Best 5 Cup Coffee Maker

TL;DR: The best 5-cup coffee maker is the Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker.

This is my roundup of the best 5-cup coffee makers.

I own a 5-cup coffee maker, namely the Breville Precision Brewer. I also spent a whole day researching people’s experiences with these machines online.

As well as giving you my recommendations for the best machines, I’ll also help you save money by letting you know about two machines that are often recommended by others, but that I think are overpriced.

Before we start, I just want to say that any machine that can make a 5-cup (40 oz) serving of drip coffee in one go can qualify for this roundup. It does not need to be a machine that can make a maximum of 5 cups or only make 5 cups.

Let’s get started.

Top Picks

Best Overall: Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker

Cheapest I Can Recommend: Bonavita 5-Cup

Best Coffee Quality: Ratio 6

Popular But Overpriced: Breville Precision Brewer & Technivorm Moccamaster 59691 KB

Best Overall: Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker

Quality of Coffee

The Oxo Brew 9 Cup makes the second-best coffee (only beaten by the Ratio 6) of all 5-cup coffee makers.

The Oxo Brew 9 Cup can create excellent drip coffee due to its high-quality heating mechanism and shower head. Its showerhead adapts its flow to the quantity of ground coffee that you use so the coffee always gets maximum water coverage and extraction. 

The Oxo Brew 9 Cup is SCAA certified, meaning that its heating mechanism keeps your brewing water at the ideal coffee brewing temperature of 195-205 Fahrenheit throughout the entire brewing process.

Maintaining this temperature means that the flavorful compounds in your coffee beans are extracted into your water as efficiently as possible resulting in an intensely flavored and full-bodied final coffee.

The machine asks you how many cups you are making before you brew (it has different settings for 1-4 and 5-9 cups).

This adjusts the way that water is dispersed into the coffee. Water is dispersed wider if you are making a larger portion of coffee as there is more surface area of ground coffee to wet in this instance. 

Such adjustments mean that your ground coffee is more likely to extract evenly, resulting in a better-balanced final coffee.

Quality of Coffee Rating: 9/10

Design and Build Quality

The Oxo has a high build quality, with the only obvious quality compromises made to its build quality being on its button.

The Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker has a consistently high build quality in both its internal and external components.

It is SCAA certified which is only possible if it has a high-quality internal brewing mechanism. The corners were clearly not cut here.

The Oxo also has one of the best carafes of all drip coffee makers. Its carafe retains heat very well and does not spill or drip when pouring (so many carafes have this problem, unfortunately).

The only part of the machine that feels cheap is its button which is made out of thin plastic. This doesn’t affect the core functioning of the machine and I haven’t heard many complaints about the button breaking.

Design and Build Quality Rating: 8/10

Value For Money

The Oxo offers the best value for money of any 5-cup coffee maker.

The Oxo is the second cheapest machine featured in this article and is less expensive than inferior machines such as the Breville and the Moccamaster.

Since Oxo is a newer entrant to coffee machine making, there is no brand tax with this machine. All the money you paid goes into the machine’s quality.

Value for Money Rating: 10/10

Pros & Cons

Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker Pros

Excellent value for money.

Makes better coffee than most coffee makers.

Its carafe does not spill when you pour.

It can make consitsently good coffee no matter what volume of coffee you make.

Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker Cons

Its brew button feels a bit cheap (this is nitpicking)

Cheapest I Can Still Recommend: Bonavita 5-Cup

Quality of Coffee

The Bonavita 5 Cup makes a good drip coffee. It is only marginally worse than the Oxo and the Ratio 6.

The Bonavita brews coffee well largely due to it maintaining a constant temperature throughout the brewing process.

Its shower head is slightly less good at dispersing water than the Oxo and Ratio machines, meaning that it does not create quite as balanced a coffee as these two machines.

Still, you cannot have any complaints about how this machine makes coffee. Any differences between this and the Oxo/Ratio are marginal.

Quality of Coffee Rating: 8/10

Design and Build Quality

The Bonavita has a high-quality brewing mechanism but uses a lot of plastic in its exterior.

The Bonavita 5 Cup is SCAA-certified. You do not get SCAA certified unless you have a high-quality internal brewing mechanism (especially a heating mechanism). 

This means that corners have not been cut with regard to how it makes coffee.

The manufacturer has clearly tried to save money with the Bonavita’s external build. A lot of plastic is used on the exterior of the machine, especially with its coffee grounds port. 

Although the machine uses a nice thermal carafe, it does get a bit drippy when you pour out of it. This means that you’ll likely have to wipe spilt coffee from your counter after every time you pour coffee from this carafe.

The machine is very compact and has by far the smallest footprint of all the machines featured in this article. It’s therefore the best 5-cup coffee maker for people with limited countertop space.

Design and Build Quality Rating: 6/10

Value For Money

The Bonavita offers excellent value for money being the cheapest SCAA certified 5 cup coffee maker on the market.

