Review: Gourmet Coffee Café Single Serve Brewer from Lexxus International

Review from Single Serve Coffee.com - Coffee Pod Reviews Charlie Golick, a Lexxus International representative sent us in the newly released Gourmet Coffee Café to review. The Gourmet Coffee Café is a single serve coffee pod brewer utilizing an espresso, coffee, and tea pod holder. You'll be able to order the Gourmet Coffee Café pods from Lexxus International representatives.

One of the things that distinguishes the Gourmet Coffee Café from other single serve coffee brewers is the ability to make espresso, cappuccinos, lattes, regular coffee, and teas all from one single serve coffee brewer. The Gourmet Coffee Café has a milk frother on the side that allows for well - milk frothing. This little innovation makes the Gourmet Coffee Café the only single serve coffee brewer we know of with this innovation.

What's in the Gourmet Coffee Café Box

Opening up the Gourmet Coffee Café box you find what you'd expect in any single serve or one cup coffee brewer:

Water Tank
Machine
Drip Basin
Tea Pod Holder
Coffee Pod Holder
Espresso Pod Holder

Each of the pod holders is very different in the capacity of pod it will hold and how it will filter the coffee or tea through it. The water tank is of decent size, allowing for 2 big brews of coffee before refilling. Our only complaint with the water tank was it was hard to pull out and a little difficult to put back in much like the Melitta One:One.

The machine itself is pretty good looking out of the box. We liked the top pinching mechanism to pop open and put the pods into a "pod chasm". It's made of matte finished black plastic that is rubbery to the touch, giving a nice tactile feel. The drip basin is well designed and gives a feeling of quality as well as it's made of pretty heavy steel.

The milk frother is on the side and covered with a plastic material. I'm not a big fan of the plastic over the top, thinking I'm going to be eating PVC vinyl or the like in my latte, but it does clean up nice and also is well designed looking.

The controls of the Gourmet Coffee Café are a little unique. There is a Power On, Coffee Button, and Froth Button on the bottom. When you want to brew a cup of espresso or coffee you use the dial on the side of the machine to brew and then if you want to froth, you'll push the froth button the bottom and turn to froth to get some steam. The machine knows the right amount of water depending on the pod holder to use for espresso, tea, and coffee.

After brewing the machine will turn off. One of the interesting things we found was making espresso, the machine knows from the pod holder that it's for espresso, so it produces less water. The coffee pod holder produces an 8 oz cup of coffee. Very nice. We found the espresso setting to be a little tall for our liking (too much water), but you can always turn the dial to off and stop brewing at any time.

Gourmet Coffee Café Flavors & Pod Size

Charles sent along all the flavors to sample including:

Fusion - Mild Roasted Coffee
Mojo Rising - Medium Roasted Coffee
French Muse - French Vanilla Flavored Coffee
Dark Sienna - Dark Roasted Coffee
Cocoa Dream - Mocha Flavored Coffee
Serenity Roast - Decaffeinated Coffee (SERENITY NOW!)
Jubiliation - Espresso

We didn't receive any Tea Pods to review so we can't comment on the Teas from Gourmet Coffee Café.

The coffee pods for the Gourmet Coffee Café are also in the 55 mm range. They are much smaller than the Senseo 62mm pod, and are packed in what we would call the 7-8 gram range. I know of all you want to know exactly how much coffee is in a pod - but it's really hard to tell each time. We are in the process of getting a scale to know exactly - but 7-8 gram is our best guess.

Gourmet Coffee Café on Left & Senseo on Right

The espresso pod is a loosely packed espresso pod. It's soft and more like a regular coffee pod than others we've seen. It has the standard tab that espresso pods have, and is of the 7gram size in weight. Later on we'll find the espresso it makes is more cafe crema in nature than espresso.

Brewing a cup of coffee with the Gourmet Coffee Café

Brewing a cup of coffee with the Gourmet Coffee Café is easy.

You open up the machine.
Pick the appropriate pod holder - coffee or espresso
Put in the pod.
Turn to Brew.
Wait about 60 seconds.
Fresh up of single serve coffee or espresso

The brew cycle on the Gourmet Coffee Café is interesting. It preps the pod twice by putting a little water in two bursts, then brewing the full cycle. This allows for a proper seating and sealing of the pod in the holder so water doesn't go by. We've been doing something similiar with Bunn My Cafe, by pouring a little hot water over the pod to get a perfect brew. It's nice to see a machine do this instead of having to do this manually.

