This is part of my Everyday Coffee series, in which I review four affordable SCAA-certified coffeemakers. Criteria is simple: they have to be programmable, they have to be easy to use, and they have to produce a damn fine cup of coffee. Read on to see how the Cuisinart CPO-800 compares!
Meet the Cuisinart CPO-800
![A Cuisinart CPO-800 coffemaker. The carafe is about 75% full of rich, dark coffee. Sunlight streams in through a window in the background.](https://floor9.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/5a959-cuisinart-cpo-800.jpg)
First on deck is the Cuisinart CPO-800. I actually purchased this last Friday, and I’ve been using it religiously all week. I love this design! Gentle angles, a vintage-looking vacuum fluorescent display, and a semi-traditional coffeemaker look. The Cuisinart CPO-800 looks like it’s straight out of the mid-80s, and that’s a great thing!
The CPO-800 is one of three tested units that mimics the behavior of a pourover. Water gets heated to that golden 195-205 range, then sprinkled (or “jimmied” if you’re from Philadelphia) over the grounds in waves — including a presoak. The presoak allows the coffee to bloom and develop its full flavor, while the brief pauses in watering ensure the grounds aren’t over-extracted.
Cuisinart has always been a good brand for me. This is my third Cuisinart coffeemaker. My oldest one, a DGB-550BK, is still going strong after six years of daily use.
Programming and Setup
The control panel is pretty straightforward. The oversized VFD makes changing settings — brew temperature, brew strength, and warming time — easy. Several of the buttons have built-in LEDs that indicate their on/off status. Overall, the look is very easy on the eyes: it’s sufficiently dim at night, and easily visible in direct sunlight. All hail the beauty of VFD!
![A closeup of the permanent filter. Unlike most permanent filters, which resemble metal screens, this filter has a series of small vertical slots several millimeters long. The CPO-800 coffeemaker is visible in the background.](https://floor9.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/b3d3f-cuisinart-cpo-800-filter.jpg)
One curious feature is the included permanent filter. Unlike every other permanent filter I’ve seen, this is more of a “perforated” design and less of a “mesh” design. I’m concerned about grounds passing through those slots and winding up in the coffee.
That Design Though
I love this design! It would look perfectly at home in a 1985 made-for-TV movie about life in the far-off year of 2000. Don’t get me wrong: that’s absolutely a compliment! This will stand out in the kitchen without looking out of place. If that doesn’t make sense, go see one for yourself and you’ll understand.
![A closeup of the CPO-800's vacuum fluorescent display. The display indicates the brew strength ("medium"), the brew temperature ("hot"), the time, and the fact that it's turned on.](https://floor9.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/823a8-cuisinart-cpo-800-closeup.jpg)
Unlike the other models I tested, the Cuisinart CPO-800 comes with a conventional two-prong cord. Although perfectly safe and reasonable, the heavy-duty cords and three-prong plugs of the other units I tested give a more durable appearance. And I’ll never complain about adding a ground prong to an appliance with a metal casing.
The carafe feels a bit awkward because of its angular, beaker-like appearance. It works, and it doesn’t dribble, but it’s not the most ergonomic solution I’ve ever seen.
The CPO-800 also includes a charcoal filter, which to be honest is more of a gimmick than anything else. True, it will help reduce chlorine smells in tap water, but if you’re a true coffee geek, you’re not using tap water anyway.
The coffeemaker is made in China and backed with a three-year warranty. Personal experience shows that Cuisinart is very good about keeping parts for their older models, so if you accidentally break or lose something, you’re covered.
So … how ’bout that taste?
For the past few days and the rest of this week, I’m using the Cuisinart CPO-800 as my daily driver. That’s two travel cups of regular coffee in the morning, a fresh pot in the afternoon, and all of the above on weekends. My next post will detail the quality of the brew and anything else I encounter in day-to-day usage.