I've done a couple of semi-reviews on coffee makers, but nothing like I had intended when I started writing about them in the first place. Unlike the Netbook Virtual Reviews I'll soon be starting, I really can't think of a legitimate way to rate coffee makers.

What kinds of coffee makers?

That's a good question. The most common type you see nowadays is the automatic drip coffee maker, but it's not the only kind.

Although not seen in quite the same quantities, coffee percolator is still sold. Somehow I doubt you'll find them still made of glass.

There are some other types, but I can't name them at the moment. Some are for home use and some are for commercial use, like the kind used by Starbucks and Seattle's Best.

Coffee Maker Selection Factors

This is why I don't think I can rate them. Some people prefer the 12-cup coffee makers while others prefer 4-cup coffee makers. Still others prefer the single cup coffee makers like those made by Keurig.

Some coffee makers use paper filters and some have permanent, metal filters. Obviously, the ones with the permanent filters should be more expensive, right? Not necessarily so.

The coffee pot itself, or the carafe, could be made of glass or some other material. You would assume those made of glass would be cheaper, but that's not necessarily true either.

Pricing is a factor that doesn't seem to follow any standards. I've seen cheaply made coffee makers sell for more than well built coffee makers. Is it the brand name, reputation or some other facet that dictates the prices? I guess I won't know until I look at quite a few.

The best way?

I guess the best thing I can do is describe what I'm seeing and then try to relay my thoughts about it and whether I think it would be a good buy or not. In my opinion, a good coffee maker shouldn't be a major investment but it shouldn't be so cheap that it doesn't last.

Of course, it also depends on location. Some people get stuck with limited choices and I think I'm one of them.

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My wife brought a Hamilton Beach iced tea maker back with her in August of last year (when she only stayed for a month) and it sat on my kitchen counter, gathering dust, until she returned permanently a week ago today. I had an instant iced tea in a jar, also collecting dust, for at least two months. In fact, the moisture from humidity was absorbed each time it was opened and the last time I opened it, the powder was hard. I tossed it the same day my wife arrived.

Teabags

One of my sisters-in-law is living with her soon-to-be husband. He spent months (a couple of years, I think) as an overseas Filipino worker in Qatar. Each time he returned for vacation, he brought something back for me. The last time, he brought back a box of "Lipton Yellow Label" teabags which sat in a kitchen drawer until the day my wife returned.

My wife also brought three boxes of Luzianne teabags with her, so we have plenty of teabags to go through before we have to get some more. I've only been drinking one or two cups of coffee per day, in the early morning, since my wife arrived. I've been drinking brewed iced tea the rest of the time. I had actually forgotten how much better brewed iced tea tastes than instant iced tea. I'm sure I'm not the first to say there's a world of difference.

Brewing the Tea

The reservoir above the carafe can hold as many teabags as you see fit to use. I prefer to use five of the small ones or three of the large ones. The drip "switch" at the bottom can be set to mild, medium or strong. I really don't see the point, but I set it to strong. After the tea is finished brewing, and it shuts off just like an automatic drip coffee maker would, the tea is a dark, "golden" brown. That's the best description I can use, but it looks awesome considering it's actually black tea.

My wife was the first to make iced tea with the tea maker. She tried putting the ice in the carafe before brewing, but it melted by the time the brewing was completed. The second time, she added ice after the fact and that worked fine. It still melted quickly, so I told her to just forgo the ice and we could add ice to our glasses each time we filled them with tea. That's what we've been doing ever since.

Coffee or Tea?

I still need my coffee in the morning, when it's still cool outside and prefer it during the late evening once it cools down again. In between, I like to drink iced tea instead of plain water.

What's going to be interesting, over the next month or so, is finding more teabags made with black tea. I've found some with green tea, but none with black tea, and I don't like green tea. I guess the search will go hand in hand with my search for a decent coffee maker.

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The logo and style of the can may have changed since I was young, but the Folgers coffee can is something I can distinctly remember, along with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting its way from our glass percolator. Good times and good coffee in the original grind is something I am unlikely to ever forget. (My grandmother used to use an empty Folgers can as a spittoon she kept outside her front door. Yuck!)

Regular Grind versus Automatic Drip Coffee

I don't know if it's just me, but some I think something was lost in the transition between regular grind and automatic drip coffee and Folgers coffee is no exception. The aroma isn't the same and doesn't invade my senses as I wake up in the morning.

Does Folgers sell regular grind, the kind made for percolators, anymore? I don't know because it isn't sold locally (in Olongapo City, Philippines). I can find the automatic drip kind and the Folgers coffee crystals (instant), but not the regular grind.

I'll soon be buying an automatic drip coffee maker, but I may end up buying a percolator as well, if I can find one. Even if I have to grind my own coffee beans, I think the flavor and the aroma will be worth it. Of course, it's low on my "to do" list because I have a lot of home things to take care of first and I need to take care of them within the next six months.

Do you remember Mrs. Olsen? She was the lady in the commercial that said Folgers was the best coffee because it was mountain grown, the freshest kind. I don't know about all that, but that was replaced by something along the lines of "the best part of waking up, is Folgers in your cup". A coffee cup, I presume.

