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I've said it before on CoffeeGeek, and I'll say it again. I get really excited and happy when mainstream small appliance manufacturers get into the 'specialty coffee' game. They don't always get it right, but they do bring awareness to the fact that there is better coffee out there, if you seek it.
This time around, the mainstream company is OXO. They've been dipping their toes into specialty coffee for a few years now. Their first foray -- a press pot coffee maker -- had some issues, but they seem to have learned from that and the more recent products are running on all cylinders.
OXO has even gotten into the electric appliance business in recent times, and in terms of coffee, have done it right: their first two coffee brewers (the Barista Brain 9 Cup, and the sadly discontinued Barista Brain 12 Cup with temperature controlled kettle) were fully SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) certified.
The company has a range of cold brew coffee makers, and what could be some of the best pouring hot water kettles for manual pour over coffee that you can currently buy (and their digital thermometer controlled kettle is one of the fastest ever).
The company is also tackling manual pour over brewing devices. They have cookie cutter glass pour over dripper running #2 Melitta filters, which looks nice and gets the job done. But more importantly, they have a single serve pour over device that they have called the 'Auto Drip Pour Over Coffee Maker'. That brewer is the subject of this first look.
Out of the Box
OXO's a big department store brand and know about marketing and branding, so the box the Auto Drip Pour Over Coffee Maker (from now on called 'OXO Pour Over Coffee Maker') is obviously well branded and informative. It's packed well but doesn't have any full instruction manual; just a simple card explaining how to use.
In the box is
- a white plastic lid that doubles as a rest for the brewer,
- a set of #2 sized cone filters,
- a clear plastic water reservoir with holes in the bottom of it and markings for both ounces and millilitres,
- the cone filter holder brewer.
- a small product card showing how to use and what weights of ground coffee to use depending on brewing volume.
Everything is plastic, but at least the plastics are all BPA free.
The cone filter holder holds #2 Melitta filters perfectly, and has soft rounded ribs to aid with water flow. The water reservoir has clear markings for ounces and millilitres when adding water for brewing, up to 360ml (12oz).
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How it Works
What makes the OXO Pour Over Coffee Maker unique and interesting is it's water reservoir. The dripper itself is pretty basic and inexpensive, and sure, the reversible design of the lid is nice, but it's the reservoir that makes this product.
The water reservoir has a series of holes in a circular pattern, with one additional hole right in the middle. OXO engineered the design to restrict water flow. I was curious if OXO had developed the restricted water flow based on SCA specifications, so I asked. They said:
'We tested our pour-over at multiple settings ranging from 6oz to 12oz to make sure the brew time wouldn’t be too slow or too fast, so you could get the proper extraction. In the beginning, we tested different types of hole patterns -- different arrangements, numbers and sizes, Before landing on our current one, which we felt had a good balance between brew time and saturation. Time-wise for 12oz, we were aiming for under 4 minutes, and we evaluated our results against SCA guidelines by measuring the TDS (total dissolved solids). We also tested different types of coffees -- fresh versus preground, different roasts, etc -- to make sure our results were consistent.'
So while not engineering it from scratch to meet SCA guidelines, OXO did test their product against them in the later development stages and found they mated up well.
The water dispersion pattern is okay for the #2 cone filter sizing (more on that later), but having proper water flow is always beneficial to great brewed coffee. The cone filter holder itself has a single exit hole which also somewhat restricts flow of the brewed coffee; leaving a better 'slurry' in the cone filter for most of the brew. This helps make the extraction even better.
The idea with this brewer is simple: fill the cone filter with coffee (after you've prewashed the filters with hot water!); pour in 205F water into the reservoir quickly to your desired water level, put the lid on, and the the thing do its thing. Some 3 to 4 minutes later, it's completed its brew and you have a flavourful, rich and properly extracted single cup of coffee.
Of course, if you want to make use of you super hipster and most likely expensive manual pour over kettle, you can do that as well - just don't use the OXO Pour Over Coffee Maker's reservoir.
Using the OXO Pour Over Coffee Maker
This little brewer is actually a joy to use, and after my first dozen brews with it, I knew exactly who this would be perfect for: the office worker fed up with their office K-Cup Environmental Disaster coffee. This little brewer, along with a hot water source and a small manual grinder would be a perfect way to brew coffee, right at your desk (if you're allowed to do that). It's pretty much hands off once you add the water. Because things are covered (the lid), there's not much in the way of aromas either, other than delicious coffee.
It's pretty much a foolproof way to make a good cup of single serve coffee. Measure your grounds, add the proper temperature water, put the lid on, and bam. Sure, you could do an even better extraction by manually pouring your water into the cone filter holder directly, but that's no the point of this brewer.