Tasting Gourmet Coffee Pod & Espresso Pod Coffee

The coffee produced from the coffee pod holder is decent. We liked the flavored coffees over the regular roasts. The Harvest Moon French Vanilla and Cocoa Dream Mocha flavored coffees were among the best of the coffee pod brews we produced from the machine.

We would put the regular roasts brew taste on par or a little better than the Mr. Coffee Home Cafe brewer. We couldn't say the coffee was great, but it wasn't awful.

Since the Gourmet Coffee Café has an espresso pod holder, we pulled out a Jubilation espresso pod and to our surprise, the espresso produced was pretty good. However, it's more coffee crema that espresso in nature. This is not the same espresso produced from the Jura Capresso or FrancisFrancis! but it was yummy, it passed the Cafepods.com sugar crema test, and overall was not that bitter.

Making a Latte with the Gourmet Coffee Café

We made of shot of Jubiliation espresso and whipped up some skim milk using the Gourmet Coffee Café milk frother. The machine heated up rather quickly and you could hear the pump working to produce a decent amount of steam for frothing. We enjoyed making a latte and overall it had good taste and was easy to do.

Two lattes - One Espresso and One Regular Coffee - Not bad!

Senseo Versus Gourmet Coffee Café - Coffee Pod Brewing Showdown

We either use the Bunn My Cafe or the Philips Senseo to benchmark new single coffee pod brewers. We picked the Philips Senseo this time and tried both the Gourmet Coffee Café pods in the Senseo and the Senseo Dark Roast pods in the Gourmet Coffee Café.

The coffee produced from each one was astonishly different (Gourmet Coffee Café on left and Senseo on right). The Senseo Dark Roast in the Gourmet Coffee Café was not great. And the Cocoa Dream brewed in the Senseo however, was not bad. We know like the Senseo, the Gourmet Coffee Café was designed with their pods in mind, so we weren't phased by the pods perhaps not working in either machine terribly well.

The problem with the Gourmet Coffee Café is - unlike the Bunn My Cafe or other single serve coffee brewers, the Gourmet Coffee Café seems to produce better coffee from the Gourmet Coffee Café pods and doesn't seem to make a good cup of coffee from other pods that might fit in the Gourmet Coffee Café. The standard 62mm pod had to be jammed into the pod holder and was overall not a great fit but it should produce a decent cup of coffee provided there's a good seal.

We did find the taking a standard Senseo Dark Roast coffee pod and using the espresso pod holder produced a better tasting cup of coffee than using the standard coffee holder. The only issue here is the Gourmet Coffee Café knows you've used the espresso pod holder and uses about a 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of water you'd want for a cup of coffee. If you do purchase this machine, we think other pods would have to be brewed using the espresso pod holder for a 4oz cup of coffee.

Conclusion

We like the Gourmet Coffee Café and feel it's a decent offering. You can get a full range of coffee pods in different roasts and flavors for it right out of the gate which we think may be important to some consumers. Also the milk frother alone is pretty interesting. It works and is a nice addition.

All that being said, we have to say we didn't like the coffee the Gourmet Coffee Café produced and the only way to make a good cup of coffee was to use the espresso pod holder and brew twice. If you wanted an 8oz cup, you'd have to use 2 pods and brew 2 espresso pod cycles with normal coffee pods.

We expect that the line of Gourmet Coffee Café coffee pods will work for some coffee drinkers, but we just weren't won over by any of the coffees we tasted. The coffee produced is on par with the Home Cafe from Black & Decker.

We give the Gourmet Coffee Café Single Serve Coffee Brewer 3 out of 5 pods for it's solid construction and overall quality design and unique features. We give the overall Gourmet Coffee Café line of coffees 2 out of 5 pods.

That brings us to an overall Gourmet Coffee Café experience of 2.5 out of 5 pods.

Gourmetcoffeecafe Review1-1

You can purchase the Gourmet Coffee Café brewer from Lexxus International representatives or by visiting Charlie Golick's Gourmet Coffee Café web site. Thanks again to Charles Golick for sending this in.

Update: The lowest possible wholesale price is $99 for the Gourmet Coffee Cafe going up to $159.00 (depending on the quantity ordered) and retailing at the suggested $250.00.

