Coffee tech.

We go through a lot of coffee here in Baldpate. A lot of it is dispensed with a Cuisinart brand K-Cup device, but at least two pots a day come from a standard coffeemaker. 

And our Krups krapped out on us.

So now it's time to look for a new one. Meanwhile, we have an old Mr. Coffee doing the drip duty, an appliance that we retain for just such emergencies. 

The Krups was just okay. There were issues. To get the coffee as strong as we desired would sometimes result in regurgitation of grounds. The little feature that told us it was time to clean the machine (a blinking light that said CLEAN) seemed to be going off a lot. It wanted more baths than a hypersensitive teenager. Ultimately we were merely whelmed by the coffee it made. 

So we're taking a look at brands outside of Krups. But should we go high tech or low? 

When I say high tech, I'm not talking about the zany features available for people who have EARLY ADOPTER tattooed on their scalps. Things like the Ratio Eight ($595), precision engineered to control the bloom, may be just what these people need. Or maybe the Smarter Coffee Machine (£180), an app-controlled WiFi-connected coffeemaker that can tell you how much water is in it and can grind enough coffee to match. But frankly, we never even used the features that the Krups had. Set up coffee to be ready when we get up in the morning? But the machine's still hot from that after-dinner cup. And it has to be cleaned. And the dogs just tuckered me out today, you know? I'm beat.

So do we go high tech anyway, like the Cuisinart DCC-3400, with a clock that I don't use that resets to 12:00 every time there's a power surge and water filters that don't matter because I use Brita-filtered water ($129)?

Or maybe just a slightly updated Mr. Coffee, that just has one button to do the one thing ($18)?

Actually it's a two-feature button. It turns the machine on AND off.

There are two techy features to the Cuisinart in its favor: the thermal carafe and the automatic off switch. Few people enjoy stale coffee, and no one likes coffee that's burned down to a ring of sludge on the bottom of the pot. But do more expensive coffeemakers actually make better coffee? In my experience not so much, and they are too inflexible about the amount of coffee included. And a lot of their bells and whistles are as annoying as -- well, bells and whistles.

And I could buy seven of these Mr. Coffees for the price of one of those Cuisinarts.

Or perhaps I should lose my mind entirely.

No, I don't think I could face that first thing in the morning.