asobu Insulated Pour Over Coffee Maker (32 oz.) Double-Wall Vacuum, Stainless-Steel Filter and Take on the Go Carafe (Copper)

The asobu {sic] insulated Pour Over Coffee Maker 32 oz Double-Wall Stainless Steel Filter and Take-on-the-Go Carafe is one heck of a great and great looking pour-over coffee maker. Although it comes in four colors—stainless steel (silver), burgundy, matte black and copper and now a fifth in asobu wood, I preferred the silver. I thought I was getting too much matte black in our kitchen.Compared to other pour-over coffee makers, this one is very large—32 ozs. If you make coffee per asobu’s instructions it takes 66 gms of coffee and 1000 gms. of filtered water. I have a 1L gooseneck kettle which is larger than most kettles of this type so I had to cut down the amounts.The double-wall stainless steel filter works like a charm. I have used metal filters before usually as a flat or cone basket filter with ‘muddy’ results. However, this filter is extremely good. There was very little ‘mud’ in the bottom of the carafe which to me was a godsend. I do have bit of a pick with the stainless steel carafe. It is quite large; to wit, it’s very somewhat difficult to handle with just one hand. In fact, it’s impossible to do so unless you have a hand with fingers that will stretch to an 8 or more. An 8 equals the number of white keys on a pianoforte that one can reach—a full octave. Most women cannot stretch their fingers that far and as a result would have a hard time gripping the carafe by the bottom with four fingers and a thumb completely wrapped around the side. Thus, pouring from the carafe take two hands to prevent spillage.Another plus for this pour over is that it makes fantastic coffee. This is my first adventure into pour over coffee. I have used French presses, a vacuum pot (electric, not stovetop), several drip coffee makers like the one I am currently using, the Cup One by Moccamaster which produces really fantastic coffee. However, using the same Sumatra Gayo beans with the Cup One as I did with this asobu pour over I tasted a completely different coffee or had I been blindfolded I would have thought I was drinking coffee from a completely different coffee bean. The taste, flavor, texture and body of the coffee was so vastly different I could not believe that I was drinking the same coffee. It was so different but so very pleasing and good.Of course the definitive benefit of this asobu pour over compared to a Chemex, for example, is the double-wall stainless steel carafe. In my second run, the coffee stayed hot for four hours with a loss of only three degrees and that’s with removing the top to pour a new cup of coffee three times. The carafe really does a great job keeping the temperature of the coffee at a slow rate of decline.The end result is a pour over system that is aesthetically beautiful, one that holds 32 ounces of coffee and keeps it hot for at least four hours losing only three degrees Fahrenheit (3° F), beautifully packaged, and all for a very reasonable price. The adage, ‘You get what you pay for’ certainly applies here.I can easily highly recommend the asobu pour over coffee system.

I was looking for an alternative to my back plastic drip coffee maker, and since this did not have ANY plastic touching the coffee, and no paper filters necessary, took the chance. SO GLAD I DID. The process to make the coffee is quick, the coffee stays hot in the thermos, and it is beautiful in the shelf. Most of all, it makes the best tasting coffee! Seriously a great buy.

This is a good product overall, but there is a disconnect on expectations, primarily through the 12 hour claim, and a few minor annoyances. I have overcome some of its limitations through little hacks I read in other comments, and I am very satisfied as a result. For context, I have owned both the Chemex pourover and the Bodum double-walled pourover, and part of why I purchased this product relates to issues I had with those. The Chemex offered no heat retention and, as an all-glass product, inevitably had a finite lifetime in my household. The Bodum had better heat retention, but again, after losing two to breakage, we just needed another solution. For more context, my general routine is to brew and immediately transfer to a thermos mug to take to work on weekdays. On weekends, I will brew a bigger pot for my wife and I, and we usually finish off the pot within a couple hours. As a result, our demands on the product for prolonged heat retention are not high. Now that you awkardly know more about me than I know about you, let’s get to specifics about the product.Positives:- wide bottom makes tipping very unlikely, so even though the funnel is glass, I am not as worried about its longevity- construction with steel and glass limits prolonged exposure to plastics (depending on how you feel about that) and feels solid- vacuum insulation keeps coffee warmer longer than single-walled brewers; coffee remains satisfyingly warm at 2 hours- easy to poor when glass funnel attached- looks nice on the counter- metal filter works well on its own, although due to issues I have had with eventual clogging with sediment and oils with other fine metal filters, I still tend to use #4 filters in it - a simple well placed crease allows the filter paper to sit nicely flush in the metal filterNegatives:- I have not engaged in full-on testing the claims myself, but based on other reviews, but it seems like you have to jump through a lot of hoops (preheating, filling it up as much as possible) to get anywhere close to this 12 hour claim of keeping coffee hot; to be fair, I have zero need for coffee I brew in this pot to be warm 12 hours later, so I don’t see myself breaking out the lab journal any time soon to run my own tests- glass funnel tapered lip is not drip-proof (really, more like drip-encouraging), so I usually end up pouring off the side away from the taper- if you screw off the funnel and use the cap, I can see how anyone with remotely smallish hands would have difficulty handling the base - it is simply not designed for gripping; because I find it easier to just poor with the funnel attached (despite drip-drama above), I purchased a silicone stopper used on Chemex and other pourovers for improve heat retention without the cap - easy solution that is annoying in that it requires you to buy something in addition to fully functionalize- if you dissemble the funnel from the base (either for cleaning or to use the cap), there is a good chance you will experience a leak at the connection point the next time you pour after a brew; I think this is part heat-related expansion and maybe part limited ability to tighten down on a dry gasket; a simple firm twist when you notice it resolves the problem, but it is easy to wonder why you should have to do this, when other companies have clearly figured out how to achieve a good seal the first timeBottom line, there are some minor annoyances, but the product is fundamentally a purchase that I can recommend, especially if your coffee habits are similar to mine. Hopefully, the company takes some of the frequently repeated criticisms in the comments to iterate on their design, because I think their product addresses a poorly filled niche in the pourover market.