Bodum Young 10096 8-Cups Coffee Maker

I very much dislike the taste of coffee prepared in an automatic drip-brew coffeemaker. Unfortunately, most of these machines (the affordable ones, at least) exhibit myriad problems: they fail to bring the water to a high enough temperature fast enough; they are unable to maintain constant temperature in the heated water; the water is left in contact with the coffee for far too long. This produces funky, tasteless, and highly tannic coffees no matter how brilliant the beans are.

Now, I regularly use a Tassimo because I like the convenience and short-order 1 cup preparation and because it makes darn good coffee! However, when somebody else in the house wants coffee or if I need espresso for a recipe or maybe if I'm having a brunch or dinner party, I reach for my trusty French press.

It's all design

The concept of the Bodum Young 8 Cup French press is the same, as with any French press.  Coarse coffee is combined with very hot water-about 210 degrees F. After just a couple minutes of steeping (more or less depending on your personal tastes and the character of the coffee you're preparing), the plunger is depressed, displacing the spent grounds and emulsifying the oils and other compounds in the "water phase" of the liquid coffee, creating a rich body and lovely crema at the top of the cup.

The differences with this particular Bodum arise in the design of the pot. The actual pot part consists of an 8-cup glass beaker, which is then inserted into a "durableframe" sleeve, made of santoprene with clear "polycarbonate" windows. The object of this sleeve, besides giving the pot a more modern look, is to keep coffee hotter longer (it asks as an insulator) and to prevent the glass beaker contained inside from breaking.

I find removal and insertion of the glass beaker to be a hassle, and in fact on a few occasions when I just couldn't seem to get the beaker in the sleeve, I've gone ahead and brewed coffee right in the beaker without the sleeve-and burned my hands trying to pour it into the cup. Part of this problem has to do with the nature of santoprene. After repeated washing and drying, the material begins to wear down, causing the lip at the mouth of the sleeve to begin to curl into the pot. It seems the beaker always "snags" that curled-in lip, making the insertion nearly impossible.

Another design flaw involving this beaker-in-sleeve situation is the windows on the sleeve, supposedly to allow you to watch your coffee as it brews. (Is it gonna get up and go somewhere?) No matter how diligently I dry, it seems there is just a little bit of moisture inside that sleeve left over from washing. It forms condensation once things heat up in there what with the hot beaker and all, and the little windows get all fogged up. Not much help...

Ease of cleaning
 
This Bodum is very difficult to clean. It features a triple-layered stainless steel screen. After repeated use, the screen has bent out of shape a bit and in that time, coffee grinds have found their way between the layers of that screen. There is a way to remove a small nut, which holds the screen's three layers together, and wash out the individual layers, but I don't want to make the situation worse by affecting how the screen works, so I've left the situation alone.

Size matters

I do love the capacity on this Bodum. 8 cups is great for large parties and I have found that the pot prepares both large and small amounts of coffee very well. It's just the design that irks me and which I find so frustrating. If you're looking for a functional press pot you might want to look to one of the more classic Bodum deigns.