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There wasn't much to test with this device, other than to get a handle on flow rate and brew times (my own testing matched OXO's claims of around 3.5 to 4 minutes for a full brew); and I wanted to see how much temperature loss there was during the brewing process. With the lid put on the brewer, the performance was okay; considering plastic isn't a great medium for retaining heat, it did quite well in fact. I used a temperature control kettle, pre-rinsed the filter and filter holder with hot water, added water as quick as possible to the filter, and brewed into an insulated cup. Numbers were consistent across the board, so I ended the test after 3 tries.
| Starting Temperature (Kettle) | Slurry Temperature at 2 minutes | Cup Temperature | ||
| 205F | 196F | 179F | ||
| 205F | 196.5F | 178F | ||
| 206F | 196.5F | 179F | ||
The Dispersion Pattern
OXO went for a relatively simple dispersion pattern for water in this brewer: seven holes in a wheel around a central hole. Coverage is about 50% of the filter area. Is it great? Nope. All the water comes out in tiny 'jet' streams doing pinpricks into the bed of coffee. Is it okay? It absolutely is; there's some agitation from the water to the bed of coffee, and saturation is pretty good. The flow out the bottom of the cone filter is also restricted somewhat, which lets the filter basket itself fill up with a coffee slurry (but there's never any danger of over flow - so OXO got the engineering right on this).
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Could it be better? Absolutely. They could do three times as much holes, but then they'd have to battle fluid dynamics and how to ensure water flows from all those dozens of tiny holes, while still maintaining their restricted flow rate.
The Good and Bad
There's a lot to like about this brewer. Here's all the good stuff.
- It brews a really good cup of coffee with very little effort. That is the most important thing.
- It's crazy inexpensive. OXO's list on it is $17, and you should have no problems finding it for $15.
- It is lightweight and should travel well, though it doesn't pack up more compact than what you see.
- Very ideally suited for offices, small spaces and other places where it's hard to get a good cup of coffee.
- Water distribution is good; not great, but not bad either.
- It brews at good temperatures and maintains water heat well during the brew.
- Everything is dishwasher safe.
Oxo Coffee Maker Troubleshooting
Here's things that are not so good:
- It is all plastic. The plastics are BPA free according to the box (bottom), but still, plastic has some issues with coffee and heat (retention, etc).
- It feels cheap; everything is lightweight and has flex; I'm mainly worried that down the road, the reservoir might be cracked, since it's a slightly stiffer plastic than the cone filter holder or lid.
Oxo Coffee Maker Owner's Manual
Conclusion
Really darned fine single cup brewer for around $15. It's not like all the others out there, and when OXO calls this the 'Auto Drip Pour Over Coffee Maker', they're right. It controls water flow automatically over your bed of ground coffee doing a very good extraction. In fact, I've seen people struggle to brew 250ml using Melitta or Hario pour over devices because they can't precisely control the flow rate of the water they're using. Well, this device does it automatically!
If you're a single person who likes just having one 12 ounce cup of coffee in the morning, this will do a better job than using your auto drip electric coffee maker set on the low cups setting, guaranteed. If you're in office Keurig K-Cup Enviro Hell, and want something that tastes better and doesn't fill landfills, this is the brewer for you. If you want a nice portable (luggage) travel coffee option, this plus a manual grinder would deliver you awesome hotel coffee, with very little fuss.
The fact is, you don't need a fancy kettle with a gooseneck pour spout to get really tasty 'pour over' coffee if you have this brewer. That saves time, space, and money.
I guess a potential drawback is the size; it will brew up to 12 ounces or 360ml, and if you're brewing for more than one person, that's not enough. I did also ask OXO about this and they said that they are looking into 'building upon this product launch', meaning larger sizes may be forthcoming.
For me, this product is ideal for the office. The OXO rep I spoke to addressed that, and where they think other uses for this pour over are: 'We had a more general user in mind when developing this product: someone who enjoys the taste of pour-over coffee, but doesn’t have the special equipment, like a gooseneck kettle or scale, or even the know-how to make it at home.'
Is this a CoffeeGeek Recommended Product? Yes, absolutely. It's plastic, it's basic, it's inexpensive, but it also brews a very fine cup of coffee without much fuss or worry.
The OXO Single Serve Pour Over Coffee Maker with Auto Drip Reservoir is up at Amazon for just $16. It's also available on Amazon Canada for $24Cdn.
In many ways, it's fascinating times in the world of specialty coffee. Companies like KitchenAid and Breville are broaching new ground in the hyper popular world of 'manual pourover' and 'single cup coffee brewing' and other companies that normally would never be associated with specialty coffee are doing the same.
One such company is OXO.
Well known for their line of kitchen gadgets and accessories, OXO made their first foray into coffee a few years ago with their (sadly deficient) press pot brewers. In more recent years, the company has expanded quite a bit into new offerings that feature... electronics. Electrical power. Most notably are their SCA certified Barista Brain automatic drip coffee makers, and their electric pour over kettles with temperature control.
But that isn't the only venture into specialty coffee OXO has made in the past year or two. They also have a new manual pourover device designed for single cup brewing, and two pour over kettles -- one with a built in thermometer, one without -- which will give the current favourites (the Hario Buono and the Bonavita) a run for their money.
For this First Look, we'll be diving slightly deep into OXO's Single Serve Pour Over Coffee Maker. They actually market it as the OXO Auto Drip Pour Over Coffee Maker, and in this first look, you'll see why this 360ml (12oz) max brewer gets that moniker, and why that feature makes it ideal for the office.