Party Like It’s 1959: A Smeg Coffee Maker Review

“… I like waking up to the smell of bacon, sue me. And since I don’t have a butler, I have to do it myself…”
– Michael G. Scott.

Much like Mr. Scott, here in the Page household, we enjoy waking up to the aroma of something we love each morning: a really good, hot pot of coffee. Also similarly, we don’t have a butler to assist with making it. That’s where our Smeg coffee maker comes in. Rather than mirroring the rest of Michael’s morning routine, we simply set a timer and let the machine take care of the rest.

Disclaimer: We don’t claim to be coffee snobs — unless you’re mulling over your coffee bean growers and roasters, you can’t quite qualify for the title of “coffee snob” in my book. Still, we’ve put in our “10,000 hours” of coffee drinking, from the motor oil they brewed at the construction equipment repair shop I used to work in, to the smooth bean water in Haiti and Italy. At home, we’ve dabbled in CHEMEX’s, French Presses, and Keurigs, and while we’re not snobs about our java, we’ve had enough caffeine headaches to at least be annoying about it.

So with that in mind, let’s start with what we love about the Smeg Drip Coffee Maker:

1. I did it for the design.
   
   We have to praise the overwhelming design-appeal of Smeg products — they’re beautiful and stand out from almost everything else on the market. People are somewhat accustomed to being pragmatic with home purchases, so they don’t always let themselves go there with functional components like appliances. For us, home design does carry a lot of weight, so this was an added motivation when considering our options.
   
   It’s a coffee maker that marries retro and modern in all the best ways — it is definitely not your grandmother’s coffee maker, even if it vaguely resembles it.
   
   Design: A+
   
   
2. Everything You Need, Nothing That You Don’t.
   
   The feature list for a Smeg Drip Coffee Maker reads like a menu at a small Italian restaurant you stumbled into. You won’t find cheesy garlic bread, but the homemade gnocci is all you need. While other options offer a Cheesecake Factory suite of options, most of us will opt for the key settings we actually need anyways.
   
   Smeg’s coffee maker has a 10-cup glass carafe, digital clock, programmable automatic start, adjustable water hardness, decalcification alarm, auto shut-off, light or intense aroma mode, and a 60 minute warming plate.
   
   For us, all of the above is more than enough and makes this machine extremely easy to use. Out of the box, it took me 60 seconds to understand how to use all of the features, and the automatic de-scaler alert adds even more to the convenience. A simplified morning routine will always be a major positive to us!
   
   Features: A-
   
   (For us, it’s perfect, but others may prefer more functionality.)
   
   
3. Just Really Good Coffee.
   
   Listed at $229 retail price, this is where most people decide Smeg is not for them. While I can’t argue with that line of thinking, especially if it’s simply outside of someone’s budget, I do think Smeg gives you insanely good quality for the price. Nothing looks, feels, or is cheap on this imported machine, and, more importantly, it just makes a really, really good cup of coffee.
   
   Value: B+
   
   (We have never felt like we’ve gotten less than what we paid for, but we also understand this is not the most budget friendly option on the market.)
   

Common Negative Reviews Debunked:

1. “Top of the coffee maker doesn’t open wide enough.”
   
   I’ve never understood this knock on the Smeg. We typically use the carafe to fill the water tank, and it’s never once created a problem, felt like an imposition, or required multiple trips to and from the sink to fill it up.
   
   
2. “The coffee doesn’t stay hot enough.”
   
   Some reviews have referenced the literal temperatures of the coffee when it’s brewed, while others discuss being annoyed by the 60 minute timer on the hot plate. In either case, we’ve never had trouble with the brewing temperature or the time frame (if the warming plate is on longer than 60 minutes, you’re burning your coffee anyways).
   
   The coffee’s always hot enough, and the early shut off means we avoid ruining what we don’t drink — which makes for a nice afternoon iced coffee or a quick warm up in your microwave.
   
   
3. “The beep sound when it brews is too loud.”
   
   If you decide to get a Smeg coffee maker, you’ll hear a beep sound when it starts to brew, and a double beep when it finishes. Compare it to the chaotic noises of a Keurig or Nespresso, and I don’t think you’ll have a problem. The beep has never bothered us or felt remotely intrusive. That said, if you do pull a Michael Scott and keep it by your bed, you may find it annoying.
   

We bought our Smeg Drip Coffee Maker in the “Cream” colorway and have loved it from a design and functionality perspective ever since. While it is a higher price point than some options, we’ve found that we get every bit of the value from it in the quality of the coffee it produces, the durability of the machine itself, and its design aesthetic it provides. We highly recommend it to anyone in the market for a new coffee maker!

Shop the Smeg Drip Coffee Maker in multiple colorways here.

– Nathan