Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #881 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Krups
• Model: GVX231
• Dimensions: 6.30" h x 4.72" w x 9.84" l,

Manufacturer's Description
Blade or Burr - capturing Aroma...

If roasting coffee beans is an art, then turning them into perfect ground coffee is a science. If the grind is too coarse the coffee will brew too slowly, and flavours will not fully develop, if it's too fine the coffee will lack aroma and tend towards bitterness. Too much grinding is as bad as too little for perfect coffee only 'just right' will do. Different coffee machines work best with different grind sizes so what works well in a cafetiere will produce dreadful coffee in an espresso machine. Coffee can be ground with either a blade (chopped) or a burr (crushed).

Blade grinders chop and re-chop each bean turning them into thousands of unevenly sized coffee fragments. The longer you chop the finer the blend becomes, but no matter how careful you are some of the coffee will be over ground and some will be under ground: so the coffee will never be as good as the beans you started with. Burr grinders such as the Krups Expert Coffee Grinder, crush the coffee to a pre-determined size turning the beans into thousands of uniformly sized fragments fine enough to release flavour but not so fine as to destroy it. With a burr grinder, the coffee you make will be every bit as good as the beans it' made from.

Coffee Beans: All of today's coffee beans come from just two varieties of coffee plant; Robusta and Arabica - the mix giving the quality, flavour and strength (caffeine content) of the coffee. the beans are taken and roasted, developing the flavour and aroma of the coffee - the longer they are roasted, the darker and more aromatic the beans become.

Krups for the true coffee lover Krups began its journey towards perfect coffee back in 1846 as "a brand dedicated to precision and technical perfection". These high ideals were not enough for Robert Krups the founder, who insisted this would not be some future objective but a "firm promise". The company's first products immediately won widespread admiration for their quality, far sighted design and technical refinement.

In 1961 Krups turned its attention to making the best electric coffee grinder, revolutionising the quality of home ground coffee. Krups now makes arguably the best range of Espresso machines in the world from modest easy to use machines for novices, to fully automatic bean to cup machines for coffee connoisseurs.

Customer Reviews

Great product for the price
I've had this grinder for around 2 years now and it's been 100% reliable. It's very easy to operate and the grind settings are good enough for all machines. I've just bought a Gaggia Baby Class D espresso machine and this Krups grinder makes fine enough coffee to use in it.

There are some small niggles; the beans sometimes get stuck and you have to shake it to loosen them again, also the two safety mechanisms (hopper lid and grind container) can occasionally be temperamental, but these are small prices to pay for such quality at a low price.

Chic and efficient
This little machine does an excellent job. We have to set it at its coarsest setting for our cafetiere, but the finished ground is comparable to that we used to buy from a specialist retailer. The cup setting (where you set it to mnake the amount of coffee you want to grind) is accurate and consistent.

We use it every day. It blew its fuse the second time we used it, but we replaced that and it has been fine for the four weeks since then.

The crema of the crop (play on words)
I recently acquired one of these as a replacement for one bought abroad which turned out to be faulty (Krups Customer Service is superb by the way).

The unit itself looks quite elegant with a black body and a brushed steel finish. This is a burr grinder, so is suited to the coffee connoiseur who wants a smooth, even grind. You can alter the coarseness of the grind using a knob on the left hand side, and a control on the front lets you preset an amount to grind automatically. The on/off button is illuminated with a rather fetching blue LED when in operation.

There are at least two "user level" safety mechanisms - the bean hopper lid, and the container for the ground coffee. If either are not in place fully, the unit will not operate - the top cover can be a little sensitive, and may need you to keep it pressed down while it grinds your beans.

That small point aside, it does a fantastic job on espresso, and comes with a recommendation from me !