Anyone heard or tried this grinder? Made in taiwan by Company called Pegasus.

Looks exactly like a SJ to me. It also fits the SJ burrs.

Spec are exactly same as the SJ

I'm able to get one here in Singapore, pretty cheap to ship it over and it cost a fraction of the SJ.

Just a little over $300USD

Should I just bite the bullet and give it a try? Even if the burrs are inferior I could swap it out for the SJ burrs.

Yeah I'm a little skeptical too. But I've been reading around the Chinese coffee forums and the people there are raving about it. Many of their big coffee shops use them too. That's why I'm quite curious about them. According to the forums there, its much better than the heycafe hc-600. Not sure if you've heard about them. I think some US vendors brought it in under another name. Really tempted to just get one to try cause the mazzer cost a bomb here in Singapore.

I've seen something similar at a new coffee shop near me. It struck me that it looked very much like a SJ but it was not a Mazzer . It never occurred to me that it could be a copy. I'll investigate, as I'm in the market for a SJ but for less than $400.

I'm in no way recommending you this grinder, I never come across it in real life and have never tried it. It'll probably be hard to get in the US anyways. I just wanna see if anyone has any experience with it. Maybe if no one does I'll probably get one and let you guys know how it fairs haha. Probably can try some crazy mods with it too cause its so damn cheap for a 64 mm flat burr stepless. Seems like a lot of coffee shops are preferring this mazzer copy than the actual thing, or maybe its just me. Well at least they do in China. Since I guess a grinder is basically just a motor turning a burr.

DaveC wrote:You know what they say, if it's too good to be true, then it usually is. For the Chinese to produce it so cheap, they will have cut corners a lot of them. Loads of very very shoddy stuff coming out of china at the moment. The burrs cost nothing and the savings will have been made elsewhere on the grinder. Putting in a set of decent burrs, wont, I suspect make a lot of difference. I looked at some chinese grinders years ago...super jolly spec, they were very poor!

so I wouldn't recommend it (let dealers get and test them first), but would be interested to know how you get on.

Poor in quality in what sense? Where do you think they'll cut corners? Or what corners they can cut that will dramatically reduce the performance of the grinder?

Labor laws seem like one corner they may cut.

If their burr adjustment is a copy of Mazzer's, and the burrs are the same or can be swapped for the same. It's probably a fine grinder. The main last piece would be the motor, and unless it's massively undersized and would burn up immediately it may be fine. The original Mazzer is very over-built for home use and made more for coffee shops and to last 50+ years.

China can do it so cheap because both labor and materials are much cheaper there. They have a lot of natural resources, not just cheap labor. Some of the crappiest things are made in China, but also some of the most high-quality. Of course, saying Taiwan is part of China gets into a whole other debate...but overall I think the same things could be said that Taiwan makes some very poor quality stuff, but also high quality. It's all what the market demands and sometimes we demand the cheapest thing possible.

Overall, it may be a bit of a gamble, but I think as long as the motor is good (maybe you can find out specs on the Chinese boards?) it should be OK. Just my opinion, and either way it's still some amount of risk.

It's from a company in Taiwan called Yang Chia (Yang family). The brand is called Feima (literally: flying horse). I think most people who buy them here are satisfied. They sell mainly to cafes in Asia, but I thought they were available in the US at one time under an Italian-sounding name. Can't remember.

http://www.feima.com.tw/

It's a taiwan brand but I'm pretty sure its made in china.

The specs are

1 ps packaging volume (length x width x height) 59 x 26 x 40 cm
1 ps total weight of packaging 13.8 kg
Power Consumption 360 watts
Hopper capacity 1.2 kg
Crushing force 10 to 15 kg / h
Crushing blade 64 mm
Rotational speed 1400 rpm
Color Red / Black / Silver
Product dimensions (length x width x height) 33 x 19 x 57 cm
Weight 12.6 kg

Looks exactly the same as the sj, not sure how true it is

I'm either gonna get this or a lelit pl53(which cost 430usd if bought locally here, super over priced)

Here's a pic of the motor and burrs






*I have permission from the store owner to use the pictures.