Best Coffee Maker for College Students

In this article, I’m going to give you a quick overview of the KitchenAid Personal (drip) Coffee Maker that can be conveniently used in Dorms.

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A very cool, single serve-ish machine; and I say ‘ish’ because it can actually make enough coffee I’ve found for about two people, and it’s a drip style machine. So, it doesn’t use pods or anything along those lines. It uses regular ground coffee and it’s got a focus on being able to brew a cup of coffee and then just get out the door.

So, if you’re looking for something that’s gonna brew drip coffee and still give you source of single serve ease, I think this is going to be a good way to do it. Let’s dive in and talk about the KitchenAid Personal Coffee Maker.

1. What’s in the Box?

So first off, you have the machine itself of course. It has a lot of red brushed aluminum, which I really like. It’s got a stylish look. It’s definitely tall, but it’s very slim so it doesn’t take up a lot of space in your countertop in dorm which I really like. So, you get the machine, you get a KitchenAid branded tumbler; which is also kind of cool. It has a silicone wrap on the outside. It’s brushed aluminum completely on the outside as well and then it has a simple plastic removable lid. This is where you’re going to brew your coffee – that just sits right underneath the brew basket.

And then finally, you get your instruction booklet. It’s pretty straightforward. This machine doesn’t exactly have a lot of bells and whistles so you may not necessarily need this too much especially after you read the review right here today.

2. Features

Let’s talk about the features on the KitchenAid Personal Coffee Maker. Now, we’ll start off on the top with the tank. Now, the water tank is easily removable and it holds up to 16 ounces of water. You’ve got an indicator on the side of the tank. It fills up using the inlet that’s on the top and there’s a small handle for carrying the tank around. This is really meant for making one cup of coffee so you’re gonna fill this up pretty much every time you go to use it. Now that said, it’s only going to use as much water as you happen to put in the tank So, if you only use 8 ounces, of course, you’re only going to brew 8 ounces of water.

As we move down, we have the brew basket. Now the brew basket opens up from the machine very easily by just turning to the side; and this is where you’re going to find your gold tone filter. One of the primary features noted on the machine is that you have that gold tone filter that helps to save the flavor of your coffee.

Next is the tumbler that holds up to 18 ounces of coffee. Now, you may be wondering why it holds 18, when the machine brews up to 16 ounces. Well, the easy answer there, of course, is if you want to add cream or sweeteners to your coffee, you don’t want to overflow your tumbler; and so, it does hold a little bit more than what the machine actually brews. Very useful obviously if you want to flavor your coffee.

At the base of the machine is the drip tray. It’s very simple. It doesn’t have a whole lot of space and it is easily removable by taking off the stainless steel tray. If you end up dripping a lot of coffee in this, you’re going to want to clean this daily because it does not hold a lot of water.

That’s pretty much the basic features on the machine. On the inside of the machine, it uses what KitchenAid calls Optimized Brewing Technology; and the Optimized Brewing Technology, the idea behind that is to give you, as they say, a hot and rich cup of coffee. I did find that this machine definitely brews very hot which I was impressed by, and the flavor was quite good as well. So, now that we’ve covered the overall features of the machine, let’s talk about its operation.

3. How to Brew

The operation of the KitchenAid Personal Coffee Maker is really simple and this is one of the reasons that I found myself using it a lot every morning because it was just so easy to make a cup of coffee; and the first thing you’re going to do is take your water tank off, you’re going to fill that tank up with as much water as you would like to brew coffee. Now again, it holds up to 16 ounces, but if you are to add, let’s say up to 16 ounces, you’re definitely not going to get a strong a cup of coffee. But, because you can adjust the amount of coffee grounds that you’re going to be brewing in, that allows you to also adjust the strength of your coffee.

So, you’re going to fill your water tank up first; after that, fill up your gold tone filter. Now again, you can adjust however you would like in order to get the proper amount of flavor that you’re looking to get out of your coffee. Just fill it up like you would in any drip-style machine. And now, just drop your gold tone filter back into the brew basket. Close that up, take your tumbler and put it underneath the machine. You can start brewing it by just pressing a button that’s down on front of the unit.

Now, something that I should mention is you could brew into any mug that you want as long as it will fit underneath the brew basket, you’re good to go.

4. Temp Test

So, let’s see what we’ve got here temperature wise. The machine will beep three times when it’s all done brewing, but I’ve found that generally you can pull that tumbler out even before you hear those beeps. The one thing I would be careful of if you’re going to grab this tumbler and go out the door, is that you might burn yourself, because the metal turns very hot. I would not want to grab this by the metal on the tumbler. So, it’s something to be careful of when you are actually using this machine, just something to keep in mind. But overall, I’d have to say that this is a very impressive little machine and brews a really nice cup of coffee. I used it straight for about a month, in all honesty, as one of my primary coffee machines. I’d get up every morning, brew, and I had a great cup of coffee.

Conclusion:

So the bottom-line on the KitchenAid Personal Coffee Maker, a very cool, sleek kind of machine. It doesn’t take up a whole lot of space on your counter-top, has that very easy to fill water tank which is great. It lets you vary the amount of water and coffee; the amount of water you’re going to use to make the amount of coffee that you’re going to have. Gives you the ability to make drip style coffee so if you’re still a whole down in the world of drip style, but you want some single serve convenience, this is a good way to go. And, brews directly into that tumbler, which I think is very cool, easy to get on the road with it.

I will say, I think maybe the price is a little bit high, but the quality of the machine is definitely impressive. And finally, because it does brew very hot, you do need to be careful with that tumbler. As I say, I would probably pour this into another mug and then get on with my day especially if I’m driving in the car. Remember, don’t drink and drive… coffee in your car folks. This can be very, very dangerous unless you have a great on-the-go mug.