Coffee Maker by Cuisinart, 14-Cup Glass Carafe, Fully Automatic for Brew Strength Control & 1-4 Cup Setting, Stainless Steel, DCC-3200P1

I was on a 4 a.m. train from Flagstaff to Kansas City, a twenty-hour ride. Luckily I had a window seat and the one next to me was empty. Full privacy. My insatiable desire for caffeine and the inability to get it anywhere at such an early hour got me browsing Amazon for coffee machines. I started to look at a few candidates but before I even realized, I was out cold sleeping.

A few hours later I was woken up by the sound of someone loading their baggage into the overhead. “Hi,” a girl says and sits down next to me. I smiled only to be polite and turned away because inside I was boiling. To rip me out of deep sleep like that, to deprive me of my two-seat privacy… outrageous. I gave her a second glance.

Pretty. Very pretty. Dark curly hair. Wow, I couldn’t believe it. My anger dissolved, I quickly looked away, got nervous, clammed up.

For the next few hours I tried to come up with ways to start a conversation with the girl while pretending to read a book. She kept sighing, changing positions, as if bothered by something, as if nudging me to speak up. I just didn’t know what or how to say it. I mean sure, I could introduce myself. But have you any idea how hard that is when you’re nervous? When you get in your head? The crazy thoughts that reel through your mind in violent bursts, the body heat fluctuations, quivers in speech. Anything you say in that state of mind will come out awkward, weird, creepy even. When I’m nervous around a pretty girl I can make a simple “hi” sound like I’m trying to chain her to a radiator down in my basement. I decided not to say anything, instead I got up to go to the bathroom. “Excuse me,” I smiled. She moved out of my way energetically and smiled back.

“I looked through your stuff,” the girl said as I wiggled back past her into my seat. “I hope you don’t mind…”

“I’m sorry. What?” I didn’t understand fully.

“Your book,” she pointed to my book in the seat pocket. It was back in its place now. “I went through it. I hope you don’t mind.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just looked at her.

“I saw your letter from Harvard. You’re going to Harvard? My mom went there.” She kept on like nothing happened.

I did have an acceptance letter from Harvard folded up in my book, but it wasn’t real. I made it myself as a sort of ‘positive visualization’ tool. I was into all that self-help stuff for a brief stretch. It doesn’t work. Long story short, I never even applied to Harvard.

In any case, I went along with it. “Yea, I start in the Fall.”

“Cool,” she said, but didn’t actually seem impressed. As if going to Harvard was the same as going to Burger King. “Oh. I also went through your wallet,” she added. “I hope it’s not a problem.”

My wallet was in the seat pocket as well.

What the hell is wrong with this girl? “Did you steal anything?” I asked while reaching for the wallet.

“NO. Of course not!” She knitted her brows and frowned, then violently threw her back towards me.

“Ok, OKAY. I believe you,” I said. “I won’t even check. See?” I put the wallet back into the pocket without opening it. She peaked over her shoulder and watched me.

“Where you going to?” the girl turned towards me again, smiling.

“Making my way to New York City—”

“This train doesn’t go to NEW YORK,” she cut me off. “I take it all the time. My dad lives in New Mexico and my mom — I live with my mom — she lives in Dodge City. It’s where I’m going now. Dodge City. That’s in Kansas. Jesus, I thought you’d NEVER put that book down.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Eighteen.”

I gave her a sharp look.

“I swear,” she said. “You want to see my ID or something?” she rolled her eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“There’ll be no need for that,” I answered.

Then we shot the breeze to kill the time. She’s won three cheerleading competitions. Plays video games in her spare time. Likes animals, farm animals mainly, cows particularly. The mountains in Colorado are no easy hike. When you have fast metabolism you can eat whatever you want and never gain weight. She didn’t realize the sun was also a star.

Eventually we both fell asleep.

A rustling sound woke me up. “We’re in Dodge City.” The girl was getting her suitcase from the overhead.

“Already?” I asked, all sleepy and confused.

“Mm-hmm.”

“That was fast.”

“Mm-hmm.” She rushed a few things into the suitcase. “Ok, I’m going,” the girl said once everything was zipped up. “Travel safe. This was fun.”

“Say hi to your mom,” I gave her a wave and went back to sleep.

“Sir. Your stop,” the conductor shook my shoulder. We were in Kansas City.

Fierce hunger flooded over me like a burst dam the second I stepped off the train. I hurried to the nearest grocery store and grabbed a can of SPAM, two Kaiser rolls, a quart of milk and, once I got to the register and opened my wallet, realized that all my cash was gone.

Anyways, long story short, when I finally made it home to New York a few days later there was a Cuisinart DCC-3200P1 coffee machine waiting for me at the door. I guess I did go through with the order after all. I figured I’ll give it a shot even though I couldn’t remember picking it. I decided to trust my decisions even when I’m not fully conscious while making them. You got to be confident in yourself like that, it builds character. And what do you know? The coffee machine makes coffee. You can even set a timer to have it ready before you get out of bed. I call that a successful purchase. You can stop your search here.