To wrap up my soliloquy, I present you with:

The Best Part of Waking Up

A sweet little boy surprised his grandmother one morning and brought her a cup of coffee. He made it himself and was so proud. He anxiously waited to hear the verdict on the quality of the coffee. The grandmother had never in her life had such a bad cup of coffee, and as she forced down the last sip she noticed three of those little green army guys in the bottom of the cup.

She asked, "Honey, why would three little green army guys be in the bottom of my cup?"

Her grandson replied, "You know grandma, it's like on TV, The best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup."

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As any coffee connoisseur could probably tell you, coffee and coffee maker accessories are almost as important as the coffee beverage itself.

You don't have to take my word for it. Bear with me as I list some accessories that you may or may not be aware of.

Coffee Mugs

I really had to start with this one because coffee drinkers use coffee mugs, not coffee cups. There really is a difference. There are companies that specialize in nothing but coffee mugs, some plain and some with logos or writing on them, and they don't need to expand into other areas. There are so many coffee drinkers in the US alone that they really don't need to diversify.

Travel Coffee Mugs

The only thing travel coffee mugs (or coffee travel mugs, depending on how you word it) have to do with regular coffee mugs is that they're designed to hold coffee. The difference is that the travel mugs are usually designed for safety while driving. Some of them have special lids and some are designed to fit into coffee holders, either on a console or hanging from a door window.

Since a lot of people are on the go all the time, especially while traveling to and from work, many convenience stores (and I won't bother to name them) offer several pots of coffee to choose from. They usually offer a limited amount of free or discounted cups of coffee with each purchase of one of their travel mugs.

K-Cups

Although K-Cup portion packs are used specifically with the Keurig single cup brewing systems, other coffee manufacturers are taking that idea and adapting it to automatic drip coffee makers and other coffee makers.

The K-Cup is a plastic container which includes the filter and the ground coffee beans. The Keurig coffee maker punctures the foil lid and forces hot water under pressure through the K-Cup and into a coffee mug. The brewer is pretty simple to use; I've seen a Keurig coffee brewer in action.

Flavored Coffee and Flavored Coffee Creamers

The flavored coffee I'm talking about started out as flavored non-dairy creamers. They were offered in groceries stores and then expanded to the convenience stores to go along with their "coffee on the go".

The dairy people got into the act and started offering flavored dairy coffee creamers and then the coffee people got into the act and started offering coffee products with flavoring in an attempt to steal that market share back from the dairy and non-dairy people.

I really don't know what order it all transpired in, but it seems that's the order as I remember it.

Specialized Water Filters

While some people (including me) use bottled water to make coffee with, others have started buying specialized water filters to purify the water that ends up their coffee mugs. I haven't personally seen one, but I've seen them advertised.

Regardless of how you purify your water, anything tastes better with coffee than tap water that has too much chlorine added.

More Accessories?

There are more coffee and coffee maker accessories available than you can shake a stick at and I'd be naive to think that I could even begin to list them all at once.

I'll end the list here and leave myself the option to list more as I find the time to look around.

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It may not be the best automatic drip coffee maker available, but the Mr. Coffee coffee maker was the first brand to hit the market in 1972. In business, you either have to be the first or the best if you want to have guaranteed success. Okay, so you can get away with being second best and still succeed, but it's not guaranteed.

Mr. Coffee and Joe DiMaggio

When the commercials started appearing on television in 1972, Joe DiMaggio was the celebrity spokesman pitching it for the company. Joe DiMaggio was a famous baseball player who played exclusively for the New York Yankees from 1936 to 1951. He died in 1999 at the age of 84, the age my own father is right now. Anyway, automatic drip coffee makers, like Mr. Coffee, suddenly started appearing in kitchens across America.

I don't know if it was the product or Joe that convinced my mother to buy a Mr. Coffee, but she bought one nevertheless. I don't remember exactly when she bought it; I know she bought before we moved to Hawaii in 1974.

Automatic Drip Coffee Makers versus Coffee Percolators

When the automatic drip coffee makers first came out, the coffee didn't taste as good after brewing as it did with percolators. The trouble was that the grind available in most stores was still designed for percolators. After the grind specifically made for automatic drip coffee hit the market, I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

There are some that lament to obsolescence of the percolators, saying they were more "green" than the automatic drip coffee makers are. They cite the paper being used for the filters and water evaporation as being "non-green".

They obviously haven't heard that certain fast-growing trees are being used solely for the paper and yet it's still recyclable. The new trees reach maturity before they're even needed. I don't buy the water evaporation part. A percolator put out as much steam as an automatic drip coffee maker. I only had to put my hand above a spout one time to find that out.

In this day and age, the best coffee makers for home use are automatic drip coffee makers because they're more widely supported by the coffee industry. As with any technology, that may change and something better may come along.

Popular Culture

Unlike other brands, the Mr. Coffee has become a cultural icon. It was parodied as "Mr. Fusion" in the Back to the Future movie trilogy and as "Mr. Radar" and "Mr. Rental" in the Spaceballs movie. The actual coffee maker made cameo appearances in TV shows and other movies, playing itself and has been included in the lyrics to songs and gets referenced in short stories.

I don't know what the Mr. Coffee automatic drip coffee maker did to be such a popular cultural icon. Oh yeah, it was first.

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