The Gourmet Coffee Cafe comes with a lifetime replacement guarantee and is manufactured by the company that brought the George Foreman lean mean grilling machine to market.

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Posted by Jay Brewer at July 11, 2005 7:34 AM

If this is the George Foreman grill company, then it must be made by Salton. I believe they're based out of Columbia, MO.. about an hour drive from where I live.. They seem to have pretty good customer support for their grills. I had a handle break on one, and they sent me an entire grill plate free of charge. Hopefully their coffee maker support will be just as good..
Posted by: Jeffrey Spencer at July 13, 2005 8:46 AM

I am so impressed with the Gourmet Coffee Cafe. No other single serve coffee machine has the milk frother!! I loved the flavored coffees. We are not talking about a regular cup of joe here, I think that is where the "gourmet" comes in to the name of this maker. As for the tea, I am addicted to Fruitful, hot or over ice!!! But the real kicker is this, this could be the last coffee maker you ever have to buy, did you hear about the coffee club and the lifetime guarantee?? Wow!! Way to go Lexxus International out of Dallas, TX. What is it they say, things are bigger and better in Texas? We found ours at www.gourmetcoffeecafe.net/jeffandjodi
Posted by: J. H. Smith at July 13, 2005 9:14 PM

Didn't know about the Foreman Grill connection, but I do know that if you sign up for the Coffee Club (FREE!!) the Gourmet Coffee Cafe System is guaranteed for life!!! Hey JH Smith, sounds like you are really excited about this system (ME TOO) My favorite tea flavor is Jade (green tea) and it is terrific hot or cold too! Cocoa Dream is my favorite coffee flavor. For a real treat, you should try blending the Jubilation Espresso or on of the other Flavored coffees with ice cream!!!! AWESOME:) Way better than a Moolatte:)I purchased my system from myself at www.gourmetcoffeecafe.net/randyliles Well worth the money...very satisfied customer and Independent Distributor. JH Smith...you've got the excitement it takes to make a fabulous distributor and make some extra money!!!! Contact me at my e-mail address located at the website listed above if you're interested!!! Love to hear from you, DLiles
Posted by: DLiles at July 13, 2005 9:45 PM

Lexxus Intl. out of Dallas, TX introduced the Gourmet Coffee Cafe in May. We couldn't wait to get our hands on this product. In fact, we purchased 3 systems! We use one at home, one in our mobile home, and my husband uses the third system in his semi when he is out on the road. Way better than truck stop coffee!! The Coffee Club is great!! It really shows the company's committment to their customers and products when they offer a lifetime warranty. We couldn't be happier and ordered all of the flavors of tea and coffee. Nice work Lexxus International!!! JBrown
Posted by: JBrown at July 13, 2005 9:56 PM

I can say that I got my machine last week and I love the coffee. It was so easy to setup and I was pleasently suprised by the Taste and aroma of the Coffee. We had a few people over last night and I was able to make 4 different types of coffee all under a minute each and I made 2 expesso's and one latte.They loved the machine they asked where they can get one!
Posted by: b jackson at July 14, 2005 11:20 PM

Hi everybody, Well, all I got to say is that I am a big fan of Starbuck's Americano and their lattes and I am very sensitive to caffein after 6 pm. That being said, I received my Gourmet Coffee Cafe by Lexxus three weeks ago and Halleuah!I will never have to drive 6 miles round trip and stand in line for a 15 minute wait ever again at a my local Starbucks! I am ecstatic over the aroma, quality, taste and the hot temperature of my four favorite GCC pods. And, I am having a hard time understanding why Mr.Brewer didn't like the mild, medium or the dark roasts GCC pods? I think their dark roast is second to none of the speciality coffees that I have had over the years. Their decaf I can drink up to bedtime and it never interfers with me falling asleep unlike other decafs I have tried. The mojo mild is my favorite for an afternoon pick me up and their mild fusion has a bright satisfying finish perfect for my iced coffee when it is summer time hot. The second cup I made with my new machine was my first home made espesso and latte that I made with the frother arm and it was a better latte than I ever can remember having at a speciality coffee house. Not only was it easy for a old cowboy geezer like me to make, but the clean up was a snap. Not ever have owned a singleserve pod machine before, I can't say this is the best of class of the single serves because I wouldn't know. But I do know this, having witness 4 generations of coffee brewing technologies starting with hobo coffee boiled with loose grounds in a tin pot and cowboy coffee boiled in an old sock over the branding fire and then recently graduating to gourmet coffehouse java, I know I have found the last home coffee brewer I will ever own and the best of class according to my 50 years of loving a good cup of joe. Heck, with Lexxus's lifetime warranty I can will my Gourmet coffee maker to my grandkids!
Posted by: Cowboy Bob at July 14, 2005 11:39 PM

