Superior brewing at a reasonable price in $ and effort
Positive Product Points
Reasonably priced and simple (enough) to use as a daily coffee maker. Works very well on a flat surfaced electric cooker.
Negative Product Points
Separating the two containers requires (a bit of) care, and the handle on the lower serving container is erogonomically horrid.
Detailed Commentary
Encouraged & guided by a reviewer on this site (Glenn Holmes) I‘ve now spent a happy fortnight with my Santos vacuum brewer and will probably let my previous daily favorite (a French Press) join an embarrassing amount of other cooled passions on the back shelf. This device requires only a bit of experimentation with grind and amount of coffee-to-water to produce consistent and predictable results. Using my smooth surfaced electric stove the whole process is simple enough for my caffeine-deprived morning brain.
I think it was Korby Kummer in his coffee book who described the vacuum pot as the "CD disk of coffee makers" and the brew is indeed deep flavoured and grit free. The few minutes spent on the brewing and clean-up afterwards seem eminently worth the results.
A tip: if you are a two cuppa person, the second cup keeps perfectly in the serving carafe if you invest in one of those cheap microwave stones sold at many kitchen stores. A couple of minutes in the m/wave (while the coffee is brewing on the stove) warms the flat stone so after serving the first cup you can put the carafe on the hot stone which keeps the coffee at the perfect temperature for the duration of a two-cup breakfast.
