Melitta EPOS Coffee Maker – Test, Tips and Comprehensive Analysis

The new flagship of Melitta's filter coffee makers is called the Melitta EPOS. EPOS like "electric Pour Over System". Or Epos like epic? We explore that in this in-depth test. The Melitta EPOS is a filter coffee maker with an integrated coffee grinder.

First things first – the rotating brew water distribution of the Melitta EPOS has set a milestone in terms of distributing brew water. No other filter coffee maker distributes brew water better than the Melitta EPOS. In doing so, Melitta makes a huge development step exactly where the biggest problem in this coffee maker segment lies. The machine brews with high precision. The extractions are very consistent and the taste is correspondingly good.

I take my hat off for that as a filter coffee enthusiast. To really understand the Melitta EPOS technology in detail, I conducted my most comprehensive coffee maker test to date. 20 hours and over 100 extractions have flowed through the filter.

Unfortunately, the Melitta EPOS doesn't perform as well everywhere as it does with brew water distribution. That really frustrated me during the test. If Melitta had worked as consistently in the area of the grinder and controls as they did with water distribution, then the Melitta EPOS would be the best filter coffee maker on the market. Instead, it's a first-class brewer with an average grinder with insufficient control options.

But read for yourself and watch the first test video if you want to learn more. A more detailed video will be released next week. Enjoy.

Brew Water Distribution – The Showpiece

The Melitta EPOS distributes brew water evenly over the entire coffee bed throughout the complete brewing process. This is the most important task when brewing filter coffee and coffee in general. This allows the brew water to dissolve approximately the same amount from all coffee particles.

In doing so, the Melitta EPOS achieves something that no other filter coffee maker has done as well to date. The vast majority of filter coffee makers drip into the middle of the coffee cake. At this point, enormous turbulence develops and a large proportion of what is soluble is dissolved from the surrounding coffee particles. However, it's important to note that not everything that is soluble in coffee is tasty. If too much is dissolved from the coffee grounds, the coffee drink tastes bitter. In this case we speak of a Überextraktion.

In the case of the coffee maker that always drips on the same spot, we simultaneously have under-extraction. This occurs at the edges of the coffee filter, where the coffee grounds are not sufficiently covered with water. The inflow and turbulence are missing. Too little extraction leads to a sour, sometimes aggressive and unpleasant taste.

The result in the cup is not balanced, bitter and sour to a high degree, which overshadows the positive taste of the coffee. It's almost absurd that the vast majority of old and new filter coffee makers still use such technology.

At the same time, this is why hand-brewed coffee almost always tastes better. The brewer can then control how they add the water.

Like Hand-Brewed – EPOS as "electric Pour Over System"

After brewing starts, it takes 5 to 15 seconds before the brewing arm begins to rotate and distributes the brew water over the coffee. Three holes release the water in staggered intervals of 1.5cm. The fact that Melitta calls the rotating water distribution an "electric Pour Over System" is quite amusing given that Melitta Bentz once brewed by hand. "Melitta – brew electrically like Melitta" would have sounded strange though. At the same time, the machine's name also contains a reference to the trendy hand-brewing scene that likes to throw around anglicisms. Filter coffee is hip and young. EPOS also sounds like epic, which is the highest item category in many computer games.

And indeed. The Pour Over System brews almost like hand-brewing and even better. The machine brews consistently and controls the water amount. Furthermore, it brews alternately with single and triple water pours. And the triple pour is something no hand-brewer can pull off.

The coffee grounds are wetted very evenly. The triple jet causes considerable turbulence in the brewer, which ensures that all the coffee grounds are evenly extracted. The hand-brewer achieves this by stirring the coffee. The triple jet combined with the even application provides equivalent results.

