I’m a picky coffee person. Would the single-serve Bruvi Brewer satisfy me?

I love coffee. I love drinking it. I love sniffing it. I even love making it and am always curious about techniques and tweaks — and of course, new tech. So when the good folk at Bruvi, one of the newer systems on the block, offered me their state-of-the-art single-serve device to try, I was intrigued.

Now, full disclosure: I’m a longtime devotée of drip makers — my own machine even grinds its own beans — and I’ve always been skeptical of pods. Sure, they’re great for an office or institutional setting, better than sipping out of a big old stale pot every time, but are they so hot for a home? Still, I know many householders swear by ’em. So I was willing to see if Bruvi is worth all the brew-ha-ha.

What is Bruvi?

Bruvi began selling its single-serve coffee makers in 2021, a few years after its founding by two entrepreneurs (one of them a former CEO of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafe chain, according to the firm’s press materials). Currently, the company offers one type of coffee maker, which comes in two colors.

Making Coffee with the Bruvi Brewer

The procedure is pretty straightforward:

1. Place a cup or mug on the drip tray at the base of the machine (you can adjust the tray’s level or remove it entirely, depending on the size of your cup).

2. Insert a coffee pod into the pod chamber and lower the handle. You’ll hear a loud crunch as the pod cover gets punctured.

3. Press any settings you want and then the start/stop button (actually, icon — see below).

4. Stand back and let the liquid flow. Chimes will sound when the machine’s done, so you can wander away. If you like to watch, there are six “progress bars” that switch from white to green one by one, marking stages of the brewing process.

Basically, it’s a press-and-play job. The unique thing about the Bruvi is that all the settings are on its sleek, mirror-shiny LCD screen. Buttons, knobs, touchpads: Those are so 2015, people. Instead, you choose all your options — and there are a lot of options to choose, from cup size to strength to water temperature — by touching white icons on the black screen, which turn green when activated.

Some options you don’t even have to pick. Once you insert a pod, the machine “reads” it and brings up the appropriate icons for that beverage, be it regular coffee, espresso, or tea. From there, you can fine-tune your drink.

What We Like About the Bruvi Brewer

There’s a lot to like in the Bruvi.

Snazzy Looks

No doubt about it, Bruvi makes a beautiful-looking machine, especially the signature BV-01 model. Dubbed “Cream & Sugar,” it’s white with actual light wood accents and with its rounded curvy shape, it reminded me of a mini-Guggenheim Museum. The silver handle and the glossy black screen — so glossy you can see yourself in it — make a beautiful contrast. The device not only looks sleek but is quite compact too, taking up minimal room on the counter. It plugs in with a thick blue cord.

The instruction manuals, pale yellow with blue lettering, are snazzy to look at, with ample illustrations, and cheerily written. Even the packaging is cute, with a cheery “Hello, coffee lover” written on the top.

Smart As Well as Pretty

The Bruvi is a smart device. You can download the Bruvi app on a phone or tablet, connect your machine to it, and program it to brew a cup at a certain time — similar to the auto-schedulers on regular coffee makers.

Then there’s its versatility. The Bruvi can make six varieties of coffee (regular, espresso, iced, cold brew, infused, and Americano), plus matcha tea and hot water. As mentioned above, it’ll read the inserted pod and present you with options for that beverage. You don’t even have to turn the brewer on: It stays in sleep mode, waking up when you touch the default droplet icon or move the handle or the water tank.

A Variety of Brews

Unlike other single-serve systems, Bruvi doesn’t present its pods under its own brand name. Instead, it names the coffee producers it’s teamed up with — artisanal outfits, mostly from New York or Los Angeles. Some you may even know, if you’re a real coffee hound. For example, I recognized one brand name, Joe Coffee, right away: It has cafés scattered around NYC, one just a few blocks from my home.

Bruvi also brags that its pods are bigger, containing 40% more coffee than competitors’ do, and are highly biodegradable.

