hey everyone. i'm brian witharomacup.com thanks, as always, for joining mehere in my virtual coffee shop brought to you by aromacup.com in today's video i'm giving youan exclusive overview of the bunn my cafe mcu singleserve multi-use coffee brewer.
starbucks french roast ground coffee, this is a pretty cool machinethat does just about everything that you need to do witha single serve brewer and does it pretty darn well,i would have to say. so we're going to giveyou an overview,
talk about what's in the box,and of course, brew some coffee. so let's dive right in and starttalking about what's in the box for the bunn my cafe mcusingle serve brewer. let's talk about what's in thebox for the bunn my cafe brewer. now i should mention thatthis is the mcu version. there is another version of themy cafe brewer that bunn makes. it's the sort of lesserversion than this one. it doesn't have as many features. so the one that we're reviewing,again, it's the mcu model,
and there's more in the boxand it's capable of doing a whole lot morewhen it comes to brewing. so when you open the boxyou're going to find your instruction manual,of course, a sample coffee packwith some coffee pods. you'll get a coffee scoop to be able to scoopand brew your own coffee. you have the machine, of course. now this machine is prettylightweight when it comes to
the amount of space it takes upon a countertop, i've found. that's one thingi do like about it. for as much as it's capable of, it doesn't take up thatmuch space on the countertop. we'll talk about the featuresof it in a moment. and then you're going to findfour different brewing trays. now each of these trays is usedfor a different brew feature. in the case of the onei'm holding here, this is for brewingyour own coffee.
we'll talk about makinguse of that soon. you have a pod brewing tray. this is for making soft tea, pods,coffee pods, anything that's a soft pod of some kind,you can use with this tray. you have a hot water tray,so if you're just going to make maybe hot water for hot chocolateor something like that, that's what you wantto use this one for. and then finally, you haveone of the coolest features of this machine, and thatis the k-cup tray.
and this is going to allow youto actually make coffee using k-cups inthe my cafe brewer. so that's one of the really coolfeatures about this machine is it's multi-use, of course. so we'll show you how to make useof all those in just a moment. that's pretty much everythingthat comes in the box. these glasses that i haveright here are separate, of course they'renot included. but everything elsethat i've just explained
is what's going to comein the box for my cafã©. so let's go ahead and dive intothe general operation of the machine and talk abouthow you can make use of it in your at-home coffee shop. let's give you an overview ofjust the machine itself, so that you get a betterunderstanding of it. it's pretty straightforward. we'll start at the bottom aswe always do, with the tray. the tray has thisstainless steel grill
which you can removereally easily. and this is going to allow youto remove the drip tray, which, of courseis good for cleaning. this is also going to allow you tobe able to put a larger tumbler under the brew station,to be able to start brewing. the tray's really easyto remove and make use of. now moving up, you have, ofcourse, the primary brew station. this is where you're goingto add your brewing trays. now these just snap directly ontothe machine, and what you're going
to find is that when you snapone of these on, it's going to put the machine into brew mode. if you take one off it's also going toput the machine into brew mode. so that's an important thingto remember because there is no on/off switchon this machine. if it's plugged in,it's turned on. now it will go into a lower temperature modeafter about 6 hours.
it has an internal water tankand it will go into a lower temperature mode afterabout 6 hours. after 26 hours, it willgo into a full sleep mode. so there's not a whole lot ofenergy-saving going on here. i mean it is an energysaving function, but it's not necessarily goingto do any of that very quickly. so if you want to turnthe machine off you're going to wantto unplug it. but the tray, again, that willturn the machine on essentially.
on the right-hand side ofthe machine right here, you're going to findjust two primary buttons. one of them is the brew button and the other oneis the pulse button. and the pulse button,if it's engaged, if i just press it, i'm going to see it glowing. and what this means is that the machine is goingto make a stronger brew. it's going to basically brewsome water through whatever
you might be brewing in themachine, and then it's going to wait a few secondsand then continue brewing. so rather than just pushing all of the water through, it'sgoing to take its time essentially. the brew buttonis pretty straightforward, obviously press itand you start brewing. on the top of the machine you're going to findthe water fill section. and this is where you wantto actually pour water
into the machine whenyou are going to be brewing. now in the instruction manual,bunn states that you should, when you are brewing, pour intothis reservoir as much water as you want in your brewed cup of coffee or whatever beverageyou may happen to be making. what i've found is that i willoften just fill this up so that there's a lot of water inside of the machine,so that i can start brewing. but i've also found that if youfill up to one of these
fill level lines that you haveright here, you'll brew just that much of a beverage when you actually go tobrewing with the machine. so it's something to keep in mind. it's a little bit involved when itcomes to the actual brew process. now there is a tankinside of this machine, but you can't see itand you can't remove it. so that internal water tank willhold water and keep it hot, but you can't seeor refill that tank.
so if you don't use this machinefor a little while, you're probably going to wantto get as much water out of it just using a hot water brew cycle,in order to make sure there's not waterstaying inside of the machine. one other thing to note isthat bunn says in their manual that you shouldnot use distilled water. they say to use filtered waterof some kind, but that you should use a water that doeshave some mineral content because that will give youthe best flavor of your coffee.
that's actually the first timei've ever seen that in a manual, stating specifically to usewater with minerals, but i think that it will improvethe flavor of the coffee. that's overallhow the machine works. just its general operation, and of course it just plugsinto a regular wall socket. nothing special going on here. so let's start talking about how you can brew some beveragesusing the my cafe mcu brewer.
