Start Making Sense - The Senseo SL-7860
Our European friends have been enjoying one of the newer style machines for brewing pods for a while now - the Senseo Quadrante. I was very excited to find one of these in the wild wired to work here in the land of 110 volt equipment.
Then I got to thinking, it is wired for North American current - maybe it isn't a Quadrante after all. After inspecting the item more closely, I noticed that the model number is SL 7860, not HD 7860 (the Quadrante shown for sale in Europe is model HD7860) - and it has only that one button on top instead of three, strange...
More clues - the box it shipped in is white and the number"247" is written with a sharpie on the box - same number as the sticker on the bottom of the machine. It came with a manual but I had not taken the time to read past the setup instructions. It reads:
"Welcome to the consumer test..."
The instructions say there should be a one pod and two pod filter. Mine came with only the double pod filter. A 7g pod goes in the single and up to 12g pods (or two smaller pods) go in the double basket. I am not sure if the machine can sense which adapter is inserted or if the 8.5 fl oz drop is the only automatic size available. By pressing the single button during brewing the volume becomes manually controllable.
This makes sense if this machine was intended for testing in the American market.
The small (by US standards) single 4 fl oz cup serving gave the impression to some users that the original Senseo 7810 gave poor value based on cup size according to customer reviews. Other single serve machines suffer in reviews because of this same perception as well. The manufacturer of this test brewer might have been considering addressing this issue by supersizing the drop for the US market, but I cannot be certain.
I contacted Senseo to locate the smaller pod holder and after some confusing conversations I was told that they would get back to me. Unfortunately when they did they left a message on my answering machine stating they will not be able to help me locate the single pod basket for my SL-7860 since "the machine was a test market machine only sent to employees and also it was refurbished."
Refurbished, test market, hmmm...
I am confused now as to which excuse from them to not help me I should choose to console myself. No matter though since the machine was not expensive and works well for now. I am certain though that if/when it needs service none will be available unless they decide to offer this unit in the American market.
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