Zojirushi EC-DAC50 Zutto 5-Cup Drip Coffeemaker

This coffeemaker was a bit more expensive than others available, but the engineering on this thing is just unbelievable. My wife and I have been using it for about three months now, and we still marvel at how well it works, and the quality of the coffee it makes. Some of the things we really like include the fact that we can take the removable resevoir to the sink to fill it rather than try to pour water into the machine with the possibility of spilling it; the conical container for the grounds is in the coffee pot, so it is very easy to empty the grounds, and coffee doesn't drip onto the heating plate after removing the pot; it uses a #2 paper filter, and I've found that a similarly sized Swiss Gold foil filter also works for those who don't want the paper filter to soak up the coffee bean oils (but you'll need to be a little more careful to hold the top on the pot when pouring the coffee if you don't remove the filter first; And I could go on with the good things. I don't believe... Read more

I had never heard of Zojirushi before but I was being very picky, holding out for a coffeemaker that makes 4-6 "cups" (aka two mugs,) uses a cone-bottom filter, and isn't black or white. This is the ONLY coffe maker - on Earth, apparently - that met all my criteria. (OK I still would have liked it better if it came in red, but the soft gray color is kind of classy!) And I have to say I'm really pleased with it. The design is simple and elegant and the removable water reservoir is a great convenience; I don't have to pull the whole coffee maker out from under the overhanging cabinets to get enough room to put the water in.

It also makes really good coffee, mainly because of the cone-bottom filter (I'll never go back to flat-bottom filters!) And the built in carbon filter makes more of a difference than I had expected.

OK some reviewers below were on about how it doesn't make coffee "hot enough" and I was like, bonus! I still don't understand how the rest of... Read more

I spent a lot of time online looking for a 4 to 5 cup coffeemaker to suit my needs. There are the usual suspects: Mr. Coffee, Braun, etc, that seem to get universally bad to mediocre reviews from people, especially people who know anything about coffee. I decided to skip all of those and look for something that would make a really good cup of coffee.

My choices became limited to two coffeemakers: one made by a company called Bodum (which looks like some kind of laboratory beaker) and the Zojirushi Zutto. The Bodum model supposedly performed well and made excellent coffee under ideal conditions, but many people who reviewed it said that it was prone to mishaps such as overboiling. So I went with the Zojirushi. I was not disappointed.

The Zutto is extremely well-designed and functional. The coffee filter is in the lid of the pot (not attached to the maker, like most autodrip models), and there is a removable charcoal water filter to remove chlorine, etc... Read more