KRUPS KM550D50 Personal Café Grind Drip Maker Coffee Grinder, 4 cups, Silver

I LOVE this coffee maker! It's honestly like an automated French press as far as the flavor and ease go. Let me say I am very particular about my coffee; I home-roast my own organic beans and also buy organic and other roasted beans from the store. This coffee maker rivals the flavor of our French press due to its burr grinder, "bold" selector and small 2-cup pot (it says 4 cups, which is really 2 standard coffee cups). So I bought 2 to run/remake all the time in the mornings for our family of five.Cleanup: Easy! No different than washing up another coffee maker/French press/coffee maker parts or anything else that needs handwashing. I use the sprayer and spray the parts with hot water only then air-dry or hand-dry if making another pot immediately (weekends). Sometimes I want to remove the coffee oils, so I'll use some Dr. Bronner's in a foaming spray bottle then rinse. Sure, you have to rinse it between uses since it has a grinder and filter basket. Once a week I put the parts in the dishwasher (the carafe must be handwashed).I purchased 2 to use at once: I bought 2 of these for our family of five. When everyone is here on the weekends, we will brew and immediately rinse/dry and make another pot, so typically 4-6 pots each weekend morning. During the week, I brew 2 pots for four of us. Pros and cons follow after a bit more info.What we replaced and compare these to: First, these 2 carafes replaced our Cuisinart Grind and Brew which was making progressively weaker coffee (it only holds a certain amount of beans, and the grinder was NOT the burr grinder model). We have used a Cuisinart G & B for over 12 years. We also make percolated coffee at times, pour-over, and French Press plus a Keurig (with bold organic "kcups" from Aldi, or their hazelnut, donut store or decaf pods) at times for whomever wants it (great for company or late-in-day cups). This maker is like an automated French Press and is easier to wash/dry/clean than a French Press, in my opinion.Pros:1)Great coffee, rivaling a French press. I only use the finest 1 setting on grinder and BOLD grind. I can't promise what results you'll get with a coarser grind and not using the bold setting. I also use my own fresh-roasted beans or organic beans, but you can use whatever you like. * I will say Aldi's organic whole beans tasted like NOTHING....quite terrible, actually..in our old Cuisinart. The flavor was TRANSFORMED in these pots. The burr grinder and bold setting make all the difference.2)These pots are over-engineered and so solid! That's a rare find. So many coffee pots today--even our Cuisinart-- are cheaply made. I was ready to invest in an $800 coffee maker and kept finding reviews saying what "weak" and "inconsistent" coffee those made. I'm really a coffee snob, so I decided after 8 hours of research (no kidding!) to buy these. I'm glad I did. They are so well-made. I just started using them in late December, 2019 and expect them to last for years and years.3)Easy cleanup. Take 30 seconds to rinse all parts with a sprayer. You pop off the top by pressing button on right. I rinse it out, let it air dry. I slightly turn the bean housing to left; it lifts out. I empty reusable filter basket by whacking upside down on a bowl, these grinds go to compost. I rinse out this resuable filter basket with a sprayer for a few seconds, paying particular attention to hinged/recessed hinge where grinds will naturally pack (you'll see them in a fingernail-sized chunk when you rinse). Next, twist to release orange burr grinder, spray it. Next, spray out the bean housing part. I stick my pinkie through the filter basket housing side feeder toward grinder side to dislodge a tiny bit of grinds that accumulate here. Air dry like other parts. Then I squirt the pot with some Dr. Bronner's in a foam sprayer and rinse it out to dry on the rack too. Easy! This literally takes less than 30 seconds to clean all coffee parts. I wipe off the hotplate and maker with damp cloth as needed. That's it. I don't use soap except to run through dishwasher once a week. I don't see the bean oils as a bad thing when in plastic/etc as they don't go rancid and sort of "season" the parts, really (and once a week they get a sterilization in the top rack of dishwasher). No adverse taste noted with this easy practice. If you use a French press or wash a filter basket or coffee pot or bean grinder, it's no different than that, really. It is easier to clean than our Cuisinart Grind and Brew (which went to trash after many years of what I now realize was sub-par coffee!). And I do this cleaning X 2 with 2 pots every day, up to 6X on weekends when we all drink 2 cups each (which translates to one of these pots).4)Price: I bought 2 at $89/each with Prime free shipping. 2 great appliances I use daily at less than $200. The burr grinder is the real deal here---burr grinders alone can cost this or much more. A coffee maker with a burr grinder will cost $200 or more easy. You won't find this solid of a build (with adjustable burr grinder and bold setting!)5)If you want, you can skip the grind and brew your own store-bought or ground coffee or probably some chicory or other stuff you want to grind/add. A pinch of cinnamon in your ground beans?Cons:1) You have to pay attention when spraying/cleaning parts, but this really isn't a con. Again, it takes 30 seconds. I guess it's not self-cleaning, but what it? The carafe can't go in dishwasher and must be hand-washed. You have to handwash French press glass, or should, due to risk of minute cracks that can shatter the Borosilicate glass. I'm not sure if this pot has that, but guessing it does.Great machine. Think of it as an automated French press for on-demand GREAT coffee with a bit of an easier cleanup than a French press. Use the fine grind, the best quality whole beans you can get or roast yourself (actually easy and takes 5 minutes per batch in old 70s popcorn popper--been roasting for over 12 years on same machine), and BOLD setting.I hope this review helps those of you considering this machine. I'm guessing most people won't even consider a tiny 4 cup brewer so I'm glad we bought 2 and made this work so well for us :-).