Its value for money is second only to the Oxo. Although the Oxo is slightly more expensive than the Bonavita, it justifies this additional cost in its higher exterior build quality.

Value For Money Rating: 9/10

Pros & Cons

Bonavita 5-Cup Pros

Very affordable for such a good quality coffee maker.

Makes better coffee than most coffee makers.

Compact – very suitable for people with limited countertop space.

Bonavita 5-Cup Cons

Cannot make more than 5 cups of coffee in one go.

Its carafe tends to spill coffee when you pour from it.

Highest Coffee Quality: Ratio 6

Quality of Coffee

The Ratio 6 makes the best coffee of all 5-cup coffee makers.

The Ratio 6’s excellent brewing is down to two reasons:

• Its brew basket is insulated better than any other machine. While other machines heat your brewing water to the ideal brewing temperature throughout the brewing, the Ratio is the only machine that ensures that there is no loss in temperature while brewing. These higher temperatures mean more efficient extraction and a stronger, bolder final coffee.

• Its showerhead gets better coverage of the ground coffee. This means that no coffee is wasted by not coming into contact with the water so extraction occurs more efficiently.

I cannot fault the way that this machine brews coffee in any way.

Quality of Coffee Rating: 10/10

Design and Build Quality

Although the machine’s internal brewing mechanism cannot be faulted, it does have a couple of design flaws in its brew basket and water tank.

The machine has the best internal build of all 5-cup coffee makers. Its heating system and shower head are flawless.

It does have two major design flaws, however. They are:

• The measurements on its water tank are wrong. If you want to brew with a reliable brewing ratio you will need to measure out your water in a separate measuring jug.

• Its brew basket does not fit that flush with the rest of the machine and flicks coffee on you when you remove it after making a coffee.

While these may feel like small nitpicks, you do expect better from such an expensive machine.

Design and Build Quality Rating: 7/10

Value For Money

Ratio 6 is for those of you who want the best possible coffee from your coffee maker, regardless of price. It does not offer outstanding value for money.

It is significantly more expensive than other machines listed here and offers only marginal benefits (all in coffee quality) over other machines.

Value For Money Rating: 6/10

Pros & Cons

Ratio 6 Pros

Makes the best coffee of all 5-cup coffee makers

Uses very little plastic in its exterior

It’s a good-looking machine

Ratio 6 Cons

Its water tank has incorrect measurements on it

Two Overpriced Coffee Makers to Avoid: Breville Precision Brewer and Technivorm Moccamaster 59691 KB

The Breville Precision Brewer and the Techinvorm Moccamaster 59691 KB are both good coffee makers but are overpriced compared to the other machines on this list.

Both machines see you paying a “brand tax” given that they are well-known names in drip coffee making.

You will therefore get more for your money with any of the other three machines featured here.

What To Look For in a 5-Cup Coffee Maker

Here are the key factors you should look out for when shopping around for a 5-cup coffee maker.

Brewing Temperature

You want a coffee maker that heats your water to 195-205 Fahrenheit throughout the entire brewing process.

The ideal drip coffee brewing temperature is 195-205 Fahrenheit, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

While almost all drip coffee makers reach this temperature, most only do this by the very end of the brewing process.

Machines that only hit this temperature by the end of brewing will brew the majority of your coffee under the ideal brewing temperature. This leads to under-extraction and a bland final coffee.

Higher quality machines heat up your water to this ideal temperature prior to it making contact with your ground coffee and will maintain this temperature throughout brewing.

This results in better extraction and a richer-flavored, fuller-bodied coffee.

Machines that can keep a constant ideal temperature throughout the entire brewing process are eligible for certification by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SAA).

To be certified a coffee maker needs to meet a couple of other requirements but the aforementioned temperature requirement is easily the toughest. 

Therefore if a machine is not SCAA certified, it’s safe to assume that it does not heat your water to the ideal temperature throughout the entire brewing process.

The table below shows if the machines featured in this article maintain a constant temperature throughout the brewing and if they are SCAA certified:

	Does it maintain an ideal temperature throughout brewing?	SCAA certified?
Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker	Yes	Yes
Bonavita 5 Cup	Yes	Yes
Ratio 6	Yes	Yes
Technivorm Moccamaster KB	Yes	Yes
Breville Precision Brewer	Yes	Yes

Rate of Extraction

The more efficiently your five-cup coffee maker can extract flavor from your ground coffee, the better a final drink it will make.

The rate of extraction refers to the speed at which the machine allows for the flavorful compounds inside the ground coffee to extract into your brewing water.

