Product Review: The Breville Single Cup Brewer - A Shiny Happy Coffee Maker

The Breville single-cupper: pure magic.

I likes me some coffee. Yes sir.

But I’m the only one in the household (Jaimi is allergic to caffeine, or some shit like that) who drinks it on a regular basis. I wouldn’t quite say that I’m not myself until I get my cup of morning joe – but I do require some sort of hot caffeinated beverage fairly soon after getting up.

So, the problem I’ve encountered is how to make a single cup of quality coffee, without brewing an entire pot. Generally speaking, those one-cup little crap-ass coffee makers are just that – Crap Ass. The coffee always seems to have hefty undertones of plastic.

My Dad’s the same way with his coffee. But unlike me, he just couldn’t put up with any sort of shitty one-cup coffee making machine. So he bought the Cadillac of the one-cuppers – The Breville Single Cup Brewer.

And then he saw how in awe I was of its flashing blue lights and whirring motors. So this past weekend, he brought one up as a housewarming gift for our new apartment.

So far so good.

I don’t think I’ve ever before been inclined to review a coffee maker. They all seem so similar – what’s the point?

But this one is different. It’s shiny. It has some real metal parts. Blue LED’s light the instrument panel, and set the see-through water tank all aglow – just as you’d imagine Gandalf’s coffee machine.

The point is, it looks like a wizard forged this thing from pure glacier water, a handful of pulverized unicorn horn, and the love of coffee.

Anyway, the Breville accepts K-cups (those little foil-topped plastic cups with coffee and filter built right in) or you can use the “My K-cup” system, which allows you to use your own coffee. I feel better using “My K-cup” because you create less waste. And because it’s MY K-cup, goddamit.

You have options for different size cups, and different water temperatures. You can play and adjust to suit your taste.

I like my coffee strong as balls, so I try to pack the little K-cup with as much coffee grounds as physically possible.

Actual photo of actual cup of coffee not actually as strong as balls.

What spews forth from the machine is a little cup of black magic - a dark, rich, smooth perfectly heated cup of java joe.

It’s really quite good. Much better than those one-cup gizmos. And I love the flexibility of using your own coffee, or purchasing the ready-made K-cups. You can also get tea and hot chocolate in the K-cups, for all those non-coffee drinkers in your life.

As I finish my first cup of the day, I not only thank my Dad (and thanks to mom too for the Tupperware!) for bringing this glorious machine into my life, but I thank the kind folks over at Breville for engineering the Space Shuttle of coffee makers.

In fact, I feel as cool as an astronaut using this machine.