Easy to Use

The Bruvi is relatively simple to set up and is pretty low-maintenance. Just empty the pod container once it’s full, and rinse the drip tray.

What We Don’t Love About the Bruvi Brewer

The Bruvi has its downsides. And given that it retails for at least $100 more than competitors like the Nespresso Vertuo Plus and the Keurig K-Brew + Chill, they’re worth considering.

Some drawbacks are operational. At times, the coffee would splatter a bit while it was hitting the cup, staining my counter. Sometimes there’d be loose grounds at the bottom of the cup.

Some are distributional. Right now, only those giant-sized proprietary B-pods will work with Bruvi’s machines, and those are only available by mail-order in most places. Bruvi pushes its auto-delivery service hard — even halving the brewer’s price tag if you immediately sign up when you buy it (the “subscription bundle“) — but it might indeed be your best option if you drink coffee daily.

And one small gripe: Bruvi recommends you use a water filter, but doesn’t include one with the brewer, as most coffee machines do. Instead, you have to buy it online.

Live by the Icon, Die by the Icon

Finally, there is that touchscreen.

In some ways, it’s easy to understand (the big start button is hard to miss), but in others, the graphics can be mystifying.

The thing about the Bruvi “reading” the pod and adjusting the options: I didn’t get for the longest time why the icons on the home screen changed after inserting a pod (and it still bugs me that the 4-oz. cup option is only available for espresso, not regular coffee). And, when you go to customize further, there’s the fun fact that not every option can be combined.

Some of these are obvious, like selecting both Hotter and Iced; others, not so much — like doing Low Acid and Hotter together. (And don’t ask me why. I’m guessing that Low Acid uses a lower brewing temperature to cut the sharpness, so you can’t simultaneously raise the temp too.)

Snazzy as it is, the Bruvi manual doesn’t explain a lot of such details fully. The troubleshooting section in particular seems a tad terse.

Which leads me to the case of the mysterious chime — and the one time I was tempted to actually smack the Bruvi.

How Does Bruvi Brewer Coffee Taste?

But let’s stop beating around the coffee bush: How does Bruvi’s brew actually taste?

Rave write-ups for it abound around the web, ranging from CNET to Good Housekeeping to Epicurious. So, I’m sorry to say it left me a little underwhelmed. Admittedly, I’m coming from a spoiled place — my grind-and-brew coffee maker. No cup o’ pod Joe can ever match one of freshly ground beans.

But we also have a classic Nespresso (inherited from in-laws). And compared to this pod-maker, Bruvi’s offerings, again, just didn’t seem as flavorful or as smooth. My husband also complained about the lack of crema — that tasty foam atop the coffee’s surface — but that probably reflects the fact that none of the varieties we tested were actually espresso.

To be fair, it could’ve been the particular brands of coffee Bruvi sent me: They were all medium-to-dark roasts, as I requested, but you never know until you try if a variety will truly suit you. Each coffee was certainly drinkable; it was just lacking in richness and, frankly, freshness.

Or, maybe it was the combination of the coffee brand and the brew setting. While I played around with all the options — Hotter, Low Acid, Stronger — for each type, it never seemed to make much difference. Oddly, the option that consistently produced the smoothest, most flavorful cup was the Cold Brew. Another cup tasted markedly better after it cooled down for a good 15 minutes (I’d gotten distracted and forgotten it.) Maybe Bruvi just makes brews too darn hot.

Conclusion: Is it Better with a Bruvi?

The Bruvi brewer is an ambitious device. It’s a single-serve machine that tries to function like a full-fledged coffee maker, maybe even an actual café. Americano! Espresso! Cold Brew! It has all the bells and whistles, and then some.

It also has its kinks and quirks — like requiring a half-full water tank to function. And, while learning to use it is easy, it takes some experimenting to produce your idea of the perfect cup. It didn’t quite make a convert out of this grind-and-brew baby. But if you’re one of the pod people, you’ll probably love it.