When I originally received this Zojirushi SK-XAE10XA Fresh Brew Vacuum Insulated Stainless French Press, the List Price was $142. That's quite a bit for a French press, but there were more expensive options even at the time. Probably the only downside I could see was the price, and that's not currently an issue - the current list price of $89.99 is much more reasonable for a high quality unit like this. It works great and makes coffee that tastes great, without being gritty as I'm used to with our existing French press - the half-blocked filter plate and grit block disk design seems to be pretty effective. I found after the typical 4mins the coffee was fine, but 2hr later the remaining coffee was still hot enough to warrant caution before slurping it up. I found the taste to be fuller at that point without seeming over-extracted or tasting bitter at all. I use some pretty reasonably-priced beans that I ground to a course grind just before adding them to the carafe, but your mileage may vary, depending on the beans, water, and probably other factors. This replaces/augments a smaller, single-service glass French press. We thought we might use it for camping, where glass is frowned upon, but it's so nice I'm not sure I'll bring myself to take it out in the wild. They used some pretty complex cardboard packaging to keep the product safe without resorting to Styrofoam. Like, I suspect it actually took a bit of effort to design it appropriately. There are separate user manuals for English, Spanish, and French, so you can keep the ones you need and recycle the ones you don’t need - much better than having a manual three times larger than you need it to be, or having to tear one up so you can keep the important bits. Note: There's a 'hot water' caution sticker that says, near the bottom, "Do not remove this sticker." My wife did not notice that advice and went to some effort to pull off that sticker and the UPC sticker, leaving a residue on the surface that I was able to scrub off, but a distortion in the steel remained that may fade over time but was still somewhat noticeable even after a good scrub and rinse. I've attached a photo of the stickers, their residue (pre-scrub), and the post-scrub distortion. This is pretty minor, and folks may not even notice this if they're not looking for it, and I get that there are probably legal reasons they have to include a 'hot water' caution, but it would be nice if it weren't so visible, or if there were some alternative...
