Best Buy Coffee Maker Deal

Did you take advantage of that coffee maker deal Best Buy had in December? They offered a drip coffee maker for $3.99. I happen to be wanting one for my husband but since we do have a Keurig Vue sitting there, I didn't want to spend a fortune. While we love the Vue, my husband just likes coffee. Not latte, cappuccino, flavored coffee, iced coffee... just coffee. The flavors offered so far have been a little on the strong side for our taste. I do love the Vue. It is amazingly handy for more than just coffee, tea and cocoa. I use it when I need hot water fast. Instant oatmeal, prepping dishes that require adding hot water... it just is so cool to have it right there. But for a temporary coffee solution, I just wanted some thing we could make regular coffee in until they start offer brands like Folgers in Vue cups or they have the reuseable Vue cup so we can use regular grounds.  So I jumped on the Best Buy deal. I read the description, was a little bit hesitant because it didn't really offer a brand name or much in the way of describing the machine, but for $4 I reasoned, why would Best Buy waste the time to do a big write up?  

After these thoughts ping ponged around in my brain for a moment I went ahead and added it to my cart, took a few more moment to look at the other coffee makers they had on sale (none of them near that $4!) then went to check out. Add to the crazy low price, they also had free shipping! WOO HOO!  I was charged tax since there are Best Buy store in my state, but the grand total for my coffee maker was a whopping $4.32. I reasoned that even if it turned out a dud, at least it didn't cost a huge amount of money.

In my excitement over what I was hoping would turn out to be a good deal that would meet our needs I did fail to notice that the filter area was shaped like a freaking torpedo, which means it didn't cross my mind that it would use weird filters that we didn't already have. I also figured since it was right before Christmas, the ridiculously low price and the free shipping, I would receive it SOMETIME in the New Year and pretty much forgot about it once I placed the order. It was delivered on Wednesday or Thursday right after Christmas! So I got it out and first laughed because the thing was so light, it felt like I was holding a toy more suited to a kid's play kitchen! I then read the booklet flyer of instructions that came with it and was surprised that it had some neat little functions on it. It came with a removable filter basket, has an anti-drip tip on the bottom of that torpedo-like filter cup and also has a brew- pause feature.

I ran several tanks full of clean water through it and got it ready. When the big guy got home, I brewed him a pot of coffee in it and it was gooood. He was happy to have some regular, non-fancy, non-flavored, non-whipped, non-blended, just ordinary coffee with just a splash of milk in it. Since it had that filter basket, I didn't even try a filter for the first pot but I noticed a very fine silt at the bottom of our cups and in the bottom of the pot, so after that I began using the round ones I already had. By pressing the filter to fold over itself just a little, they work just fine. 

     The next morning I was running around like the crazy person I am, and was late brewing the coffee.  I had wanted to get back into the routine of sending him off to work with a travel cupful so I got to test out that brew-pause feature... I pulled the carafe out and it quit brewing! I fixed his cup and put the carafe back in place and it resumed brewing. Very cool! You can also turn it off to do this and when you turn it back on, it resumes brewing. 

I have only found two little things I don't like about this machine. One is the water tank is a smokey color that makes it hard to see the water level as you're filling it. The other is the on/off switch. It looks like there should be a little red light to signal the maker is "on" but that little mark doesn't light up. when the kitchen is dark it is easy to forget that the coffee maker is still on. And yes, I am speaking as someone that has already left the new coffee maker on all night and woke up to find there was hot coffee in the pot the next morning! 

      So far this little "toy" has put in some serious hours as I've sipped my way through a pot of coffee through out the day and it works surprisingly well. I'm glad I took advantage of that offer because I think it would have been awhile before I saw another coffee maker that met our needs for $4. For the money spent, the quick delivery and the functions it performs, we are very happy with this deal. And even when Keurig does release the reusable cup for the Vue, I think this little maker will still be part of our routine.