We’ve replaced an older Cuisinart DCC-1200 with this DCC-3200. Since it’s a popular line, I thought others might be interested in how they compare. (In the attached comparison photos, the 1200 is on the left and the 3200 is on the right):

Taste: Coffee in the 3200 is more flavorful. A new machine might be expected to be better, but I think they’ve gotten the flow and temperature of the brewing process better.
Temperature: The brewed coffee is much hotter. Both units have three temperature settings for the hot plate, but the settings on the 3200 are hotter.

Size and Capacity. The 3200 handles 14 cups compared to the 1200’s 12 cups. Yet as you can see from the photos, they are the same height to fit on a counter. They seem to get the extra capacity by making the 3200 a little deeper from front to back. We’ve been surprised at how useful the extra capacity is.

Carafe: The new glass carafe is just like the old one, only larger. It pours nicely with or without the lid on it. The new lid works the same as the old one, popping off and on. (I read some complaints about the lid on an intervening model with a spring opening, but if so, they fixed that by going back to the 1200 style).

As far as I can tell, there isn’t a version of the 3200 designed for a thermal carafe like there is for the 12-cup models. I prefer the glass carafe because it keeps the coffee hotter longer, and I can always pour the coffee into a thermal carafe if I want to.

Water Filling. The bigger size also increases the size of the water fill hole. The lid on the top of the 3200 unit raises to 90 degrees straight up, where the lid on the 1200 tilted further back and out of the way. Still the 3200 is easier to fill, and I suspect that the restriction on the tilt may help preserve the integrity of the hot water tube.

Sneak a Cup. Taking out the carafe to sneak a cup during brewing worked great on the 1200 with little dripping, and still does on the 3200.

Basket. The basket on the 3200 is very similar to the 1200, but a slightly different shape to accommodate more grounds for 14 cups. Actually, grounds just barely fit with a 4 cup paper filter in the new basket, and sometimes go above the filter in the basket. The basket actually seems more designed for the included gold filter.

Water filter. The 3200 uses the exact same carbon filters and filter holder as the 1200, but the holder seems to fit more snugly in its hole, which may help prevent clogging (see below)

Beep. The 3200 allows you to turn of the coffee-ready beep if you want.

Controls. Controls on the 3200 are a little easier. The 3200 uses all push buttons with no switches. Separate hour and minute settings make it a little easier to program and set the clock. There is a new “Bold” setting which does indeed seem to result in stronger coffee. There is still a setting for smaller, 1-4 cup pots, but I never use that. You can still set the hot plate to stay hot for up to 4 hours, which is important to me. There is a fairly bright blue glow from the LED display on the 3200.

Cleaning. There was a sensor button on the hot plate of the 1200 that’s gone on the 3200, so the plate stays cleaner. The extra stainless steel looks good on the 3200 but probably shows smudges more and might benefit from special cleaner fluids.

Coffee Grounds Overflowing and Clogging. This was the biggest problem before, and I don’t know if it’s fixed, but it seems better. On the 1200, if you put too many coffee grounds in the filter it could overflow in the brewing process, and sometimes grounds would get into the water system and clog the tube. The 1200 was designed not to be repairable, but customers tried anyway with some difficulty. After one successful repair, we eventually had to replace the 1200. So far, we have not had any overflow issues with the 3200. The larger basket (with possibly a bigger drip opening), the deeper reservoir and longer case, and the more stable, non-tilting lid may help with this, but we will see how it works over time. I do notice that they made the bottom panel easier to remove, with regular screws instead of Torx, if it ever comes to that. My one tip for users is to always use the filter holder with a filter in it, even if your water is fine, because that should help prevent grounds from getting into the heating system.

In all, the 3200 is an excellent replacement for the 1200, and worth the extra money if you are choosing between the two models new.

This is a US coffee maker, fitted with a US electrical outlet plug. Unfortunately this makes it fairly useless to a UK customer like me. Even after securing a step-down converter it won’t start brewing. Nothing in the original ad, including the small print and technical details, suggests this is not a UK coffee maker. Basically all told £150 wasted due to the seller and Amazon being clueless about where they are selling electrical items.

This 14-cup replacement glass carafe has very sub-standard quality. I have already bought this item twice and does not stand the rigours of a tough, fast-paced life. I just bought this replacement carafe last February 2021 to replace the original glass carafe for my Cuisinart DCC-3200C 14-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker (Silver), in which the glass chipped off easily as I accidentally bumped it into the steel sink. Similarly, the 2nd replacement glass coffee carafe did not last long as my wife was preparing coffee and she accidentally hit the the glass carafe on the cupboard door, the glass shattered easily. Make no mistake, Cuisinart really makes excellent coffee machines, although it is unfortunate that their glass carafes are not up to par in terms of durability and sturdiness. I am on the lookout for higher quality glass carafes -seems like this universal replacement glass coffee carafe made by CAFE BREW COLLECTION (German-brand) looks interesting in terms of quality, although capacity seems to be a tad lower at 12 cups. This is not worth the $32.70 paid for this particular product!