Brewing – Consistent as Clockwork

Overall, I did about 100 brews with the Melitta EPOS. What's really impressive is the consistency! The EPOS rotates like clockwork. It's also impressive to see in the test video. To test the brewing unit by itself and not be limited by the built-in grinder, I brewed weighed coffee portions of 30 grams of coffee with 500 ml using an external professional grinder. The measured strength of the coffee particles (TDS % = total dissolved solids) is remarkably consistent. In 20 brews, I measured a marginal deviation of 0.02 TDS. I don't know any professional hand-brewer who delivers better results.

Conclusion on Water Distribution

The water distribution on the coffee grounds is the best I've tested in a filter coffee maker. It's really a pleasure and the brews are extremely consistent.

There's only one deduction for me at this point. While the machine's description mentions individual brewing profiles – this is only partially the case. The EPOS delivers precisely, rotates consistently and also controls all three brew water outputs relatively evenly – across all brewing profiles. While it brews the smallest coffee amount of 2 cups or 250 ml of water with a slightly shorter pre-brew of 90 milliliters and 45 seconds. However, that's long and unfortunately cannot be programmed differently. All other water volumes are pre-brewed with a water amount of 120 milliliters and a time of 50 seconds.

Also, the outermost water outlet is activated very early with water. This means that with smaller coffee amounts (2 cups), the outermost brew water outlet doesn't wet the coffee grounds at the beginning of the brew, but rather the filter paper. But we should extract coffee, not paper, and there's a risk that the water flows past the coffee.

Nevertheless, the brew water distribution is convincing and deserves 9 out of 10 possible points!

Flow Rate

Another important criterion for a good brewer is the flow rate. If water is added too quickly, it sits on the coffee bed and turbulence is lacking. In this case, extraction is also too low, so not enough is dissolved from the coffee bean.

If coffee is added too slowly and repeatedly rinsed in spurts, impact turbulence occurs over a very long period, leading to a very high release of coffee particles. The coffee is then in contact with water for far too long.

The Melitta EPOS finds a good middle ground. It adds a bit too much water during pre-brewing, but in doing so ensures that all coffee is truly wetted. Subsequently, it brews very consistently with a water addition of approximately 100 milliliters per 20 seconds. That's a good value. The crowning achievement would be if this water amount could also be controlled, so that especially the pre-brew occurs differently.

Why a Pre-Brew or the So-Called Blooming?

First of all, it's very positive that the Melitta EPOS has a pre-brew function. Instead of continuously pouring from the start, this is activated by default when the pre-infusion button glows. A pre-brew is especially useful when coffee is fresh. Guter Coffee is always fresh and with a built-in grinder, it's also freshly ground.

In this case, the coffee grounds still contain a decent amount of CO2 from the roast. Through a pre-brew at high temperature, the CO2 can escape and is subsequently not in the coffee. This makes sense because escaping CO2 gives the coffee drink a carbonation aftertaste. Furthermore, the escaping CO2 disturbs the coffee bed. This leads to uneven extraction and should be avoided. That's why pre-brewing especially makes sense with fresh and darker roasted coffees with more CO2. Blooming is the term for pre-brewing because the coffee literally opens up like a blooming flower.

A pre-brew is present, a plus compared to many conventional filter coffee makers. The flow rate is good. Since both unfortunately cannot be controlled, there's a 2-point deduction, but still a very good conclusion with 8 out of 10 for the flow rate.

Brew Temperature of the Melitta EPOS

The set brew temperature is at the upper limit. At the water outlet, I measured relatively continuous temperatures of 98 degrees. In the cake, the brew temperature was consistently at 94 – 95 degrees. These high temperatures are only a bigger problem when a coffee is darker roasted.

With darker roasted coffees, there's already plenty of bitterness present. The high temperatures amplify this impression even further. With high-quality, rather lighter roasts, the high temperatures are not a problem.

If there were a temperature adjustment option, the brewer could make certain adjustments and adapt the temperature to the coffees being used. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Hardly any filter coffee maker has this option. But the Melitta EPOS, with its price of around 300€, also ventures into the highest price segment. In that context, the desire for such a function doesn't seem unreasonable. And if you want to develop a brewer for all coffees and customer groups, then adjusting the brew temperature is almost necessary.