As soon as I got the machine out of the box I was pretty excited. It is a great looking unit and very well designed. I was making coffee 3 minutes after opening up the box! I must say, I love the flavors and variety of the different blends. My favorite is the dark sienna. Warm, dark, rich, and tasty! I also LOVE the frothing arm feature, and the fact that it can make espresso, and cappuccino, lattes, etc. all in one compact unit. Nice machine. Very happy owner.
Posted by: S. Robe at July 15, 2005 12:15 AM

Not only does Lexxus pay referral fees, it looks like the ONLY sell this machine via that method. You can't buy their stuff on the Lexxus website. You have to go to the site of one of their "distributors". Many of whom have obvioulsy discovered this site and are posting madly away. Darryl
Posted by: Darryl at July 15, 2005 4:36 AM

I heard about these machines a few months ago. I went over to visit a friend and to my surprise she had this machine. It was one of the best cups of coffee I have ever tasted. I am a real coffee person and I am pretty fussy. I tried the mild roast. A min later my friend was able to brew a totally different type of coffee for my boyfriend. I had never seen a one cup brewer before this. I am very impressed and I have ordered one machine today :)
Posted by: C .Ferris at July 15, 2005 10:50 AM

I was quite surprised by the evaluation of the coffee pods. I thought the mild and medium roast coffee were excellent. I don't particularly like dark roast coffee so I have no opinion on that. Living in a small town, there is not a Starbucks to be found so every time I find one I have to stop and get my favorite latte. My friend made me one with her Gourmet Coffee machine and it was every bit as good as anything I have had at Starbucks. Also, I don't see your point in trying all sorts of different pods in different machines. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist but I believe that when a machine is made to use a specific product you should use that product. Your whole reviewing process was quite confusing. Anyway, after tasting the different types of coffee I can't wait to get my own machine. And to Darryl - nobody has paid me a referral fee. I just really liked the coffee flavors.
Posted by: Valorie B. at July 19, 2005 3:26 PM

"Maybe I'm just a traditionalist but I believe that when a machine is made to use a specific product you should use that product." I'll have take mild exception to that -- we're not talking about putting a generic toner cartridge in your HP laser printer here, after all. Having a half-dozen types of coffee supplied by your pod machine's manufacturer only sounds like a great variety until you go to a really varied coffee supplier. "Light roast," "medium roast" and "dark roast" don't tell you much. Roast *what?* Jamaican Blue Mountain, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Mexican Altura can all be roasted to medium and they're going to all taste completely different. I know that may sound like "coffee snobbery," but it's really not meant to be -- it's just like when you learn that dividing wines into red, white and blush doesn't actually tell you very much. And the first time you have a cup of coffee brewed in a French press from just-ground beans that have been roasted in the last week it's a real revelation on just how good coffee can actually be. It's really the limiting nature of pod-based brewers that makes me hesitant to get one for the office. (At home I have no problem with the French press.) My current "system" is a $15 electric kettle and a $10 single-cup gold tone brewer from Swissgold: you put it over your mug, put in two scoops of coffee, and pour in hot water. I'm pretty confident that the quality I get it from it, with good coffee, will blow the pod drawer off even the Senseo or MyCafe; it's just that remembering to grind a couple days' worth of coffee every other morning and bringing it into the office is easier said than done, and it *is* a mess around the cubicle.
Posted by: Watts at July 20, 2005 1:14 PM

Simply AWESOME!! After being a customer at Starbucks for the past 5 years, I feel that I pretty much help pay for the local store with the prices they charge. My best friend came over with the Lexxus Gourmet Coffee machine to try for 3 days. After 2 days, I called him and told him to pick-up a check and that I wanted 2 of them. One for the home and my office. The system has all the bells and whistles that a coffee system should have. PLUS, the coffee pods from Lexxus are delicious! Especially, the "Cocoa Dream Mocha" flavor.
Posted by: Java Joe at August 14, 2005 3:36 AM