Black & Decker HC100 Home Cafe Single Serve Coffee Brewing System

This coffee maker is perhaps the biggest piece of junk I have ever purchased and I returned it within 24 hours. Where O'' where to begin?

The construction of this appliance is truly a joke. There isn''t a piece of metal in the entire piece. You get a thin piece of aluminum that your mug sits on while it brews...thats it.

The lever that opens the pod holder is very flimsy. And after the initial brew, the unit wouldn''t seal right, which means, no coffee. So you pop the lever up, open the pod, make sure the coffee is seated appropriately and try again. blah, blah, blah. Do this about 5 times and for no apparent reason, it would work again.

Do you like your coffee hot? Well, you won''t get it with this device. Basically, there are 2 components to a great cup of coffee: the beans and the water. The beans have already been taken care of, so all you can control is the water source. If you are using a machine like this, how dare you put tap water in it! My filtered water sits nice and chilled in my refrigerator. Well, thats a problem for this device. The coffee comes out tepid folks. Not even luke warm! I tried it straight from the tap, and it was warmer but not hot. So if you keep filtered water in your fridge, expect tepid coffee. YUCK. I must be old fashioned, I like to blow on my coffee and see the steam rise up from the cup in morning.

The coffee I was able to drink tasted very good. But again, it just wasn''t worth the hassle of messing with that stupid lever and pod configuration.

I''m off to try the Senseo and hope that it is a little better crafted.

I purchased the Home Cafe at our local Walmart. It made really good coffee for nine cups. While brewing the tenth cup, it stopped mid-brew, spit at me, and then emmited a fatal gasp of acrid black smoke. The kitchen smelled of burning bakelite for the next several hours. I calmly packed up the unit and returned it to my friendly Wallyworld. I opted to replace the unit, rather than get my money back as my wife and I really liked the coffee. Grabbing another pack of coffee pods (optimistic me) we transported our new machine home. Again, following the directions by properly initiating the machine with a coffee-pod free whiz, we brewed another couple cups of delicious coffee. All went well. Then, on cup twelve a few days later (easy to keep track with the amount of pods left), again, mid-cup, another fatal gasp and spray of coffee, and silence as smoke curled up from the unit. Again, the rancid odor along with the bleak knowledge that no more delicious coffee would spew forth from this obviously poorly built unit. Head down with sadness and dejection I decided this time to call the 800 number provided in the instruction manual. After 30 minutes on hold I was finally connected to a friendly customer service rep who offered her condolences on the demise of my coffee maker. She took down the information on the deceased pot and said she was going to transfer me to another department where they would formally de-brief me in an attempt to correct the problem. 15 minutes later she came back on the phone and explained that all the "engineers" were busy, but someone would contact me within 24 hours. Three days later I received a phone call stating that no one at Black and Decker had heard of this problem Yeah, right. They were going to send me a brand new one at no expense. They only requested that I return the old one to them, and they would pay the shipping. Eagerly agreeing to these terms, we waited with great anticipation for the Big Brown Truck to pull up to our door. Approximately two weeks later it arrived on our doorstep!! Rushing to the kitchen, the appliance was carefully removed from its box. This time, it was different. What is this? The first two units were black. This one is white!!! Virginal White! Certainly a good sign. Again, the machine was ititiated with its plain water ritual, and then, with great anticipation and celebration, a Columbian Pod, yes, Columbian, was placed in the machine. Shortly thereafter another delicious cup of coffee was enjoyed. Never mind the gentle splatter of coffee on the counter. A mere minor annoyance given the rewards of the brew. As a matter of fact, eight, count them, eight more cups of delicious coffee were enjoyed with minimal splatter. Then, cup number ten was not meant to be. A sputter mid-cup. Arcing sounds from the front of the unit. Thin plumes of black smoke spiraling towards the ceiling. Gag reflex kicking in from the rancid odor. A tear forming in the corner of my eye knowing it was never meant to be. (Actually, the tear was from the smoke). I notified the woman at the other end of the toll-free number. I told her about all three coffee makers. No, I did not want another unit. It is just too much trouble to make ten cups of coffee, call in about the defective unit, wait for a replacement, make ten cups of coffee, call, wait, repeat--------. I guess I''ll try the Senseo. Maybe it will work.