So the Melitta EPOS scores rather average here. 6 out of 10 points are what I award for temperature assessment.

Does the Coffee Taste Good?

Ultimately, a coffee maker should primarily make good coffee. The Melitta EPOS achieves this partially with flying colors. Especially with high-quality coffees directly from the roaster, which were ground to the desired grind size not with the built-in grinder but with an external grinder, the results were excellent. I drank some of the best coffees I've ever had with a filter coffee maker.

The machine shows its strengths with higher brew volumes. Especially at 750 ml, the machine performs splendidly. In this case, coffee amounts of around 46 grams should be used. With this high coffee amount, the outer opening of the brewing arm only briefly touches the paper. The machine achieves pronounced turbulence with its continuous rotation. It does so very precisely. That's a pleasure!

It performs less well with smaller coffee amounts. Especially from 250 ml/2 cups I would rather advise against it. It's better to brew by hand there. Also, I can't recommend using dark coffee roasts. The bitterness in the cup at high brew temperatures was not pleasant. Or in other words: the machine couldn't showcase its strengths here. I provide some filter coffee recommendations from roasters in Germany, Switzerland and Austria in my article about Kaffeeauswahl.

Overall, the filter coffee maker makes good coffee and 8 out of 10 points go to the Melitta EPOS's account. I can't avoid the deductions because the control options are too limited to fully exploit the machine's potential in terms of temperature and with smaller water volumes.

Build Quality and Appearance

The broad shape, the filter holder on the U-shaped arch, that makes a statement. The Melitta EPOS breaks away from the typical tall and narrow form of filter coffee makers and resembles more of an automatic coffee maker in appearance. The EPOS is available in silver-black and gold-black. It's supposed to look sophisticated.

Unfortunately, the material quality doesn't match the appearance. The moment the machine is in front of you, it becomes clear: it's completely made of plastic. And that doesn't really look high-quality. The plastic components flex when you press them lightly. The machine doesn't feel really stable. You can use plastic in construction, but here expectation meets reality. For the price, the marketing online, filter coffee bags that no longer come in bulk packages but in elegant envelopes – I'd like to see stronger expression of this in the machine too.

On top of that, there are larger design flaws and problematic controls – regardless of the fact that there's not much to control anyway.

Where brewing occurs, water flows and drips. Both at the grinder and at the brewer, the cracks in the base area are designed so that water can seep in from above. A plumber who worked that way in the wet areas of a bathroom wouldn't get any more jobs. I found no way to dry out the moisture again.

The buttons provide no tactile feedback whatsoever; instead, they light up when activated. They trigger very easily, which has caused me to accidentally press the grind button several times, causing the grinder to merrily grind away.

The plastic lid of the beautiful glass carafe has fallen into the opening several times and I had to fish it out of the pot. This doesn't happen when it's sitting on the carafe, but it can easily fall in when you're putting it on. That could certainly have been prevented with a slightly different shape.

The water tank is removable and can thus be filled directly at the tap. The markings are very precise and allow for accurate filling.

Overall, the picture remains that the Melitta EPOS's material quality cannot keep up with its first-class brewing unit. In addition to the subjective impression, structural difficulties (cracks) carry weight. The limited controls, which we'll discuss further when discussing the grinder, also detract from it. 5 out of 10 points are what I have to award here, also viewed in the context of the very high recommended retail price of 299€.

Price-to-Performance Ratio of the Melitta EPOS

Of course, 299 euros is a lot of money. On the other hand, you also get a coffee maker and a coffee grinder. As a consumer, I don't have to make the decision of whether I want that at all.

Personally, I would buy the Melitta EPOS without the grinder for 180 euros and find the price reasonable. For control options, temperature control and the ability to save profiles, I would have also put 300 euros on the table – without the grinder.

