly limit that evaporation possibility. I did not sample any more of that coffee. It became a sink drink.
Mod! already!
When I pulled that bottom plastic piece off from the filter basket cover and saw how they made that water channel leading to that one hole over the center of the filter basket, I figured I would do my own version of Ted's "shower head" mod. I drilled out six additional holes inside that pathway, each one only slightly smaller in diameter than the one supplied by the factory. So now, both the Presto and the Clarity have been "shower head" modded. No repairs under warranty possibilities for eacher of these two machines now! I hope they don't crap out any time soon!
MOre, Later! When I get some real coffee in here!
Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA USA Email: snipped-for-privacy@bellsouth.net Phone: 1-404-814-0768
"I used a hand phaser, and ZAP! Hot Coffee!" - Yeoman Rand, Star Trek.