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I love dorking out on coffee. Hanging around with experts and working our way to some version of coffee perfection makes me happy. Know what else I love, though? A good cup that appears in my hand with little to no effort. Just press a button or two and—boop!—a fresh cup, ready to whisk me into my day.
If you're in that low-effort, high-reward coffee camp, I have the machine for you. (If you'd prefer to nerd it up instead, head right this way.)
The Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker is at the top of some of my favorite reviewers' lists, yet it appealed to me for a specific reason: sheer simplicity. It has just one rotating button for controls, and once you get settled into your regular pot, you'll likely just need to tap it twice to get it rolling.
Since I tested the machine while visiting my folks in New Hampshire over the summer and did a lot of early-morning fishing with Dad, the thing I was most excited about was the old-school wake-up timer. As someone who is in no way a morning person, this was a huge selling point. I could grind the beans and prep the machine at midnight, set the timer, and go to sleep. In the morning, I could stumble out of bed, fill my travel mug from the just-made pot, grab my fishing pole, and head down to the dock. I'd happily trade all sorts of bells and whistles and even a tiny bit of freshness for that convenience.
That doesn't mean there isn't plenty going on under the hood. This understated machine earned a coveted Gold Certification from the Specialty Coffee Association, a guarantee of several variables, like consistent high water temperature (a surprisingly common pitfall among coffee makers), that the water spends the proper amount of time flowing over the grounds, and that machines themselves are consistent from one unit to the next. The Oxo also has a thermal carafe, which keeps your hot coffee hot, instead of a glass carafe with a heating element, which tends to turn your hot coffee nasty.
Like a solid, understated luxury good, the Oxo barely draws attention to itself. The heater and tank take up the left side, and the basket and carafe occupy the right. That carafe is pleasingly solid and it pours very nicely. It doesn't even beep. The only (slightly) flashy bits are the lit-from-within Oxo logo in the button and the indicator lights that appear to inform you if it's brewing, ready, or the carafe is not seated correctly.
I'd been enjoying Lucas Roasting Company's pleasingly dark Wind & Water Blend and brought the coffee maker with me to meet the Lucas family: Troy; Jennica; and their teenage sons, Quinn and Kade, all of whom are the only employees at their headquarters in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.
Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker
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Troy and I got down to brass tacks quickly, brewing pots of his company’s French blend in his pro-level Bunn ICB brewer and the Oxo. We committed a tactical error right away, making the coffee in the Bunn to Lucas' dialed-in specs and going with the guidelines in the Oxo manual. The Bunn turned the Wind & Water into something fantastic, but we learned Oxo uses the Specialty Coffee Association specs for the recommended amount of grounds in a cup, and that makes what I'd respectfully call an Incredibly Strong Cup.
"At least for this blend, their recommended amount is way too much," as Troy delicately put it. He then asked me a question, "What do you write about when the guidelines for the perfect cup don't give you one?"
Troy and I ran out of testing time, but he gave me the grounds-to-water ratio that they use in the Bunn so I could fine-tune at home.
I brewed a couple more pots in the Oxo, keeping the high benchmark of his Bunn batch in the back of my mind. It didn't take long. By simply moving significantly toward the Lucas ratio and keeping all other variables unchanged, I made great progress. A couple of pots later, I brought a cup down to a chair on the dock at the lake, took a sip, and knew I was in my happy place.
When I thought about it, I realized I'd already been doing something very similar to this process at my folks' house when I first started using the machine. I'd grind, say, five cups' worth of grounds but fill the tank to the six or seven line, as part of the tinkering process we all do when we get a new brewer or type of coffee.
And really, this is what we all do when we use any new brewing method: fiddle with the water level, change the grind size, adjust the amount of grounds, hopefully just changing one variable at a time until we get a cup that tastes fantastic. In the background, the Oxo keeps the brew times right, the water hot, and the grounds uniformly saturated, meaning that once you get the personal-preference tinkering figured out, you've got your morning cup for life.
While I love this machine, I do have a few hopes for the future, namely a combination of the best qualities of this machine and its “little” sibling, the Oxo 8-Cup, which I reviewed last year. First, unlike the 8-Cup, the 9-Cup's controls are on the wide axis of the machine, essentially forcing you to let it hog counter space you likely don't have. Second, with a “regular” drip basket along with a smaller one that nestles inside it, the 8-Cup not only makes a great full pot, it nails the far-more-difficult single cup. (Cleverly, for anything under four cups, the 9-Cup slows the brewing cycle to make sure the water passes over the grounds for longer than most other brewers. Without the extra drip basket though, the 9-Cup just isn't as strong here.)
On the other hand, the 8-Cup doesn't have a clock, so you can't time a pot to greet your sleepy little head in the morning.
They are both fantastic coffee makers. Were they to be combined, though, they'd be approaching home-brewed perfection. I've never uncorked a perfect 10 in my reviews, but if that machine ever materializes, I might have to.
Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker
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