Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker | 10-Cup Insulated Thermal Carafe | WiFi Enabled Voice-to-Brew Technology | Smart Home Kitchen Essentials | SCA Certified, Barista-Quality Brew…

After about six years of faithful service from my Bunn coffee maker, it decided to start leaking. Not bad considering we make at least one pot of coffee a day, and often 2-3 pots on Saturdays. As much as I loved the Bunn, I was ready for a coffee maker I could program to start brewing while I was getting ready in the morning, and didn’t take up quite so much counter space. I had one specific requirement for out new coffee maker. It needed to be SCA Golden Cup certified. After much research it came down to this GE Cafe and the Breville coffee maker that was also Golden Cup certified. The ultimate deciding factors were that the GE Cafe (as expensive as it is) was still about $100 less than the Breville, and it was compatible with my SmartHQ app that I already use with my GE range.

I ordered the white Cafe. Not the color choice I really wanted, but definitely easier to convince my wife to purchase it than to spend and additional $40-$50 to get either black or stainless. I know it will take extra care over time to prevent (or, at least slow down) the coffee stains… but it is, what it is. What it is, is a beautiful piece of equipment that certainly dresses up my 80’s countertop and log walls. Right out of the box the coffee maker feels very high quality. It was very easy to set up as well. The instructions were easy to follow, and within minutes I had it connected to SmartHQ and brewing the first pot of coffee.

Speaking of coffee, it is fantastic. Even though the instructions did not specifically say to, I did run a pot of water through the coffee maker before brewing my first pot of coffee. For my first pot, I followed the instructions to the letter. I used 1 scoop of coffee per cup. I chose the Gold setting to brew according to SCA standards. The coffee that came out was strong, but not bitter. It was stronger than my wife and I both prefer, but still extremely pleasant to drink. Every pot I have made since then has used the ration of 1 scoop for every 2 cups of coffee. That equates to 1TBSP per cup. Not near as strong and black, but still an absolutely perfect cup of coffee to start the day with.

I know the SmartHQ is an added bonus that is certainly not necessary. However, I find it very easy to use. I used it to set up an auto-brew schedule for Mon-Fri, and another for Sundays. For Saturday, I don’t have auto-brew set, but it is still nice to sit in bed, pull up the app on my iPhone and tell it to start brewing the pot I set up the night before. I know I will have a hot pot of coffee waiting on me.

I have only been using the Cafe for just over a week, so I certainly can’t speak to reliability over the long haul. I have my reminders set to update this review in 6 months and a year. I will try to update with either pluses or minuses based on how reliably the Cafe is still working for us.

You can throw away your unreliable and overpriced Kuregs with pods that can cost 10 times more than high quality ground coffee. Keep in mind there are also thousands of ground coffee varieties that trounces the limited selection of pods anyway. I bought a renewed version of this coffee maker for $83.57 plus tax and it’s worth every penny. There was a small blemish on the coffee pot handle. Otherwise, it is like new. That blemish saved me $167, so I consider it a genuine bargain and a blessing in disguise. The flexibility to make as little as one 4.5 ounce cup of coffee, all the way to the 45 ounce capacity, separates this coffee maker from most others. However, the taste is most important to me and this Cafe brewer delivers that in spades. Do NOT adhere to the instructions in regards to the coffee to water ratio. You will waste a lot of coffee grounds and the taste is far too strong. That tablespoon of coffee (one scoop) will make an ideal 13 ounces of coffee or 3 cups. Trust me, I’ve been drinking coffee for 60 years now. Love the wifi app and it works quite well. There is a dedicated cleaning cycle (descaler) on the app as well that gives detailed instructions and advises you the cleaning cycle can take up to 60 minutes. I think it is prudent to remove the water filter before running the cleaning cycle (the instructions leave this important part out). Be sure to rinse the coffee maker with another 45 ounces of water or your next pot of coffee will taste like vinegar. Sometimes I wake up earlier than the app programmed time to brew coffee and manually start brewing a pot. When the programmed brew time arrives a little later the coffee maker will start beeping with the message add H2O. All you have to do is hold the brew button for 5 seconds And it will cancel the previously programmed brew cycle.
The included permanent filter is well made and easy to clean. I also like the plastic tube that’s attached to the coffee pot lid. This acts as a stirrer to enhance the coffee flavor and it works very well.
Finally, this Cafe coffee maker is elegant in its design and function. I highly recommend this
Gem of a coffee maker especially in the renewed version.