A Coffee Brewer Four Me

Back in the late eighties drip coffee was hitting full stride with over fifty percent of the market but pour over and press still represented about fifteen percent of the market.  The final push for these customers began in earnest as smaller four cup drip coffee brewers began hitting store shelves.  A person making a couple 12 fl oz mugs with a filter cone or press might not want a ten or twelve cup coffee maker but would not be able to resist the convenience of these little appliances.  A major player in this market and coffee in general was Krups.

Their Brewmaster Junior was popular since it made up to twenty fluid ounces of very hot coffee using thermal technology to keep the water hot through out the brewing process.  The successor to this model, the Krups Model 105 Cafe Prima carried on this tradition with the same fully enclosed double wall brewing chamber which actually is a lidded filter cone that sits on top of the four cup Pyrex brand carafe.  Available according to the box in white or - like mine - in black.

The lighted power switch and stow away cord along with a magnified water level indicator gave this model a strong feature set when compared to other small coffee makers in this class.  The addition of a Teflon coated heating plate was icing on the cake making clean up a snap.  The unit relies on number two size cone filters which holds 40 grams of very fresh coffee without overflowing the brewing chamber from the bloom.  The heater is 650 watts but the thermostat is set sufficiently high to allow for shower head temperature readings consistently hitting between 190 and 200 degrees F. thoughout the brewing process and a toasty 180 degrees F in the carafe for the finished pot.

The coffee finishes brewing fast and tastes great. This is one of the nicer small four cup brewers I have found lately, and with luck you can find one too. Unfortunately these haven't been available from Krups for a while now.  I have a feeling these small brewers were nice, but still not enough to sway the die hard fifteen percent of pour over and press coffee drinkers to plug in to the convenience of auto drip since not many really nice ones are available from manufacturers.  The increase in single serve coffee might have been the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.  

I am not married to any one method of coffee preparation but I do have a soft spot in my heart for the small pot of auto drip when it is prepared in a decent brewer like this four cup Krups Cafe Prima. 

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