Ninja Miner 2: He slices! Tag along with the crazy ninja on another treasure-filled adventure. Fun Action game. The Good Ninja's updated Coffee Bar CF092 automatically brews in many styles and for various container sizes. The machine also comes with its own motorized milk whisk. The Bad With brewing.
The Good Ninja's updated Coffee Bar CF092 automatically brews in many styles and for various container sizes. The machine also comes with its own motorized milk whisk. The Bad With brewing temperatures that are much too high, the Ninja Coffee Bar CF092 makes coffee that tends to taste bitter. The coffee maker's milk frothing tool whisks dairy but doesn't steam or heat it. Above all else, it costs more than other home brewers that perform better.
The Bottom Line All the Ninja Coffee Bar CF092's extra features can't justify its steep price or poor brewing ability, which makes superb drip coffee makers such as the Bonavita BV1900TS a better bargain. Modern coffee tastes have moved way beyond your basic mug of drip.
These days, java drinkers hanker for a variety of beverages, including stiff shots of espresso, creamy lattes, refreshing iced coffee and practically everything in between. Kitchen appliance maker SharkNinja, formerly Euro-Pro, feels its new $200 Ninja Coffee Bar CF092 can satisfy many of these cravings right from your countertop.
While the flexible coffee maker does automatically brew in many different container sizes and even boasts its own built-in milk frother, it doesn't live up to SharkNinja's hype. More expensive than its predecessor the $140 (itself a mediocre performer), this pricey machine brews coffee that tastes worse.
You'd be much better off buying a $190 to make big pots of quality drip. For delicious single portions of joe choose the $16, which serves superb coffee one cup at a time.
The updated Ninja Coffee Bar still has the same retro appliance look. Tyler Lizenby/CNET Still, I do find the retro appliance styling of the Ninja somewhat charming.
Its large buttons labeled in capital letters are easy to read and easy to press, too, since they're well-spaced from one another. This coupled with lots of bright LED lights, sharp lines and angled surfaces give the Coffee Bar a decidedly 1980s alarm clock appearance, which I admit isn't for everyone. Underneath its unique styling, the Ninja Coffee Bar is still a traditional coffee machine. Essentially a rectangular tower standing 14.8 inches tall and sprawling 11.6 inches wide by 7 inches deep, this is one big machine and takes up even more space than the massive. On the left side of the appliance you'll find a 43-ounce glass carafe that sits on a circular hot plate. Above that is a brew basket that accepts either the bundled permanent filter or disposable paper filters (Type 4). SharkNinja also equipped the coffee maker with a handy drip-stop switch, placed at the foot of the basket.
The water tank has ridged sides, which help ensure a tight grip when you remove it. Tyler Lizenby/CNET Like its predecessor, the updated Coffee Bar has a removable water reservoir. The clear plastic tank (54 ounce capacity) sports a series of fluted ridges along its sides that are easy to grip. There's also a hand-size indentation on its right edge, which makes it a cinch to grab as well. Below the reservoir is the Ninja Coffee Bar's main control area. It includes a 'Multi-Serve Dial' for selecting the coffee container size you plan to use (ranging from small 9.5-ounce cups to 43-ounce carafes).
Here too are buttons to engage specific types of brewing programs. Five in all, the keys are labeled Classic Brew, Rich Brew, Over Ice Brew, Specialty and Cafe Forte.
Each brew style is designed to create coffee of varying strength, with Classic the weakest and Rich Brew slightly stronger. Cafe Forte is stronger still, while Specialty is the most intense, with an almost espresso-like concentration. The Coffee Bar's most novel feature, however, is a motorized frothing whisk that's designed to aerate milk for frothy cafe drinks like lattes and cappuccinos. The whisk is attached to an arm that lives in back of the appliance and swivels forward when it's ready for action. Performance and taste SharkNinja makes breathless claims about this new Ninja Coffee Bar system, going so far to say the gadget offers a 'Better than a coffeehouse experience.
Sadly, this statement could not be further from the truth, since the coffee the Coffee Bar makes is substandard and at times completely undrinkable.