Kickstarter Coffeemaker

Another cool Kickstarter project.

what about it makes it stand out to you?

I struggle at the thought of trying to figure out how to pair my bluetooth or update my app before I’ve had my first cup of coffee in the morning…

As the owner of a Moccamaster (Moccamaster USA: Premium Pour-Over Coffee Brewers) I have become comfortable with the idea that there is an ideal range of coffee-brewing conditions and that a simple, robust machine can make reliably great coffee, year after year.

Although there are a variety of interestingly-shaped articles spread around this machine, the main interface seems to be with the mobile app, which seems to be a wasted opportunity for increased tactility in the brewing process.

Modern Man, who begins every morning by grinding, dosing, tamping and pulling his own espresso shot does not see how this concept actually works.

He hardly knows where to even begin with regard to explaining everything that looks wrong about it from a practical industrial design standpoint… let’s see… where do the boiler and pump fit?

How do the grinder motor and burr sets fit?

How do the ground beans get dosed and tamped with the correct distribution and pressure?

Where is the portafilter basket? How does the spent puck get knocked out after a shot is extracted?

That overflow tray and reservoir - it looks useless.

Then lets consider the profile of people who are serious enough about coffee to make their own espresso and the user experience of espresso making. For many people, such as Modern Man, the process of preparing a properly ground, dosed and tamped basket of ground beans and extracting a shot is a finely tuned, somewhat laborious (certainly manual) and even ritualistic practice. We wouldn’t dream of controlling such a process via an app on a smart phone.

Want to see a real espresso machine that was beautifully designed? Here it is; designed by Richard Sapper. Alessi, Sapper and his design won the Compasso d’Oro in 1979:




Modern Man suspects this is vaporware BS!

Modern Man hates bad coffee and bad design!!

Modern Man angry!!!

Modern Man over-caffeinated?

Another great Modern Man post.

Here’s a great video which I feel is how most people who take their coffee seriously would feel about this:

I would not switch from our Senseo coffee maker unless an appendage was being threatened.

I was first introduced to this frothy wonder of coffee deliciousness while staying at a relative’s house outside Amsterdam in 2009 - the Senseo brand was introduced by Philips and has a good following throughout the EU but Stateside it was introduced through a partnership with Philips and Douwe Egbert (they make the pods) - it caught on briefly but they were too kind to try to knock the Kcups off their rising pedestal when they had the chance (landfill nightmare, anyone?). I believe Douwe Egbert bought the rights to the Senseo brand and machines for Stateside use and they still sell the coffee pods (I’m probably the only one left buying them in bulk on Amazon!)

I’m hoping they introduce new machines here soon. My SL7832/55 could use an upgrade.

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You, my friend, need a Senseo. Delicious crema, pods ground from beans with just the right bite and smoothness, a consistency in end-product that cannot be matched. Friends stop by our studio just for a cup of the good stuff. :smiley:

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Senseo is widely used here in Germany and is usually the cheap go-to choice for offices and such. You are the first person I ever hear of who actually praises that stuff? :neutral_face: I would say it makes slightly better coffee than the cheap pour over machines you buy for fifteen bucks. You could call it the (cheaper) european version of keurig. At least keurig pods are sealed airtight. Senseo pads are preground coffee packaged in filter paper, fully exposed to the elements. Are we really talking about the same Senseo here?

And before we turn this into a coffee snob thread I recommend this read :wink: :

Good article. I feel like people are in this endless pursuit of dissatisfaction with whatever they currently have. I saw the kickstarter video and I almost thought it was a parody of coffee snobs. What if you have a family gathering…do you bust out the drip coffee maker?

“I don’t have memories of such bonding experiences taking place over a flat white at a Manhattan coffee shop or a $5 cup of nitro iced coffee at a Brooklyn cafe.”

Great little essay. I remember a similar piece that equated the demise of ubiquitous ‘standard’ $0.50 cups of diner coffee with the impulse that drove America to explore space, build superhighways, and other manly, blue-collar things. Its a silly correlation (I think…) but that’s how I feel when I drink the cheap utilitarian stuff. Cup after cup at Cosmos Diner on Marshall Street in Syracuse, you only pay for one cup, sit there for hours, go back to the studio, make stuff.

Ditto for the “utility slice” of pizza in NYC. Does that exist any longer?

Ugh, agreed. I think pretty much all of those things are terrible and only use for carination. At the end of the day, I just really don’t like to make coffee myself. I much rather just go to the coffee shop and get a good coffee. I’m not a pour over guy personally, I prefer an americano.

That’s a habit that might keep you from sleeping well at night. First thing in the morning is when Modern Man prefers to make his own espresso at home - before departing for the studio. :wink:

Great read - I’ll be the first to admit my daily coffee is from either a corporate cafeteria or a tube of Starbucks microground instant. I’ll enjoy a good espresso when in Italy but most of the time I’m OK with anything that has caffeine in it. I used to never drink coffee in college, soda was preferable and cheaper. Now that the coffee is free and soda is deadly I stay away.

The senseo pods we get here are vacuum packed 16 to a bag from Douwe-Egbert - each pod is about 28 cents each and two pods brew a Starbucks sized coffee - so 56 cents vs $4 and brews a much nicer cup than Starbucks, imho. The crap in a starbucks begins to break down pretty quickly - ever pick up a lukewarm Starbucks and try to drink it? yikes.

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Yeah, so for each freshly opened packages you have exactely one fresh pad and a few hours later 15 non-fresh pads. :unamused: If you like Senseo better than Starbucks that’s fair enough and nothing wrong with that. I also take my bialetti coffee in the morning over anything from starbucks. But from a purely TECHNICAL standpoint senseo machines cannot compete with coffee from, say, starbucks. Because at least they grind the beans fresh, they tamp them and they use a machine that can build up some pressure. With senseo nothing of that happens. Also, senseo is literally frothing air into your coffee to make it foamy. Yes, exactely, that is not crema, that is coffee foam disguised as crema. It’s real, google it :wink:

I’m sure your Bialetta makes a great cup. Sadly though, a google search generated two pages of “how to fix the problems with my bialetta”…our Senseo machines have been pumping out great stuff for ten years with no issues. We keep a sealed canister with three bags worth of pods by the Senseo all the time, they never go stale. The Senseo does in fact generate pressure that forces the hot water through the coffee grounds to compress them (if you’ve ever used one you’ll notice how flat and compacted the pods are after each use - oh, and those pods are biodegradeable perf’d paper that are also compostable - try that with a Kuerig cup). The formulation of the grounds and the pressure produce the crema, it’s not whipped air. But to each his own.