Tom's Guide Verdict
The Aarke Coffee Maker is an attractive product that can brew a bucketload of coffee in a hurry. However, it’s a great deal pricier than similarly-specced drip brewers, and doesn’t have a cold brew setting, strength adjustment, or temperature customization capability.
Pros
- +
Easy to use
- +
Brews 10 cups in 7 minutes
- +
Scandi-cool aesthetics
Cons
- -
Expensive
- -
No cold brew, strength, or temp settings
- -
Some cheaper brewers have more versatility
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If you own a coffee maker, it’s probably going to live on your kitchen countertop. Hiding a coffee maker away in a cupboard after every use is a little bit more labor-intensive than I would ever want. So you need to make sure your machine not only works great, but looks great, too.
But you can’t assume the best coffee makers are those with catwalk-ready looks. The Aarke Coffee Maker does have catwalk-ready looks — the gorgeous chrome finish will bring a bit of pizzazz to anyone’s kitchen. Unfortunately, though, this beauty is just skin-deep. Some of the metal finishes are sharp, and the water tank lid is flimsy.
Does the Aarke Coffee Maker brew a good cup of coffee in a short amount of time? Yes. Yes, it does. But does it go above and beyond to justify its $379 price tag? No. No, it doesn’t. It might still be right for you, though. If you need to brew a large amount of coffee in a short amount of time, and you need said brewer to look good, this machine could be ideal. Find out the full story in this Aarke Coffee Maker review.
Aarke Coffee Maker: Cheat sheet
- Who is it for? Those who want a cool coffee maker to up their kitchen’s street cred
- What does it do well? It oozes ultimate style and brews 10 cups in only 7 minutes
- What are its weaknesses? The price tag feels unjustified considering its lack of settings and features
- Anything else to know? If you like iced coffee, this is a no from me, because it doesn’t make cold brew
Aarke Coffee Maker: Specs
Aarke Coffee Maker review: Price & availability
The Aarke coffee maker costs $379 direct from Aarke U.S. and £300 from Aarke U.K.. For a non-espresso coffee machine, this is pretty pricey. For this caliber of styling, though, it might be worth the plunge. Our best drip coffee maker, the Breville Precision Brewer, is $329 and has a larger 60 fluid ounce capacity. The Ninja Specialty Coffee Maker is just $150, although it’s a good five years old now. Neither can match the Aarke’s sophisticated aesthetic, though.
Aarke Coffee Maker review: Design
If you’re a fan of Scandi minimalism, the Aarke Coffee Maker will be right up your street. The stainless steel chrome finish is gorgeous, and the one-button-for-everything design takes the machine back to basics. If you hold the button down for 3 seconds before brewing, it’ll bloom the coffee with a little water for a more sophisticated taste. The water spout is a shower head type, which creates a more even water-coffee contact surface, however I did find myself having to push down coffee grounds into the center of the filter as they were still completely dry after a couple of minutes.
This would look beautiful in a monochromatic or minimalist kitchen. I enjoy the light inside the water tank so you can see how much water is left during brewing. The glass carafe also slots nicely under the filter, so there’s little opportunity for spillage.
On the flip side, if you’re more of a retro/maximalist decorator, you might want to check out Smeg’s range of retro-inspired multicolored coffee makers. I love the variation of pastel shades on offer.
While the Aarke Coffee Maker looks great, it’s not as well-made as you’d hope. The underside of the metal casing is quite sharp, as if it’s been left unfinished, so be warned against running your fingers across it. The metal lid for the water tank is also quite flimsy and lightweight; I’d prefer something with a bit of weight to it to seal the water inside. There’s a gap between the hot plate and the coffee maker’s body that means coffee grounds can get stuck, and the hot plate isn’t removable. However, I do love the little light inside the water tank that automatically turns on when you pour water inside so you can see how much you’ve got. I also love that the filter compartment stands up by itself so you don’t need to balance it while trying to put a filter inside.
