With more and more brands making countertop coffee makers to grab some market share, finding one that stands out is becoming increasingly difficult. While most of them have pretty much the same features, such as programmable timers and auto shut-off buttons, what really matters is how well they can brew your favorite drink, how easy they are to set up and use, how easy they clean up, and what they look like on the countertop too… If you like iced coffee or iced cappuccinos, the Ninja Specialty Coffee Maker may be exactly what you need. I recently ordered the Ninja CM401 from Amazon to review and see what it’s like to use, how it works, what kind of drinks it can make and if overall it’s a good coffee maker for you.
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What’s in the Box?
There’s not so much to unpack in the Ninja CM401 box since the main unit comes mostly assembled. The design is quite unique since you can see right through the area where the warming plate is.
The Ninja CM401 has both glass carafe and thermal carafe variants so you must choose between wanting to keep your coffee warm without a heating plate (thermal carafe) or having a more elegant presentation that can keep the coffee hot, and is easier to clean (glass carafe).
The water reservoir is removable, holding up to 50 ounces of coffee which equals about 10 cups. Also included in the box is a coffee scoop which has two different-sized pockets along with engraved details indicating the serving sizes.
The brew basket is hidden in a neat swivel-out drawer, which means you don’t need to lift the lid or pull it out from under your countertop to fill it. The brew basket uses #4 cone coffee filters or the included reusable mesh filter.
Brewing regular coffee
Making regular coffee is convenient since you can just flip the lid on the removable water tank to fill it up and then drop it back into place. You can use the programmable timer to pre-make coffee before you wake up, or just press the power button and choose your style of brew to make coffee manually.
Built-In Frother and Specialty Brew Option
The Ninja Coffee Maker doesn’t just brew coffee; it brews specialty coffees. By pressing a button, you can select an option that will give you a highly concentrated 4 oz. cup of Joe, similar to a double espresso.
Now with that said, this is definitely not an espresso machine. While you could certainly use espresso beans, this machine is not using high pressure to extract the coffee. It’s simply concentrating what’s there. I actually didn’t mind this highly concentrated coffee, but when you try to make a latte or cappuccino with it, it’s not quite the same.
The built-in frother is easy to use since you just have to attach the frothing wand with a twist. A small button on top of the wand will agitate it and produce milk foam.
On the whole, I found the milk frothing options kind of disappointing.
Over Ice Feature
The “Over Ice” feature uses exactly the right temperature (about 119F/48C)and a slower brewing rate to make your iced coffee exactly without diluting it too much.
While it does make the coffee with hot water,…
Overall review: Ninja CM401 Specialty Coffee Maker
Overall this is a pretty neat machine. The design is certainly unique, and it does offer a few more options than an average automatic coffee maker. I like the programmable timer, and adjustable warming plate.
When it comes to basic drip coffee, the machine does a good job and brews good coffee in a reasonable amount of time. I like the fact that it has a removable water tank and the swivel out filter basket is equally convenient.
The Ninja specialty coffee maker also makes it extremely easy to make smaller amounts of coffee, from half a pot down to a single mug, not to mention a super concentrated 4 ounce coffee that you can use as a dupe for espresso.
Those are the pros, what are the cons? I found the milk frothing feature to be extremely lackluster. It didn’t make strong, lasting foam, and with no heating abilities, you either need to dirty another pot on the stove or employ your microwave.
Probably less of a downside as opposed to something to be aware of, is that while Ninja bills this as a “specialty coffee maker” using this machine will give you different results then using an espresso machine and proper milk wand.
Even so, I think this machine gives coffee drinkers plenty of options in a cleverly designed package so I can recommend the Ninja Specialty Coffee Maker to you.
It sells for about $169US/$239CAD and you can get it as I did from Amazon.