now i'll show you howto brew some beverages using the my cafe mcu brewer. let's start off brewingwith the k-cup tray, because i think this is onethat everyone's probably going to be themost interested in. real easy to do. take your k-cup trayand then choose a k-cup, any k-cup will do. put it into the brew tray andthen close up the top of the tray.
now you're just going to takethis and make sure that it snaps firmlyonto the mcu. it locks down because there'sthis locking button right here which actually need to press inorder to remove any of the trays. now we're just going to place acup, and we're going to add as much water as we wouldlike to make for our coffee, and i'm just going to add about8 ounces worth of water, and now we're goingto start the brew process. close up that water trayon the top
and then press the brew button. now notice that the machine brewspretty fast, which is nice. there's definitely a lotof pressure going on here. but again, if you want astronger brew on your beverage, you're going to want touse that pulse button in order to take a littlebit more time in brewing. now also, if you want to, youcan stop the brew process by just pressing the brewbutton again while the machine is and brew mode.
so if you find that you're makinga little bit too much coffee or something like that,just press that button and you'll stop the brew process. so that's a cup of coffee using ak-cup from the bunn my cafe brewer. and then you just need to goahead and clean up on the machine, remove that k-cup tray be careful because there'sprobably going to be some hot water on top of that. and remove your spent k-cup,put that aside, and of course,
you can start brewing withanother k-cup if you would like. but let's go ahead and move onto brewing with the pod tray. i have just a regularcoffee pod right here. and all you need to do is placethat into the brewing tray. we'll just place thisonto the my cafe brewer. again, make sureit locks into place. and now we're going to brewusing a coffee pod [no audio] but that's a cup of coffee usinga coffee pod in the mcu,
and again cleanupis pretty easy. just remove that brew tray andthen get rid of that spent pod. this is also cool becauseyou could just put tea bag in here and brew tea. but if you're going to brew teai would suggest using the pulse option so that you can take alittle longer to be able to brew. now let's go and talk about how you can brew groundcoffee making use of the mcu. this is also pretty easy to do.
i have the ground coffeetray right here. and it's also pretty simple. it just as this doorthat opens on the top. inside you're going tofind a removable filter which you can pop outin order to clean it. but i'm just goingto take some ground coffee and i'm going to addthat to this brew tray and again, we're just going togo ahead and start brewing. now i'll show you thepulse feature in this case.
we're going to press the pulse. and you're also going tonotice right now that the machine's brew buttonis blinking red. so i'm going to go aheadand remember to add some water. and i'm going to add a littlebit extra this time. now we should be ableto start brewing. and there we go.that's a cup of coffee. now i maybe could have even useda little bit more grounds there, or maybe a darker roast in orderto get a stronger cup of coffee.
but you can see it's prettyeasy to make your own coffee, your own ground coffee,using the mcu. now the cleanup on this,now i won't show you this just because we'd have to taketo make little bit of a mess, but of course, you're going towant to just rinse this tray out so that you can startbrewing your next cup. finally, i'll show you how we can make just somehot water using the machine. that's what the hot water trayis going to be used for.
you'll notice there's verylittle space right here because you're not goingto be adding anything to this. you're just simply going toclick this onto the machine. and again add a tumbler ora mug of some kind. make sure to add some waterto the machine and so now, of course, you'regoing to start your brew process. and now i'm just makinghot water with the mcu, so of course this would be veryuseful for making quick oatmeal or hot chocolates andvarious things like that.
and of course you can stop this process by simplypressing the brew button. you can always pick it back upby pressing that button again. so it's pretty straightforward,the actual operation of the machine. and of course, in this case just make sure to removethat tray when you're all done. this machine is retailing for about $179, at the making of this video. of course you can find a differentprice if you shop around,
and make sure to check outaromacup.com to find out ways that you could save moneyon this brewer, and of course, other single serve brewers. the bottom line with thismachine, i feel, is that it's a greatmulti-use brewer. it obviously does a numberof different beverages, which i think is really cool. it's awesome to have a machinethat can do k-cups and pods, and your own coffee very easily,which i think is a great feature.
i do have to say that if you wantto brew stronger cups of coffee, you're going to want to makeuse of the pulse option, because that's going to takea longer on the brew process and give you a strongercup of coffee. but one thing i should mention is that this machinedoesn't do espresso. you could certainly use espressoroast coffee to brew your own with this machine, but it doesn't have a specific espressofunction or anything like that.
so it's the one thinglacking from this machine when it comes to the multi-usefunctionality of it, no espresso. but beyond that, it doesjust about everything else. i think it does it very well. very low profile, easy to use. it just has those coupleof buttons for brewing. easy to fill up. i think it's a little bitunfortunate that you can't tell how much water is in the machinebecause you can see the water tank.
but i don't think that that isanything that necessarily works against the machinewhen you come right down to. and for the price of about $179, depending on also of course,how you shop around. you might find ita little bit lower priced. i think it's a great machineto be able to add to your own at-home coffee shop, especiallyif you want to be able to do a number of different beveragesusing one machine. so there you go guys.
that's the overview of thebunn my cafe mcu single serve multi-use brewer. i hope that you guysfound it useful. as always, please join usat aromacup.com. and as always, please rememberto like and comment on our videos and subscribe.
we're always grateful to you guyswatching us here at aromacup.com. as always guys, i'm brianwith aromacup.com, reminding you to enjoy your cupand i'll see you next time.
take care.