Aarke Coffee Maker review: Performance
Brewing large amounts of coffee with the Aarke Coffee Maker is breezy. This would be best suited to someone wanting to prepare a day’s worth of coffee quickly in one go, or even a small office. The Aarke is easier to use than an espresso machine, but the flavor isn’t as complex. If you’re prepping for lots of people, the Aarke is easier to make a large batch than a Chemex or V60.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. The Aarke Coffee Maker isn’t as flexible as affordable manual pour overs like V60 or a Chemex. On top of that, it’s also not as versatile as the Breville Precision Brewer. You can’t make cold brew or alter the strength of the brew at all. If you want to play with taste, you’ll need to experiment with grind sizes and coffee-to-water ratios. I thought Aarke’s recommended ratio provided the best flavor, which is one Aarke scoop (7.5g) to 1 cup of water.
The Breville Precision Brewer has five presets: fast, gold, strong, over ice, and cold brew. For the money, I’d expect the Aarke to come with similar functionality, but it only has one setting: brew. I suppose you could argue that the Aarke’s primary feature is beauty, and don’t get me wrong, it does that well. But I’d like at least a ‘cold brew’ setting. If you’re anything like me and you love cold brew in the summer, this coffee maker would be nothing more than a pretty (but lumbering) decoration in your kitchen from June to September.
That’s not to say the Aarke’s one setting doesn’t work well: it brews up to 10 cups of coffee in just seven minutes. If you’re making 4 cups, it takes 3 ½ minutes, and 2 cups is just 2 minutes 55 seconds. The coffee it makes is decent too, although it won’t impress specialty coffee nerds. It tastes strong but not overextracted or bitter. You can easily adjust that based on how much coffee you put in the filter. There’s no way to adjust temperature; coffee comes out at 76°C/169°F. After 40 minutes on the hot plate, the coffee was at 71.2°C/160°F.
The hot plate stays on for just 40 minutes, and there’s no way to adjust this time period. Other drip brewers, like the Technivorm Moccamaster KBGV Select, which keeps coffee hot for up to 100 minutes.
Aarke Coffee Maker review: Storage & maintenance
As I touched on above, my main frustration with keeping the Aarke Coffee Maker clean is due to the non-removable hot plate. As the gap between the hot plate and the coffee maker itself is large enough for debris to get lodged in, this is the perfect breeding ground for damp and mold. You could certainly get a cocktail stick and clean around, but it wouldn’t be clean.
Cleaning the machine itself is really easy, though. The glass carafe is easy to clean in the dishwasher or with hot soapy water, and the coffee filter is removable to wash too. Every 60 cycles, the maker will prompt you to descale.
The machine is pretty large, but it looks great on a countertop, so as long as you’ve got the kitchen space, I don’t see why you’d want to store it away. Except maybe during the muggy summer months if, like me, you don’t feel like drinking hot coffee.
Aarke Coffee Maker review: How does it compare?
Our best drip coffee maker is the Breville Precision Brewer, priced at $329 at Amazon. As I mentioned in the ‘Performance’ section, this coffee maker has five settings ranging from ‘fast’ to ‘cold brew’. If you’re someone who looks forward to drinking iced lattes, the Breville would definitely be a better purchase for you.
If you’re on a tight budget, you might want to check out the Braun KF6050WH drip brewer, which is just $129 from Amazon. We’ve seen it go as low as $50, though, so could drop to more than half price during sale events. It only brews up to four cups, but if you’ve no need for a bigger machine, it could save you a decent chunk of money.
If you want a cool-looking machine, though, the Technivorm Moccamaster is one of the most iconic drip brewers on the market today. The design is pretty much unchanged from the 1960s, and for a reason — it works. We gave this drip brewer a 4.5 star review for its delicious coffee flavor and Technivorm’s lifetime repair warranty. It’s pretty expensive at $349, but still $30 cheaper than the Aarke Coffee Maker.
Aarke Coffee Maker review: Verdict
If you need to make a lot of coffee in not a lot of time, this is a great option that can fulfill your rapid brewing needs. However, for the price, the Aarke Coffee Maker has a lot missing from it. Besides the sharp metal underside, it’s forgotten about premium settings. There’s no cold brew, ice, strength, or temperature settings, which means fans of various coffee styles will feel left out. You can get these settings and more on cheaper models. Yes, the Aarke does look cool, and yes, the Aarke makes a lot of tasty coffee quickly, but these attributes don’t justify the $379 for me. However, if its stylish aesthetic has swayed you, it’s not going to brew you a bad cup of coffee — just an expensive one.
