OXO Brew 8 Cup Review
Pros: Great taste, easy to use, single-cup brewing option
Cons: Expensive
Manufacturer: OXO
Our Verdict
Compare to Similar Products
 This Product
OXO Brew 8 Cup | |||||
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| Awards |  |  |  | | |
| Price | $170 List $152.36 at Amazon | $200 List $167.50 at Amazon | $35 List $21.99 at Amazon | $200 List $169.51 at Amazon | $25 List |
Overall Score  |
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| Star Rating | |||||
| Pros | Great taste, easy to use, single-cup brewing option | Good taste for a pod machine, incredibly easy to use and clean | Good taste, inexpensive | Super convenient, easy to use, easy to clean | Good taste, inexpensive |
| Cons | Expensive | Can be expensive if not on sale | Can create a plastic taste when brand new | Relatively mediocre taste, milk drinks leave a bit to be desired | Relatively slow |
| Bottom Line | The best option we've found for those seeking great tasting coffee without the extra effort of manual brew methods | The convenience of a single serving pod machine with less of a sacrifice in taste quality | A budget machine that offers nearly as much taste and functionality as a high end model | The best, most feature-laden K-Cup model we've tested | A decent budget option if you're not in too much of a hurry in the morning |
| Rating Categories | OXO Brew 8 Cup | Nespresso Vertuoline | 12-Cup Programmable | Keurig K-Cafe | Simple Brew 12-Cup... |
| Taste (50%) | |||||
| User Friendliness (20%) | |||||
| Convenience (20%) | |||||
| Ease Of Cleaning (10%) | |||||
| Specs | OXO Brew 8 Cup | Nespresso Vertuoline | 12-Cup Programmable | Keurig K-Cafe | Simple Brew 12-Cup... |
| Capacity (cups) | 8 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 12 |
| Automatic Brewing | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Dimensions | 13.5" x 10/5" x 7" | 9" x 12.2" x 12.3" | 8.2" x 12.2" x 11" | 17.3" x 14.2" x 14.4" | 12.3" x 9.3" x 13.8" |
| Weight (pounds) | 11.5 | 12.3 | 4.75 | 10.2 | 2.8 |
| Warranty | 2 Year Limited | 2 Year Limited | 2 Year Limited | 1 Year Limited | 1 Year Limited |
Our Analysis and Test Results
For those willing to spend a bit extra for better tasting coffee, or that are looking for a more convenient drip coffee maker for rushed weekday mornings that isn't too big of a downgrade from their serene weekend pour over routine, we think the OXO Brew 8 Cup is one of the best options on the market.
Performance Comparison
Taste
In our opinion, taste is the main selling point of the OXO Brew 8 Cup. This machine consistently produced great coffee in our tests, lagging only slightly behind our gold standard pour over brew.
Overall, we think the OXO Brew 8 Cup's coffee is a reasonable enough facsimile of pour over coffee that even coffee snobs will be pleased. In our tests, it consistently provided a strong, aromatic, and complex taste without verging over into bitterness. This makes it a great machine for those that prefer pour over but are looking for greater convenience or the ability to make a lot of coffee more quickly.
Convenience
The lack of automatic brewing hurt the OXO Brew 8 CupIn our convenience tests. Otherwise, it is a fairly convenient coffee machine.
In our tests, it took the OXO Brew 8 Cup 5 minutes to brew 6 cups of coffee. Adding in prep and cleaning time brings the total to 10 minutes, putting it just on the faster side of average. There is a second filter basket that can be used if you want to only brew a single cup of coffee. We found this feature really nice for those afternoon pick-me-ups where more than a cup would be too much. However, the single-cup filter basket takes a different filter than the normal basket, so you might have to keep both on hand.
This machine conspicuously lacks automatic brewing, meaning you can't load the water and grounds before you go to bed and then set the machine to automatically start brewing when your alarm goes off in the morning. This is a bit of a bummer, but if you're considering the OXO Brew 8 Cup you're probably quite concerned about taste quality and thus wouldn't want to leave your grounds sitting in the filter all night anyway, so this feature's absence doesn't feel too glaring.
User Friendliness
OXO has staked much of its reputation on making easy to use products, and the OXO Brew 8 Cup is no exception. We found it to be one of the most user friendly coffee makers currently on the market.
The OXO Brew 8 Cup features a very simple and intuitive interface. There is one switch to select whether you're brewing into a carafe or into a single serving mug, two buttons to select how much coffee you're brewing, an on/off switch, and a button for running the cleaning cycle. It doesn't get too much easier than that.
We found the included carafe to pour smoothly and predictably when the cap is on. If you decide to take the cap off there is an opportunity for some splashing if you're not careful.
Ease of Cleaning
We found the OXO Brew 8 Cup to be neither particularly difficult nor notably easy to clean. It uses paper filters that make disposing of grinds quick and easy, it doesn't create too much of a mess in normal use, and its descaling process takes a relatively innocuous 60 minutes.
Value
The OXO Brew 8 Cup is certainly at the more expensive end of the price spectrum, and thus probably isn't a viable option for budget shoppers. However, for those seeking to maximize the taste quality of their coffee we think the OXO Brew 8 Cup certainly justifies its high price tag.
Conclusion
The OXO Brew 8 Cup is a premium drip coffee maker geared towards those that are seeking the richest, most nuanced cup of coffee possible. Though the machine isn't perfect, we think it largely delivers on that promise.
— Michelle Powell and Max Mutter