If you’re wondering why none of the best coffee grinders use blades rather than burrs, it’s because blade grinders are inherently inferior and those who care about high-quality coffee should get a burr grinder.

The Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is one of those fateful grinders that houses two blunt blades rather than the stainless steel burrs fellow coffee nerds might be more accustomed to. And, regrettably, the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is not a good grinder. I don’t think anyone should buy this.

If you care even a little about coffee, you’d be better off with the $40 Hario Ceramic Grinder, $60 1ZPresso Q-Air, the $119 Wacaco Exagrind, or even the $139 Casabrews Tornado. Please, don’t waste your money on this product — but, if for some reason you want to find out more, keep reading this Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review.

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review: Cheat sheet

• Who is it for? No one should buy this grinder
• What does it do well? It’s affordable and easy to use
• What does it cost? $24 / £24
• What are its weaknesses? There’s no uniformity to the grounds whatsoever

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder: Specs

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review: Price & availability

The Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is very cheap: just $24 at Amazon U.S. and £24 at Amazon U.K.. Yes, the $24 MSRP means this is the cheapest grinder I’ve ever used, let alone reviewed. However, it’s cheap for a reason — because it’s not good. At all.

If you care even slightly about having good coffee, you need to spend a bit more for a burr grinder. Burr grinders are inherently better than blades as they crush the beans evenly. At this price point, you won’t be able to get an electric grinder, but hand grinders work just as well (I have a hand grinder myself!). I’d recommend the Hario Ceramic Coffee Mill, which is $40 from Amazon or the $60 1ZPresso Q-Air.

If you desperately want an electric grinder, you could check out the Casabrews Tornado, which $139 and performs much, much better than the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder. If you can part with an extra $20, check out the Breville Dose Control Pro. If you can spend up to $200, then I’d recommend the $199 Baratza Encore ESP.

All three of these grinders will make you much, much better coffee. Their uniformity is light-years ahead. The Tornado, Dose Control Pro, and Encore ESP are so far ahead of the Cuisinart that they’re not even in the same galaxy. Just don’t waste your time and buy the Cuisinart, because you’ll be disappointed.

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review: Design

The Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is a blade coffee grinder. Most “good” coffee grinders are burr grinders. If you’re not sure of the difference between blade and burr grinders, let me give you a quick rundown now.

Burr grinders use rotating burrs to crush the beans, whereas blade grinders use spinning blades to cut the beans. Burr grinders are inherently superior as they can control the size of the coffee grounds; blades simply slice the beans, so it’s more of a guessing game.

The Cuisinart Grinder uses blades, which are visible from the inside of the canister. You can’t actually grind without putting the lid on, though, so, with proper use, you shouldn’t worry about accidentally slicing your fingers off.

The lid itself is quite janky — I had to try a couple of times to get it slotted into position — and has one button control. You press the button to grind. You release the button to stop grinding. Not exactly rocket science, huh?

If you’re short on space, I can see why you might want the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder, as it’s just seven inches tall. Perhaps if you’re short on space and aren’t buying high-quality specialty coffee, it might be worth it. But, for me, I’d rather save up extra to get the aforementioned Hario Ceramic Coffee Mill ($40) or the 1ZPresso Q-Air ($60). These hand grinders are eight inches and five-and-a-half inches respectively, so they will still suit a smaller kitchen.

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review: Performance

If you couldn’t tell from literally everything preceding this section, I’m just going to come out and say it: the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is not a good grinder. I don’t think anyone should buy it.

Although, yes, most of the issues are due to the blade grinder itself, it’s still worth noting that the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is a sub-par grinder in its own right. As you can see from my testing results below, this grinder is severely inconsistent, non-uniform, and heats the coffee as it grinds.

Just as an FYI, I didn’t test retention with this grinder, as it’s a blade grinder rather than burr. This means retention isn’t as much of an issue, as you can simply brush out the grounds.

During use, the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder operates at 84dB, which is quite loud, but within the realm of expectation for blade grinders.