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I bought a Senseo about a month ago and I was so impressed that I considered buying another one for the office. However, I got a $10 off coupon in the mail for this unit, plus it was cheaper to start with. So I figured, "What the heck".

I like the fact that you can use a taller cup with this unit and it is better geared towards the US palate than the Senseo (the Senseo defaults to a much smaller water-to-coffee ratio and you end up with something between coffee and espresso unless you brew a double cup.)

I also like the water resevoir on the B&D better than the Senseo. Though I suspect that the double resevoir that Senseo offers would win out over the B&D.

The Home Cafe isn''t as nicely engineered as the Senseo and it does leak when it''s brewing. It seems to be a function of how you place the pod and close it up, but you shouldn''t have to be that picky about placement. It also tends to splash as a result of the height and the way that the water comes out. If you use a taller mug, it''s not much of an issue. But if you use a standard coffee cup, you''ll need a cloth nearby for the tiny drips and splashes. It''s not like it pours gallons of coffee all over the counter, but it is a nuisance factor.

If I didn''t have a choice, I''d buy the Home Cafe and be pretty happy about it. However, having a Senseo at home, I find it difficult to tolerate the little idiosyncrasies of the Home Cafe at work.

I''d personally recommend spending the extra money for the Senseo. The Keurig is also a good option, but it''s significantly more expensive for the machine and for the k-cups. It does produce an exceptional cup of coffee, though.

Now if only all of these guys would get together and use ESE pods instead of these proprietary things we could get all the variety we want and pick the machine that worked best for us.

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We tried this, and returned it a week later for the Senseo, which works terrifically so far.

As stated in other reviews, the design is really flimsy plastic and can break easily.

The coffee comes out just hot enough, so unless you are going to drink immediately, it will be cold.

If you do not use a very tall coffee cup, the water jet is so high from the base that the coffee dispensing out hits the bottom of the cup and splashes out, which could burn a person as well as wasting your coffee.

And as others have stated, it is really quite loud in a vibrating noisy way. It starts off somewhat quiet but as the week goes on the noise gets louder with use. It got so loud that I ran in the kitchen and shut off my dishwasher thinking it was malfunctioning only to find that it was the coffee machine making the noise.

Needless to say, we didn''t use it after that and enjoy the Senseo much more. If you really want it, wait a few months until everyone realizes it is a piece of junk and then buy it at Big Lots or another "buy out discount store" for ten dollars, which is more than it is worth.

Thanks for reading and hope it helps. We read reviews before we buy anything, so if you have another product you can review, please do so. We can save each other a lot of time passing the word around. Good luck.

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Right after unpacking it and after performing the initial "dry" brew, I made my first cup. It came out OK although I would have liked it hotter, since after a few zips my coffee was cold.

While opening the lid to replace the used pod to make a second cup, I noticed that one of the pegs from the latch broke, preventing it from making a good seal, thus leaking water from all over.

I''ll have to say that this thing is really flimsy; the latch mechanism is all plastic and it really feels like it. It does not have the sturdy feel that comparable espresso machines have (these single serve coffee makers apparently have a similiar system as the the small pump expresso machines). But in all fairness, these expresso machines are much more expensive ($100-$300) than these new single serve coffee brewers that are in the $60-$70 range.

I went to the store to get a replacement, this time I inspected the competing units from other brands and paid special attention to the latching mechanism. I went with the Philips Senseo because it has a much simpler latching system and looked less prone to breaking. I took it home.

This one brewed hotter coffee, maybe because it has a preheating time of 90 seconds (vs the Home Café which does not).

The Home Café is very convenient (thus my 2 star rating), but I believe there are better options out there.