In my heart, GE is a manufacturer of large box appliances. They are the makers of reliable and relatively affordable stoves, as well as the monolithic silver Monogram line of refrigerators that I once carted around town with my brother-in-law. Such that.
I don't normally think of them as a competitor to Mr. Coffee, but their new coffee maker is. It's part of the company's artistic and tech-savvy line of cafes, and it's also one of the few coffee makers to be approved by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). It's like the Good Housekeeping Seal for coffee geeks, giving consumers a fair guarantee of a good cup of coffee. It's a pretty attractive coffee maker, but it doesn't make a very interesting cup for the price.
Wearing off-white
The GE Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker is easy to fall in love with at first glance. You can make the pot right out of the box without even looking at the instructions. GE Café has an app and can connect to your Wi-Fi network, but all of the main functionality is accessible on your machine, so you can leave the app in the App Store if you're not interested.
There are four extraction strength options: Light, Medium, Bold, and Gold, the latter of which is set to SCA specifications. The water temperature on the non-gold setting can be adjusted between 185 degrees Fahrenheit and 205 degrees Fahrenheit to create your desired brew. (On GE, the Gold setting is the same as the Medium setting, but the temperature is fixed at 200 degrees.)
It looks great, and comes in stainless steel, matte black, and a white that should be called “Tatooine Kitchen.” My review unit was one of the matte white models, and while that finish looks cool, it's a unique option considering the nature of coffee stains.
Additionally, its rectangular footprint and controls on the long axis require it to be placed on the countertop in a space-squeezing manner, which is the trap of my personal favorite, the OXO 8-Cup Coffee Maker (9/ 10, WIRED Recommendation)) Avoid. Also, the OXO has dishwasher safe parts, while the GE does not.
Photo: Amazon
Play with the taste
Good coffee is the result of many factors, including bean and roast quality, grind size, brew time, water temperature, and water quality, to name a few. Start with a good base and work your way to perfection as he tweaks one variable at a time.
When I compared it to itself in my test kitchen, it felt solid in its foundations. SCA approval is what works. The coffee was delicious, but I wanted to get to know our friends at Olympia Coffee in the Seattle lab more deeply. We met co-owner Sam Schroeder and retail trainer Reina Callejo. She had brought her Breville Precision Brewer her thermal her coffee maker from her home (7/10, WIRED review). This was a big help. This is a great machine and a direct competitor to the GE Café, perfect for head-to-head testing.
Sam and Rayna watch the coffee nerds pick up their new gadget and hover over it, eagerly pressing every button, opening and closing everything that can be opened and closed, marveling at the tiny replaceable water filters, and the spacious I immediately did what any coffee geek would do, like be thankful for a nice shower. I looked at the head (the part where the hot water comes out above the ground) and wondered out loud if the hot water was actually evenly distributed. Looking back, this is where the figurative cracks in the matte plastic started to show.
