The Capresso MT500 is a coffee maker by the Jura company. This post is all about coffee makers and in particular the Jura coffee makers with a special focus on the Capresso MT500 coffee maker. Now before we get into the nitty gritty, I always like to give a little bit of background information on the company itself. I’ve written about the Jura coffee machine before, so I won’t go into great detail. We’ll do just a brief introduction to the company and then move right into the Capresso MT500 plus and their other cappuccino machines.
Capresso is a privately held American company founded by Michael Kramm when he came over from Germany. The word Capresso was suggested by Kramm’s wife as an amalgamation of cappuccino and espresso. Capresso is primarily known for their one button upscale coffee makers which we’ll be talking about as well as their alliance with Jura of Switzerland to produce said coffee makers.
The model known as Capresso MT500
So let’s get to it. The Capresso MT500 is one of the models that Capresso manufactures. It is an upscale coffee machine as mentioned earlier and you’ll expect to pay more than one hundred dollars for any of their coffee machines. In fact, you’ll likely reach into the 2 or 3 hundred range for their coffee makers. But why are they worth so much you might be asking? Well, lets look at some of the features that can be found. First of all, these aren’t your run of the mill Bunn coffee makers or Nescafe coffee machine. They offer more and higher end features than you’ll likely find on those machines.
All Capresso coffee makers feature standard optimized heating elements to produce a water temperature of over 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 degrees celsius) during brewing and about 180 degrees Fahrenheit (82 degrees celsius) in the carafe immediately after brewing. Your Capresso coffee maker also comes with the European style conical filter which some say brews better with more complete extraction of the flavor profile from the coffee beans. You also get a gold filter with your coffee maker and it will take #4 paper filter if that is your preference.
Can you picture the Capresso MT500?
The Capresso MT500 and all other Capresso coffee machines only use 10 ounce carafes. The reason for this is cleaner extraction of the flavors of the coffee bean. It has been argued that the longer the water drips over the coffee beans, the greater the chance of extracting a bitter taste from the coffee. Capresso feels that 10 ounces seems to be the sweet spot for maximum flavor extraction while limiting any bitter taste. When you get into the 12 and great ounce size carafes, and you’re using that much water, then the longer the water is dripping over the beans allowing for more bitter taste extraction. This is true from my own experiments. All Capresso coffee makers also feature a LED and/or illuminated display.
The Capresso MT500 comes with a thermal carafe to allow for keeping the coffee hot without allowing it to burn. In fact all the MT models include the thermal carafe and the MG included the glass carafe. If it were me, I’d splurge for the thermal carafe, and I’d likely go with the Capresso CoffeeTEAM TS which not only includes the thermal carafe but also a conical burr grinder with direct feed. This way you’re getting freshly ground coffee from a machine that does it all for you. If you’re going to splurge for an upmarket coffee maker you might as well spend the extra seventy or so dollars for the burr grinder too.
Additionally, the conical burr grinders are precision cut by computer let robots and they are slow moving. This helps retain the full beans flavor without any heat transfer or burning from fast grinding. I can’t say enough good things about this whole set up. There is a reason that the Capresso coffee machine has become one of the top contenders amongst coffee connoisseurs.
As of this writing the current model of the Capresso coffee maker is the Capresso MT600, but as mentioned before, I’d go for the CoffeeTEAM Therm. Have your coffee ground and brewed in one go. I love this idea, and I think more and more coffee maker manufacturers will be offering this as time goes by. Especially if we as consumers start becoming more attuned to the finer flavor nuances of coffee. So if you want fresh coffee ground your way every day, without having to resort to coffee pods, I can’t think of a better machine than the Capresso MT500.