The Best Coffee Carafes for Keeping Coffee Hot for a Long Time

keep coffee hot for a long time

Have you ever gone into a restaurant and ordered a coffee? Then after a short wait the wait staff drops a small carafe of coffee off on your tabletop for you to pour your own coffee from as frequently as you like. Ever happened to you? It’s happened to me for sure and I’ve found that most places that do this also tend to use somewhat cheap carafes. The coffee inside of them is rarely hot. Warm, yes, but not hot.

On the flip side whenever you stop by a local coffee house and order a cup of drip coffee they always pour it piping hot from a similar carafe… or they pump it from a larger table-top carafe, but nevertheless it’s always ridiculously hot like it was just brewed.

What’s the difference?

Sure those good carafes at the coffee shop cost more money but truly the biggest factor in their performance in the heat retention department has to do with their construction. They are double wall vacuum insulated and have air tight insulated lids. Heat simply can’t escape them like it does from the cheapo carafes. This is obviously why they cost more money than the cheaper options on the market.

So should you buy the most expensive carafe you can find? No. This is not needed. To get a good carafe that will retain heat for a very long time you simply have to find a double wall vacuum insulated carafe and so long as the construction quality is decent it will perform well for you.

But what if you want the best carafe for keeping coffee hot all day long? Well for you extreme coffee buffs that like to brew coffee and drink it way later we’ve got you covered.

Below you’ll find a short list of the best carafes for keeping coffee hot for as long as possible with a short description of each.

Around 1710 Coffee we tend to use Thermos brand carafes in our business and in our homes but there are good reasons for some of the competing brands too.

Thermos 51 Ounce Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Carafe – In my opinion this is the most basic carafe style. It’s a classic design and Thermos has made it well. It also outperforms most others in keeping it’s contents hot all day long. The Carafe touts a 24-hour cold retention and 12-hour heat retention but in my experiements coffee will stay comfortably hot in this carafe for even longer if it’s pre-heated and it remains unopened for a long time.

Tiger Thermal Insulated Carafe, 64-Ounce – This carafe is a bit bigger than the Thermos model listed above and it boasts termperatures up to 142 degrees after 24 hours. Pretty stinking good if you ask me.

Zojirushi Stainless Steel Thermal Carafe (SH-HA10XA) – We really like a lot of the Zojirushi products and this carafe is high on our list. It is really well made and it has super high review ratings from past customers. As for heat retention it will perform a little worse than Tiger and Thermos although still quite good compared to the average carafe. You should expect boiling water to reach 153 degrees after 10 hours.

In addition to these three carafes you can find a good selection of well reviewed and high performing alternatives priced attractively right here.

 Emsa Eleganza Stainless Steel Insulated Carafe, 44-Ounce Panesor 68oz Water Coffee Thermal Carafe Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Pitcher BESTEK Double Wall Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Thermal Carafe Beverages Carafe, 50 Ounce Thermal Coffee Carafe 51oz by Cozyna, Milk and Creamer Carafe, Stainless Steel, 1.5L Thermos 32 Ounce Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Carafe

For the average home coffee drinker the insulated carafe is used to keep coffee hot after brewing so that the hot plate on a drip coffee maker doesn’t have to be used. For instance when I make a large batch of French press coffee at home it always goes in a insulated carafe to keep it warm and to ensure it doesn’t over extract sitting in the press pot for too long.

If however you do need a large counter-top pump carafe or beverage dispenser for entertaining then make sure to check out this page on our site (page under development)? And as always pay careful attention to review count for quality indicators of established products.