anyone know if this is (or will be) available in canada? i'd like to avoid shipping from the u.s./duty/tax, etc, so any info is appreciated!

I don't think the Brewtus III is in Canada. We are located 3.5 hours drive away, just south of Rochester NY, right on the Thruway. If you want to come down we can give you a demo (and the grand tour of our operation) and send her home with you.
Todd Salzman
Whole Latte Love

Unfortunately, driving down won't change things. You still need to pay:

Canadian federal tax
Provincial sales tax
Duty
Customs brokerage fee
Exchange rate

I'm not sure what this all adds up to these days but I would guess around 30%, so your $2000 machine becomes $2600.

I think a lot of Canadians will wait until the Canadian dollar goes back-up. Since the Can$ follows the gas prices, I expect it will be close to par again in a year or so. By this time, you'll be able to get some reliability info on this new machine so it might now be a bad thing to wait.

Still, a visit down to check out the machine might be fun!

Endo wrote:Unfortunately, driving down won't change things. You still need to pay:

Canadian federal tax
Provincial sales tax
Duty
Customs brokerage fee
Exchange rate

I'm not sure what this all adds up to these days but I would guess around 30%, so your $2000 machine becomes $2600.

Unfortunately, the situation for shopping from Canada is MUCH worse right now. I don't think you have to pay a brokerage fee when you're crossing the border yourself (that's something that UPS/Fedex/CP charges for processing packages across the border), but since the exchange rate is about +22.5% right now, you're looking at $2450 CAD for the $2000 machine. Add 13% tax and 9% duty, and you're up at about $3000!

That's why I'm shopping around for something local.

PS -- long time lurker as guest, decided to register a few weeks ago, first time poster.

Agreed. Best deals in Canada these days seems to be with the small guys with low turnover that bought machines when the Can dollar was high but have not yet increased their prices. After the Christmas rush, and with US buyers snapping up bargains with their stronger dollar, there are few bargains left. Although the Rocket Cellini Premium Plus at $1795 at Espressotec still seems like a pretty good deal (no price increase yet). Other online vendors like CaffeTech have already increased their prices by about 15% about 2 weeks ago. And others (like CoffeePhilter) seemed to have closed all togther. Sad.

Not that I would advocate doing something illegal, but you could always put it in the trunk and accidently forget it was there when you crossed the border.

i could avoid any brokerage fees by having it shipped to the UPS depot in Niagara Falls and picking it up there -- that would save me a bit of driving time as well.

the real question is -- with the way our dollar is now vs the euro, would it be any cheaper to buy from a Canadian retailer in a few months time, anyway? perhaps not.

the rocket/ecm giotto giotto premium is also a contender.

Sweaner,
Everything depends on the moment you cross the border. I've brought a fair amount of wine across the border over the years, sometimes they ding me on every bottle over my 2 bottle limit and other times I've come across with a dozen bottles, no questions asked. Technically taxes and possibly duty are payable on gifts. My personal experience has been to calculate everything down to the penny. A few years back I lost a few bottles of very expensive wine because when the customs agent asked me how many bottles of wine I was bringing back I said 'a dozen or so'. In fact I had 15 bottles so they confiscated 3. Now I tell them exactly what I have and let them make the decision on how to handle it. Recently I had a shipment of green coffee beans from sweet marias shipped to the US outpost of Point Roberts Washington, coming back across the border after a 20 minute visit the customs people decided to take my car apart, it was a slow morning I guess.