Extraction is based on a complex interplay between the following factors:

• Brewing temperature
• Brewing speed
• Shower head and brew-basket design
• Coffee type and grind size

Since it’s very difficult to assess extraction rate by reducing to these variables, I am just going to order the machines featured in this article by the rate of extraction as judged by independent tasters (in these two videos – video 1, video 2)

Featured coffee makers ranked by fastest to slowest extractions (faster is better):

• Ratio 6
• Oxo 9 Cup Coffee Maker
• Technivorm Moccamaster
• Bonavita 5 Cup
• Breville Precision Brewer

Bloom Functionality 

You want a coffee maker with a bloom functionality built into its brewing process. If you can customise this bloom time then even better.

When making drip coffee you want to pour a small amount of hot water onto the ground coffee bed before you pour out the rest of your water to brew.

This initial “blooming” of your coffee grounds improves your final coffee in two ways:

• It releases carbon dioxide from the coffee grounds. Only once this CO2 is released can the flavorful compounds in the ground coffee be extracted into your brewing water. Therefore without blooming, the first 30 or so seconds of your brew are wasted as far as extraction is concerned.

• Wetting the coffee grounds makes them stick together. This reduction of the space between the coffee grounds slows down the speed that your brewing water can pass through the bed of coffee beans. This increases coffee-to-water contact time and therefore extraction.

Ideally, your drip coffee maker automatically blooms your coffee before brewing. 

A bonus is if you can program this bloom time to further experiment and perfect your coffee’s flavor.

The table below shows which of the coffee makers featured in this article have a blooming function and if so then whether their bloom time is customizable.

	Does it bloom prior to brewing?	Can you customize bloom time?
Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker	Yes	No
Bonavita 5 Cup	Yes	No
Ratio 6	Yes	No
Technivorm Moccamaster KB	Yes	No
Breville Precision Brewer	Yes	Yes

Carafe Quality

You want your coffee maker to have a thermal carafe with a spout that does not splutter as you pour.

There are two main factors that affect how nice a coffee maker’s carafe is to use:

• Whether it is a glass or thermal carafe.
• Whether a carafe’s spout can pour out coffee without spilling

Glass vs Thermal Carafe

Thermal carafes are better than glass carafes for a couple of reasons:

• Thermal carafes allow you to take your pot of coffee away from the machine and for it to stay at a drinking temperature for several hours.

• Glass carafes have to sit on a hotplate to keep your coffee warm. These hotplates have a tendency to cook coffee at the bottom of your carafe. This can make your coffee become more bitter the longer it sits in your carafe.

The only advantage of a glass carafe over a thermal one is that glass carafes rarely splutter as you pour the coffee out of them. However, as I’ll explain in the next section, there are some thermal carafes that also do not splutter as you pour.

Spluttery Spouts

I’m amazed by the number of carafes that are unable to pour out your coffee in a smooth, steady stream.

Instead, many of these carafes splutter as you pour, making it nearly enough impossible to pour a coffee into your cup without spilling some of the drink.

This can make your coffee maker really frustrating to use as you have to wipe spilt coffee every after each pour.

The table below shows whether the machines featured in this article have a glass or thermal carafe, and which of the machines have carafes that can pour without spilling:

	Glass or thermal carafe?	Can you pour from its carafe without spilling?
Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker	Thermal	Yes
Bonavita 5 Cup	Thermal	No
Ratio 6	Thermal	Yes
Technivorm Moccamaster KB	Glass and thermal	Yes for glass, no for thermal
Breville Precision Brewer	Thermal	Yes

Auto On Functionality

Auto-on is not essential for a coffee maker, but it is a nice bonus and a feature that I use a lot with my machine.

An auto-on functionality means that you can programme your machine to brew at a certain time in the future.

This allows you to do things like load up your machine before you go to bed and have coffee ready when you get up. (The machine needs to be left on to do this)

Although auto-on is not an essential feature on a drip coffee maker, I use it a lot more than I expected when I bought my machine.

The table below shows whether the machines featured in this article have auto-on or not:

	Auto on functionality
Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker	Yes
Bonavita 5 Cup	No
Ratio 6	No
Technivorm Moccamaster KB	No
Breville Precision Brewer	Yes

Water Tank Quality

You want a machine with clear, accurate measurements on its water tank.

Almost all 5-cup coffee makers brew with all the water in their water tank. You, therefore, need to measure out your brewing water every time you make a coffee with these machines.

You, therefore, want a water tank with measurements that are:

• Clear to see (ideally embossed and highlighted in a contrasting color to the material that the tank is made out of).
• Accurate (you’d be surprised by how many machines have water tanks with wildly inaccurate measurements).

The table below shows whether the machines featured in this article have water tanks with clear and accurate measurements:

	Clear measurements on water tank	Accurate measurements of water tank
Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker	Yes	Yes
Bonavita 5 Cup	Yes	Yes
Ratio 6	Yes	No
Technivorm Moccamaster KB	Yes	Yes
Breville Precision Brewer	Yes	No

Final Verdict

The best 5-cup coffee maker is the Oxo Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker. This machine does all aspects of coffee making well and is less expensive than many inferior coffee makers