We were so excited for this purchase and it honestly fell a bit flat. This is a premium product, or so it says, and we received a defective carafe and a damaged package upon arrival. We called customer service to have this taken care of and the first response was to try to pull off the plastic ourselves. This not only will not work, it also is not the answer that we were hoping for considering we paid $400 for this item and it arrived damaged. We are currently still waiting for a replacement. The coffee maker itself makes nice coffee but the customer service has not impressed and is making us consider the electric chemex instead.