Update: now 4.5 starts not 3. Called Krups customer service and they had me send old one back and looked into fixing or send a new one. They sent me a new one and working great and sounds better than first ever did. Back to enjoying freshly ground coffee!!Coffee maker is great to make 2 cups for my wife and I. Easy to make and a quick rinse and good to go the next day.We used it every day to grind and brew coffee. Until 6 months of use the grinder no longer worked. Up until now it did fine. Occasionally did not grind all the beans but who cares. Now it is not grinding them at all.Disappointed it only made it 6 months of daily use for the price.

I've only made two brews with this Krups machine (received it yesterday), but decided to write this review after the second brew, which came out perfect. This is an absolutely amazing little machine.While I drink a lot of coffee, and have done so for over 25 years, this is my first "coffee maker". By that I mean an appliance that plugs in the wall. Until now, I either drank French press or used a stove-top Bialetti. I mostly drank French press, but enjoy a powerful but small espresso from the Bialetti once in a while--always with some cream. Either way, I like my coffee strong. The ideal coffee for me is a "cafe con leche" that can be found anywhere in Spain--very strong, full of flavor, but not a high octane espresso that is often bitter and not smooth. So something between a an espresso and a French press. In fact, in recent months I'd often add a bit of my Bialetti espresso to my French press for the perfect strength.I finally decided to get a coffee machine because I was tired of all the manual labor of a French press and the Bialetti. But I was not going to buy an expensive espresso machine, which can be very high maintenance and generally makes excessively strong coffee. I was certainly not going to get a regular drip coffee maker because in my experience (at other people's homes) it always comes out too "American", too weak--something I could immediately anticipate when looking at the liquid as it poured in my mug and could see through it, as if it were a strong tea...just awful. When I pour coffee in a cup, I expect the ceramic to disappear shortly after it splashes in.The only coffee I'd ever had at a friends house that was really good came out of a Breville grind & brew. It was the first time I'd ever seen such a machine in a home. This was years ago, but it tasted so good I wrote doewn the brand and promised myself to one day get one. So before I bought this Krups, I was comparing everything to a Breville grind & brew. I finally put together a list of specs I wanted in my ideal coffee maker: 1. grind & brew - because I believe brewing right after grinding creates the best taste 2. small form factor - I'm the only one in my family that drinks coffee, so I want a small machine and small carafe 3. grind control if possible - the ability to control the grind can yield strong or weak coffe as needed 4. a good priceThe first two factors really limited my choices. Generally, if a machine has a built in grinder, it's going to be big. Frankly, this Krups machine was one of only 2 or 3 I could identify that was a small grind & brew. Because it had good ratings, and was way more aesthetically pleasing then the others, I picked it. The low price and grind control were very nice bonuses. When I got the machine, I was very pleased to see how compact it was, and how beautiful it looked (for the $80 price, that is; I'd say this would fit in very well in an "IKEA" home).This machine can put out really strong coffee! That's what happened with my first brew, when I was aiming to see how strong it could get. I set the grind to "fine" (there's only 2 grind settings; good enough), loaded as many beans as I could in the hopper, and punched the "bold" button after pressing the "grind and brew" button. It came out strong alright....too strong. I was wondering if it was the beans (100% arabica medium/dark roast). So the next brew I did not hit the "bold" button, and put in maybe half the beans...and voila, one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had!! Better than my French press, and so easy to make. This Krups machine gets 5 stars. But because it costs a small fraction of a Breville grind & brew, I give it 6 stars. Thank you Krups!

After reading the reviews I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, but 2 weeks later I am absolutely loving it. Yes, it requires cleaning after each use, but cleaning it’s fast and easy! It makes the best tasting coffee. Highly recommend.

I like this coffee machine but unfortunately the electric power is different in Singapore which I'm unable to use here.The seller is kind to accept the refund.

We returned this item. It was unable to grind coffee beans from Starbucks.

This coffee maker is fantastic. I like that it grounds the beans and the taste of the coffee is great!!It is small so it fits perfectly on my counter where I do not have too much space.I recommend this coffee machine.

This is a hard pass, for the price I expected a relatively okay coffee. But this machine makes some of the worst coffee I think I've ever had. The grinder spits all the grinds on the side of the grounds holder, which it then pours the water through a fraction of the grinds get water on them. Leaving the coffee really underwhelming and honestly flavourless. For the price I would have gotten gotten a Keurig or something because this was such a waste of money.I will most certainly be refunding this