Krups KM720D50 12 Cup Programmable Coffee Maker

Take a Whiff of This: Krups KM720D50 12-Cup Programmable Coffee Maker

What’s the very best part of waking up to an already-brewing pot of coffee? It has to be that coffee-bean aroma! Truly, before I even began drinking coffee, I loved the smell of my parents’ coffee cups, and I think it was the aroma alone that made me want to be a coffee drinker. That’s why I was so intrigued by the specs of the Krups KM720D50 coffee maker, which advertises an “aroma selection.” I’d never heard of such a feature, so I had to read up on it.

Krups KM720D50 coffee maker Product Features:

Easy to read LCD screen, fully programmable

Two water level indicators

Auto shut-off after two hours

User controls for strength of brew and volume of brew

“Aroma” feature allows increased extraction intensity

Twelve-cup Glass carafe

As it turns out, you can select the strength, programming the machine for increased extraction intensity. The Krups KM720D50 coffee maker is programmable in all its functions, so I’ve got my machine set to start brewing just before I wake up. When my alarm rings, the house is redolent with aromatic coffee, and the pot is ready to pour.

I confess I’ve always been a fan of German engineering, on everything from my cars to (now) my coffee maker, this coffee maker being just the latest example of the solid programming and attention to detail I like to expect from German manufacturers. The programmability definitely tops my list of favorite features. A backlit LCD display is easy to read, the buttons are line across the top with military tidiness, the programming isn’t difficult to figure out, and (like all things German) its precision is absolutely dependable.

The glass carafe on the Krups KM720D50 coffee maker requires some cleaning, since it shows stains if you let the coffee-crud build up at all. It does fit in the dishwasher without any problem–but the coffee stains over time will build up without some scrubbing, or some soaking with one of the coffee-carafe cleaning solutions. I’m very happy, however, with its sturdy build (I’m forever paranoid about having to replace a coffee carafe, since replacement always seems to cost as much as an entire new machine) and its completely drip-less pouring capabilities; it’s not often that I’ve found a coffee carafe that didn’t dribble all over the counter when I tried to pour from it. And as long as the carafe is kept clean, the Krups KM720D50 coffee maker is a classy looking addition to the kitchen counter–glossy black and stainless steel, and clean, square lines(that’s probably characteristic German design as well, isn’t it?).

The front panel pulls out like a drawer, where the permanent re-usable filter can be filled with any choice of ground coffee, or removed for a quick trip through the dishwasher.

I do like a strong cup of coffee, and I’ve found that the “aroma” feature on the Krups KM720D50 coffee maker not only permeates my kitchen with the smell of coffee in the morning, but it also ups the strength of the coffee without needing to add so many grounds that they spill over into the brew–which was always my problem with the previous machine. By the time I got my coffee strong enough to my taste, I’d packed the filter so much that the grounds would overflow as it brewed. Not so with the Krups KM720D50 coffee maker–it’s as tidy as you’d expect from anything German. And I’m expecting–German engineering being what it is–that my coffee maker will last me for a long time to come.