Ease of use

I have to hand it to the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder: it’s easy to use. You literally put the beans in the canister, attach the lid (it might take you a few attempts), and press the button. Then you just grind until you see your intended grind size.

Unfortunately, this means the grind is inherently uneven and non-uniform. Depending on the volume of beans in the grinding chamber, you need to adjust the length of grinding time. For example, if you put in 10g of coffee, you might only need to grind for thirty seconds to get espresso-fine granules (or as close as possible).

However, if you put in 50g of coffee, you might need to grind for a minute or two and shake the canister to get it grinding properly. When I ground 33g of coffee for French press, I had to shake the grinder to avoid jams.

Although it’s straightforward — beans in, lid, grind — you’re sacrificing quality for ease of use. Whether that’s a worthy sacrifice is up to you.

Static & clumping

When I was grinding my beans espresso-fine, I noticed the beans were incredibly clumped in some areas. Some were even so clumped that the grounds resembled a paste. Here’s a photo.

As you can see, the grounds are flat and compressed. This means they’re way too fine — they’re almost as fine as flour — and will not result in a good espresso.

There was also a lot of clumping inside the canister.

All the grounds you see here have been heated by the blade’s friction, hence stuck to the inside of the grinding chamber. I had to use a spoon and my finger to remove the grounds, and then I had to wait for them to cool before using them.

If your coffee is hot post-grind, that’s not ideal. Actually, it’s the opposite. This is another major flaw, and prevents me from recommending this grinder at all.

Uniformity

As with all grinders I tested, I sieved the grounds using my Kruve coffee sifters, $89 on Amazon.

Let me just explain the results below. Ideally, you want large jumps: 0% to 100% would be perfect. If you see, for example, 0%-20%-60%-70%-100%, that means the grinder is incapable of grinding uniformly and will result in a bad coffee.

As you can see, the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is incredibly non-uniform, which means it wouldn’t be able to brew consistently. If your coffee grounds aren’t the same size each time, you won’t be able to figure out your ideal brewing times and ratios.

Due to using a blade rather than a burr, you have literally zero control over the particle size. If you want to grind finer, you just grind for longer. But then the smaller grinds will get even smaller, then smaller, and smaller, and what if one of the larger grounds never made it down to the blades to be sliced?

Here's a photo of the grounds; here you can really see the size variance.

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Yes, these are coffee grounds from the same grind. No, I did not grind half for ten seconds and the other half for sixty seconds. You can really see the dramatically non-uniform grounds here.

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review: Storage & maintenance

The Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is quite compact: just six inches high and four inches wide. This means it’s ideal for smaller spaces.

But, as I’ve said many times, it’s not ideal for anyone who cares even one iota about coffee. I’d rather you buy the 1ZPresso Q-Air or the Wacaca Exagrind. These models are only $60 and $119 respectively, so shouldn’t set you back that much more. If you care about coffee, the difference is night and day.

Maintenance is straightforward, though: just clean the interior of the grinding chamber after each use, being careful not to get the blades or electrical elements wet.

Cuisinart offers an 18-month warranty in the U.S. and a three-year warranty in the U.K. — so at least if it breaks you’ll be covered, although I’d recommend other alternatives instead to begin with.

Cuisinart Coffee Grinder review: Verdict

If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t really care about a uniform grind size, then the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder might be the one for you. It’s very affordable, and small enough to fit in tiny kitchens. But it won’t make consistent coffee.

Due to the blade design, the Cuisinart Coffee Grinder is inherently inferior to every single other coffee grinder I’ve ever tested. I do not recommend this to anyone. Please just spend an extra $40 and get the 1ZPresso Q-Air if you’re even a little bit into coffee.

You can get loads of premium alternatives, too — the Baratza Encore ESP and Breville Dose Control Pro are my favorite sub-$200 electric coffee grinders. There’s a whole world of incredible grinders out there. Please do not waste your $24.