Hey, a personal, practical request. Last night, our beloved Cuisinart coffeemaker died. I say “beloved,” because we’ve never had a coffeemaker that made better coffee. Somebody gave us one years ago, and when it died after several years of use, we didn’t want to spend the $100 or so for a replacement, so we bought a Mr. Coffee instead. The quality of the coffee was significantly worse. We bought a replacement Cuisinart. It was expensive, but we love coffee, and it was an investment we didn’t mind making.

But we have had it with Cuisinart. The quality simply isn’t there. That replacement Cuisinart machine died too, and we bought another Cuisinart last year — the one that died last night, after less than a year’s service. It’s just ridiculous to pay that kind of money for a coffeemaker, and to have it punk out like that. My dad had an ordinary Bunn machine that outlasted nearly all of my pricey Cuisinarts.

The Consumer Reports rating on our particular Cuisinart model is good, which, aside from the peerless quality of the coffee it makes, is why we kept going back to Cuisinart, thinking that perhaps we had just bought a lemon. But going through three or four expensive coffeemakers in a decade? There’s a pattern.

So, my question to you coffee connoisseurs: What kind of machine should we buy next? The two key factors are 1) quality of coffee, and 2) programmability; it’s important that the coffee be ready when we wake up in the morning.