For people that drink as much coffee as we do, our recent experience with a single serve coffee maker in our hotel room during our Chicago vacation created temporary disappointment. I can only guess as to why hotels choose to provide hotel guests with one-cup coffee machines versus one that brews more than one cup of coffee at a time, but we weren’t impressed.

The moment we checked into our hotel room and saw the tiny coffee making appliance sitting on the counter at the hotel we stayed at, we knew we weren’t going to make it through our entire vacation trip with that silly looking coffee maker. We made a beeline to the nearest store and bought a cheap, black 12-cup automatic coffee maker that was sitting all by itself on a discount clearance shelf for just ten dollars.

We also bought our favorite coffee creamer, two large coffee cups that only cost 99 cents each, and a decent size container of our favorite brand of coffee and coffee filters. We couldn’t help but laugh when we read the front of the coffee maker provided by the hotel, where it claims to be a two-cup coffee machine that comes with pre-measured coffee pods. The only way it would be possible to get two cups of coffee from that machine would be for us to use cups from a little girl’s toy tea set. Simply ridiculous.

Top Ten Best Selling Coffee Makers

Even though the automatic coffee maker we bought during our vacation doesn’t appear anywhere on the list of best selling coffee makers, we were pleased with the results even with the slow brewing time. We’ve been talking about replacing the lousy Proctor Silex coffee maker we have at home for a better quality machine, and since we donated the one we used during our trip to the kids, we’ve been checking out coffee maker reviews and ratings for all the different kinds of coffee makers.

Apparently, single serve coffee makers like the Keurig coffee maker are a growing trend amongst many coffee drinkers as a way of reducing their caffeine consumption, but we would just switch to decaf coffee if we were concerned about caffeine addiction problems. We’ve never been espresso/cappuccino coffee drinkers, and hot tea never appealed to me, but we do love the taste of great coffee brewed at home.

You might think that the amount of coffee we drink everyday might lead us to buy a large commercial type coffee maker, perhaps one that brews upwards of 100 cups of coffee at a time, but that would be overkill. We’ve read review articles on various types of coffee makers that brew 10, 12 or 14 cups of coffee at a time for comparison purposes, and even checked out ratings on Consumer Reports.

What is the Best Home Coffee Maker?

Trying to compare coffee makers for personal home use versus industrial sized coffee makers appropriate for business offices became somewhat frustrating. All we wanted to know is, What is the best home coffee maker on the market today? Until we began our search for a new coffee maker, it hadn’t occurred to me that there are so many brands of coffee machines to choose from! DeLonghi, Cuisinart, Gaggia, Braun, Krups, Saeco, Capresso, Bunn, Sunbeam, Senseo, KitchenAid, Black and Decker, Mr. Coffee, Coleman, Jura and Zojirushi are the brands that come to mind. That’s a lot of competition for coffee makers, and each wants to be considered the best.

After reviewing customer reviews and online ratings for coffee makers, it became clear that deciding which coffee maker machine was the best is just a matter of opinion and personal experience. There also appears to be a certain amount of hype surrounding some coffee makers which caused some doubt in our minds as to the reliability and trustworthiness of some online reviews. However, if you’re interested in an honest, unbiased review of the Keurig Special Edition B60 Single Serve Coffee Maker, I can personally vouch for the source.

A few years ago we had a Bunn coffee maker that worked like a champ until it was dropped and broken, and even though it can be a bit pricey, it was our favorite over all the other brands. The fact that a full pot of coffee was brewed and ready in two minutes flat was just one of the reasons why we chose the Bunn. That old saying “you get what you pay for” probably rings true when it comes to buying a good quality coffee maker.

Types of Coffee Makers

I certainly wouldn’t attempt to convince anyone that one brand of coffee maker is better than the other, because there are many factors to consider in the selection process. Whether you buy an automatic drip coffee maker, manual drip, French press/Plunger Pot, stove top percolator, espresso/cappuccino/latte machine or pod coffee maker, consider your personal preferences of what you need your coffee maker to do and what features are important to you.

Should it have programmable settings? An automatic on/off safety feature? Brew interrupt/pause feature? What is your price range? Color preference? Amount of available space for the coffee maker? Do you need a space-saver undercabinet type coffee maker? Do you need a single or dual cup model, or perhaps a family size standard coffee maker with 8, 10, 12 or 14 cup options? Once you decide what features and options you want in a coffee maker, choosing the right one for your home or office becomes much easier.

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Give up coffee? Who, me? Why should I stop drinking coffee when I like the taste of coffee? Can someone really be addicted to caffeine in coffee? Maybe, maybe not, depending on which research studies and health experts you believe. Almost every morning I enjoy two or three cups of home-brewed coffee to start my day, and it’s not uncommon for me to have two more cups of coffee at night while writing or watching television, especially on cold winter nights.

If drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee or two first thing in the morning doesn’t give you a jolt of energy to get your day started, reading the “evidence” about how caffeine is addictive and all the reasons why you or I should stop drinking coffee will be enough to give you jitters that last all day long. If the amount of coffee and tea I drink on a daily basis makes me a caffeine addict, then coffee addiction is an addiction I’m content to accept being what it is.

Are you a caffeine addict? Are you one of millions of Americans who kick-start their day getting a Starbucks coffee caffeine fix one or more times a day? I haven’t been to a Starbucks coffee shop in years because, as you know, you can make coffee at home and it’s a lot cheaper than buying coffee at 7-11 or Starbucks. I’m not even sure how much a cup of coffee at Starbucks costs these days, but I can think of many other more important things to do with my money than spending it on an expensive Starbucks latte or espresso.

Why Give Up Coffee or Caffeine?

Reading health-related articles that talk about the need for coffee drinkers to understand the effects caffeine has on a person’s body and advice to stop drinking coffee completely is enough to give me a headache, and I’m not referring to the kind of caffeine addiction commonly referred to as caffeine intoxication that can lead to death. Death caused by drinking coffee? Seems that way, especially if you are prone to drinking a lot of coffee in rapid succession, consuming too much caffeine and/or taking caffeine pills that may lead to an overdose of caffeine which can be lethal in extreme cases.

Researchers say caffeine intoxication or “caffeine overdose” can lead to a condition called caffeinism, bringing about a variety of physical and mental conditions that include nervousness, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, muscle twitching and heart palpitations, and that’s just for starters. Overdosing on caffeine or coffee kind of reminds me of hot dog eating contests, where contestants cram as many hot dogs down their gullet as humanly possible without killing themselves or becoming sick to their stomach, but who would drink 80-100 cups of coffee that quickly?!

There are just as many articles talking about the health benefits of coffee, tea and sodas etc (saying the caffeine content found in many foods and drinks we choose to consume are good for us) as there are “caffeine addiction” articles telling people to quit caffeine once and for all, including a large number of reported reasons why caffeine is bad for you.

Is caffeine bad for you or is caffeine good for you? People who consume caffeine on a regular basis, but say they are not addicted to caffeine and don’t experience caffeine withdrawal symptoms, will inevitably be told they are fooling themselves about their caffeine addiction because they have supposedly built up a tolerance to caffeine which can still be dangerous to your health.

Common Sources of Caffeine

Included amongst the most common sources of caffeine are coffee, tea, cocoa beans, chocolate, soft drinks and energy drinks. Caffeine is also present in some over-the-counter pain relievers, cold medications, chocolate pudding, coffee flavored yogurt and diet pills, just to name a few. Coffee drinkers who want to give up caffeine by switching to decaf should know that decaffeinated coffee isn’t completely free of caffeine either.

Some articles recommend that people wanting to live a longer life by incorporating a healthy lifestyle into their daily routine should stop drinking coffee cold turkey, only to be countered by other articles talking about the harmful effects of quitting cold turkey. Quitting coffee cold turkey is said to bring about some nasty side effects and withdrawal symptoms including headaches, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, depressed mood and difficulty concentrating.

Hello? Why can’t the so-called health experts simply make up their minds and provide solid evidence of their findings for us all to make an informed choice of our own, instead of being so contradictory and all over the map? There are a lot of myths associated with caffeine that even health experts can’t seem to agree on, and some of the so-called facts about caffeine and what happens inside your body when you consume too much caffeine borders on the ridiculous.

Just for fun, I took an online quiz to find out if I am addicted to coffee and the results of the silly test came back as I expected. I am not a coffee addict, nor do I experience any of the so-called withdrawal symptoms reported by those who claim to be caffeine addicts and are now trying to quit. On days where I don’t drink coffee or consume caffeinated drinks at all, I don’t get headaches or any other withdrawal symptoms others have said they experience.

Research studies and reports by doctors and scientists about the effects of coffee drinking and caffeine on the body can’t seem to come to any real decisive conclusion, so if you are trying to decide if you are a coffee addict or feel you should quit drinking coffee, gradually cutting back on caffeine is apparently the best way to quit caffeine.

Perhaps it would be too much to ask, but it would be nice if health experts would finally get their facts straight about caffeine consumption and what effect the various sources of caffeine in food and carbonated caffeine drinks actually has on consumers once and for all. Until there are solid reasons to stop drinking coffee entirely, I’m going to continue defending my coffee habit and keep on enjoying my coffee in moderation, like right now.

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