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I just received this product today and was very eager to play with it and make myself a nice cup of coffee, when lo and behold, there are no filters included in the package. It was a downer to get all excited for nothing about the new gadget. I didnt want to invest in a whole box of filters before knowing if I like this brewing method or not, and "assumed" there would be a trial pack of 3-4 filters included. My mistake for assuming that, so I am not blaming anyone. Let this serve as an alert to all of you: there are no filters included, so make sure you buy a pack when ordering. I'm now heading out for a search of mini-filters.
You can't press a button and walk away. If you prefer a more complex and richer brew as you'd get from a French press or espresso, you almost certainly won't like this coffee system since you don't get quite the full spectrum of flavor.
But the secret is the filter paper. When you first look at this coffee "machine" it's easy to dismiss it.
If you normally add sugar to your coffee to mask its bitterness, you may find you can now drink it straight. It creates coffee that's unusually smooth and non-acidic.
If you like American-style coffee, you may find this makes your perfect cup. About the only downside is that the Chemex system isn't fully automatic.
On the other hand, there is no complex mechanism to break so it's a fair tradeoff.Overall I'd give it 4.5 stars, only knocking off a half a star for having to manually pour water into the cone and wait for it to filter through.
The Chemex coffee maker achieves the same results in a more organized fashion with far superior paper filters that were specifically designed for drip brewed coffee. He took a plain piece of paper towel from a kitchen roll and laid it on the top of a regular coffee mug. Years ago a friend of mine showed me how to make the best tasting coffee. This is the easiest and best way to make coffe by far. He put a couple of spoonfuls of ordinary ground coffee in the towel and slowly poured hot water over the coffee until the mug was full. It was a delicate and somewhat messy operation, but it was the best coffee I ever tasted. The Costa Ricans use a similar method and that speaks for itself.
When combined with the Chemex filter paper, this little coffee maker makes superb drip coffee. I heat 16 oz of water in the microwave in a measuring cup and pour the water into the coffee in the filter paper about 5-6 ozs at a time. The filter paper really does a great job removing bitterness from the coffee.
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