The Cuisinart 14-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker makes good coffee and offers convenient features to make your morning routine go smoothly. In general, our taste testers liked this brew, although a few panelists found it too weak for their palates and scored it a little below the best coffee makers. However, tastes are subjective, and you may find the coffee from this machine delightful. You also can opt to use a stronger brand of coffee than the "regular roast" coffee we used in testing or add more grounds - within reason - to the brewing basket.
During our testing, the Cuisinart 14-cup Programmable Coffee Maker scored above average as far as the temperature for its freshly brewed coffee. We had the same results with the temperatures we took after it had been sitting on the warming plate for two different intervals. You get an adjustable "carafe" heat function so you can set the warming plate to low, medium, or high. This is especially helpful if you pull cream out of the refrigerator to pour into your coffee cup because you can use the "high" setting to keep the carafe nicely warmed. If you're in the market for a coffee maker that brews extremely hot coffee, you might enjoy the KitchenAid Custom Pour Over Brewer, which had the hottest initial temperature of any coffee maker we reviewed.
The large capacity is great to have when you are entertaining or if you routinely brew enough for plenty of people. If you need less coffee, you can adjust this device to brew smaller amounts, even as little as one cup. You can even stop it mid-brew to grab a cup and then let it keep preparing the rest of the pot. Despite its large output, it is relatively compact and will not take up excessive counter space.
The cone-shaped mesh brew basket lets gravity compress the grounds into the bottom, extracting the maximum flavor. The machine uses replaceable filtering pods that remove unusual or unpleasant flavors from your tap water.
You can tell what is going on with your machine at all times with the help of the bright LED screen on the front. In addition, this coffee maker is programmable, so you can set a brew time up to 24 hours in advance, which means you can wake up to fresh coffee each morning or have it waiting for you when you come home on a cold winter day. You can control how strong you want your coffee through the control panel, and there is an alarm to let you know when the coffee is ready. If you find the alert annoying, you can turn it off.
An indicator light lets you know when it's time to decalcify your device, which means you never have to wonder when to clean this machine.
One welcome benefit that you get with this unit is the three-year warranty, which is well above the industry average and an indicator of the manufacturer's confidence in the product.
- First reviewed: June 2018
