Not sure if this belonged in roasting or brewing:

http://bonaverde.com

Got to admit, those guys have quite the interesting venture going. If anything, I hope it catches on just so more people begin to understand the TRUE difference between 'fresh' coffee their drinking and real fresh coffee.

cool idea, cool video- nicely done. roasts coffee in 3-4 mins... hmmmmmm

I don't see something like this succeeding. At least succeeding in bringing high quality, green specialty grade coffee to the consumers door, consistently. Plus, it almost suggests that there's something inherently flawed with the methods currently used. I can pay Tom at Sweet Maria's $5-6 a pound for guaranteed fresh, non tainted, high quality specialty coffee. Tom does all the hard work sourcing the best coffees, often rejecting the majority of a mills or farms offerings. Tom works to bring the green coffee here to the US in a streamline fashion to prevent excess staling, he's worked with farms from Kenya, to Central and South America to use better quality Grain-Pro bags to prevent the coffee from absorbing tainting smells from the shipping container, and to preserve freshness altogether. If I were to somehow open up a bag of beans and find it somehow unsatisfactory, I can contact them and get a return or replacement, at their costs (not that I've ever had to do this). I can choose from over 100 different farms and mills, from the comfort of my laptop. And I know it's some of the best, because they've put in the blood sweat and tears to go to these farms and examine it firsthand, and build relationships, often that lead to sustainable businesses with these farmers.

Why then, would I want to take this all on myself? You're buying an unknown coffee, one that is likely judged by the guy trying to sell it to you. This whole concept is rather backwards and foolish in my opinion. There's probably a lot more to it than what I'm criticizing here, but I doubt they're going to be able to offer a better, or higher quality product in terms of safe packaging, any better than the methods I already have available to me.

On the other hand, for the price of a typical "high end" machine you find at a big box store, you can brew freshly roasted coffee at home. The market for this will apply to the crowd that has "in-wall" espresso machines. Yes, we know about hasbean and sweet marias, but the rest of the population does not.

I love the idea, and the fact that they are selling machines for $300, but I believe they will make their real money in the green coffee trade; much like an inkjet printer.

TomC wrote: At least succeeding in bringing high quality, green speciality grade coffee to the consumers door, consistently.

i don't think this is the market they are targeting. we are much too fussy for that

Their master plan is to make it incredibly easy for a coffee drinker to attain green beans, roast them and drink coffee fresh without having to put too much thought into it. This product isn't targeted at people who are currently sourcing green beans, have their own 20000 kilo roaster and are overly concerned with the eucalyptus they're tasting in their current batch of Brazil coffee.

However, like any other type of machine, I'm sure people in this community will come up with mods or tutorials on getting the most of it. I like this kind of idea better than just another stupid pour over machine, or another way to pull bad espresso in the wild. It gets more casual coffee drinkers thinking about what freshness means and how it can become easier for them to have really fresh coffee.

Kudos to these guys, it's ambitious, to say the least.

kajer wrote:I love the idea, and the fact that they are selling machines for $300, but I believe they will make their real money in the green coffee trade; much like an inkjet printer.

Met them two weeks ago in Berlin at the TechCrunch Disrupt Europe. Yes, it is about green trading. Heard them even talking about adding NFC chips to the greens that would set the roast profile on the machine automatically. Nice from the technical point, but I do not see a hugh market for this. I would also be worried about the required maintenance of such a complex machine.

Spitz.me wrote:Their master plan is to make it incredibly easy for a coffee drinker to attain green beans, roast them and drink coffee fresh without having to put too much thought into it. This product isn't targeted at people who are currently sourcing green beans, have their own 20000 kilo roaster and are overly concerned with the eucalyptus they're tasting in their current batch of Brazil coffee.

However, like any other type of machine, I'm sure people in this community will come up with mods or tutorials on getting the most of it. I like this kind of idea better than just another stupid pour over machine, or another way to pull bad espresso in the wild. It gets more casual coffee drinkers thinking about what freshness means and how it can become easier for them to have really fresh coffee.

Kudos to these guys, it's ambitious, to say the least.

If any of this is true, then they're even more doomed to failure. Non coffee geeks want convenience, speed and cheap. Convincing your average coffee consumer to roast their own coffee at home will create a few initial novelty sales at first. The units will likely get used for a week or two, then left to collect dust in the garage. I think you guys are looking at this thru rose tinted glasses.

kajer wrote: but I believe they will make their real money in the green coffee trade; much like an inkjet printer.

Or Nespresso...

I moved away from that scene and actually it didn't take me long to 'see the light'. But if they want to market to the masses, it might just work for them. Slick marketing works.