Nevertheless, one must say that you get a lot of performance for your money here. And if you follow our brewing recipes, you'll also brew very good coffee with the Melitta EPOS.

Our impression: 6 out of 10 points.

Bonus Points for Anything Special?

If I particularly like things on a filter coffee maker that didn't find a place in the previous text, they're addressed here. This includes the Melitta EPOS having a hotplate that can be turned off by a long press of the "Brew" button. Warmed coffee doesn't taste good and Melitta also mentions this in the user manual. The fact that this is also pointed out and an automatic shutdown occurs after 40 minutes is positive.

There is also a "manual extraction control". If you want to brew yourself, you're certainly better off with a hand filter and a pouring vessel. But the fact that the function exists is still nice. You can manually adjust the rotation direction of the brewing arm, but not the control of the holes. It's also not possible to save the manual brew.

A version with a thermal carafe and completely without a hotplate was not available at the time of purchase. I would have viewed that positively because a thermal carafe maintains the coffee taste better over a 45-minute period than a hotplate.

For the option of turning off the hotplate as well as the manual extraction control, the Melitta receives two bonus points.

Conclusion on the Assessment of the Melitta EPOS Filter Coffee Maker

The Melitta EPOS operates on two playing fields. On the one hand, it's a filter coffee maker and on the other hand, a coffee grinder. I decided on a separate assessment and will apply this principle to future tests of filter coffee makers with grinders. This allows for a better classification of the machine's performance in both areas.

Integrated Coffee Grinder of the Melitta EPOS

In isolation, the Melitta EPOS grinder delivers respectable performance. A good grinder is characterized by uniform particle size (particle distribution). If you select, for example, medium grind, as many coffee particles as possible should correspond to this grind setting or the desired particle size. Particles that are smaller are extracted much more intensely (over-extraction). Particles that are larger are extracted less intensely (under-extraction). We conducted testing with micron sieves by hand and obtained satisfactory results. A ground coffee sample was sent in and we're still awaiting the results.

The grinder allows a total of 3 ½ control options.

1. Grind Amount by Selecting Cups.

When selecting 4 cups, for example, an amount of just over 30 grams is ground. The amount depends on the characteristics (density, moisture, roast, age) of the ground coffee. Therefore, at least a slight correction of the grinding amount is almost always necessary.

2. "Strength" Beans

By selecting one, two or three beans, the grind amount can be slightly changed. By increasing to two or three beans, more coffee grounds are used than with "one bean".

3. Grind Setting Adjustment

The grind setting can be adjusted in three stages. Fine, medium and coarse. No further adjustment options can be found in the user manual.

Additionally, the grind amount can be increased and reduced overall by 10%. The control is so cumbersome that even the proofreaders of the user manual probably didn't notice an error. There it says under section 3.5 in the area of grind amount fine adjustment that when LED 2 is lit, the grind amount is reduced. The correct information would be LED 1. I emailed Melitta about this and it was confirmed accordingly.

Why This Can Be Quite Problematic

If your coffee tastes good, then all is well! If your grinder happens to deliver the right amount in the appropriate grind setting for the coffee you're using, you can skip this chapter. Unfortunately, that would be a lucky coincidence and already the next day, with a different coffee, you could face the following challenge.

I brewed with the setting 4 cups, bean strength 2 and grind medium. To check the results, I weighed the coffee amount after grinding and also dispensed the water amount precisely.

The brewer showed remarkable consistency. Both in taste and in measurement with the Refraktometer the coffee was quite strong. This can be explained in the measurement by the high TDS. TDS stands for "total dissolved solids" and represents the concentration of dissolved coffee particles. Typically, Filterkaffee a strength of about 1.2 to 1.5 %. Depending on the coffee used, it tastes stronger or weaker. In our case, the coffee was very strong and the acidity was slightly unpleasant.

To reduce the strength we can do two things. Either adjust the grind coarser or use less coffee. You should never do both at once, as otherwise the results are difficult to reproduce.

