An excellent 4 cup electric auto drip that can be used manually also.
Positive Product Points
Can be used as an electric or manual drip brewer. The design of the filter holder/showerhead results in very good saturation of ground coffee. My original BCM-4 is over 10 years old and still works great.
Negative Product Points
There are no negative comments for this product.
Detailed Commentary
Back in 1991 we received a Melitta 4 cup auto drip brewer as a free gift for ordering Gevalia coffee. For over 10 years we have used this machine for most of our weekday morning brewing duties. The coffee this machine produces is hot and flavorful, and can be used as either an electric or manual drip to achieve this result.
The main advantage this machine has over many others is in the complete saturation of ground coffee during brewing. The lid to the filter holder is also the unit's showerhead (the filter holder is not attached in any way to the heating unit). The lid contains 6 rectangular channels that direct water to the sides of the filter holder. In addition to the 6 side channels is a smaller hole that lets water drip down the middle of the filter as well. You can see the result of this design, all the ground coffee has been evenly exposed to water. I have not measured the brewer's water temperature, but the coffee is always hot. Even when a paper filter is used, the coffee brewed with this machine is very comparable in taste to my Yama vac pot.
As I mentioned this brewer can be used as a manual drip even with the filter lid in place (which aids the dispersion of water over the grounds and traps heat). The water tank and carafe hold approx 28 oz. This brewer can be found quite often on ebay, (so I now have a small collection of them, both old and new) as well as brand new from the Melitta website. I would very much like to compare this brewer to the KitchenAid 4 cup Ultra.