So I used less coffee powder. This was also supported by the fact that the coffee powder used above was extracted at the lower limit (18.83% average). Extraction is what we pull out of the bean. Good for filter is a value between 18 – 22 %. In the lower range and below 18%, the acidity of the coffee is emphasized. In the upper range and above 22%, the coffee tastes more bitter.

The following grinds were impressively consistent. The grinder ground 30 grams very precisely several times in a row. That's noteworthy because hardly any professional grinder does this precisely.

The coffee tasted significantly better. It was balanced and sweet and acidity and bitterness complemented each other well. However, I wanted to refine it further, also to explore the limits of the grinder.

Since the grind amount was perfect, the option of coarser grinding remained. So I set the grinder to coarse.

As a result, the grind amount also increased. Instead of 30 grams, the grinder dispensed an average of 33.48 grams. That no longer matched my desired coffee amount of about 60 grams per liter. Accordingly, the brew water used could no longer extract enough from the particles. There was too little for the coffee amount and it was also too coarse. The coffee tasted sour.

The coffee amount could no longer be changed via the "strength" buttons. By reprogramming the strength buttons with a 10% reduction, the approximately 30 grams were reached again. However, the grind setting was still not coarse enough.

And now I was at the end of the grinder's capabilities. A coarser grind setting cannot be set. 3 settings for grind adjustment are very, very little. Modern grinders come with 30 settings or are even infinitely variable.

Development of the Grinder Forgotten

The grinder's adjustment options remind me strongly of the Melitta Aroma Fresh – also a filter coffee maker with an integrated grinder.

There too, the adjustment options are too limited. But there's another big and important difference from the Melitta EPOS.

The Melitta EPOS brews with its brewing arm with much more turbulence. So there's much more extraction through the turbulence. For this reason, the coarser range of the grinder is demanded much more than it would be in the context of brewing with a "classic filter coffee maker".

And here's where things get frustrating. The grinder is consistent. But it can't keep up with its more advanced neighbor, the brewing unit. It doesn't deliver the right grind setting to work flexibly with the brewer. The adjustment options are limited. 10% more or less ground coffee is not a sufficient range to set the desired grind amount.

Good brewing is not just about "Pour Over" but about the interplay of precise grind setting, coffee amount and water pouring.

Final Conclusion on the Melitta EPOS

It's really difficult to give a differentiated conclusion on the Melitta EPOS. That's why this article has become so long. If you rate a football team, the final team performance counts. Even if the forward scores goals – if the defense doesn't play along, that doesn't help much.

It's a bit like that with the Melitta EPOS for me. The consistent further development of the brewing arm is really very well done. I've never had so much fun with the consistency and quality of water distribution. Bravo!

Unfortunately, the grinder can't match that performance. In many respects, it's a solid grinder. But it's not the right partner to support the brewer's performance. Nevertheless, one must say that a grinder is a hundred times better than no grinder, because freshly ground coffee is the prerequisite for good coffee. I'm grateful to Melitta for this signal to the market.

The machine's control options are limited. The Melitta EPOS thus misses out on further opportunities to become the best filter coffee maker on the market. That's tragic because it was absolutely within reach.

Who Is This Filter Coffee Maker For?

With its compact size and good brewer, the filter coffee maker is a good choice for anyone who enjoys quality filter coffee. If you already have an external grinder around, you can use it to compensate for the machine's weaknesses.

I'd rather recommend using medium to light filter roasts and high-quality beans. This is the right match for the high brew temperature.

I also find the machine interesting for coffee schools and roasters for courses and better understanding of turbulence. The machine's consistency is remarkable and you can learn a lot as a hand-brewer too.

Wish List for Melitta for the EPOS 2.0

I would like to see:

• PID control of temperature
• Display with grind amount indicator
• Stepless grinder adjustment
• Thermal carafe and no hotplate
• (Less plastic)