I was surprised not to see any discussion on here about this yet:
http://www.airspresso.com.au/

Seems neat but I'm worried about the plastic body imparting flavours into the hot water

HB wrote:A bike pump? I would like to see a video of that in use.

Somewhat far-fetched but not completely out of the realm of possibility.

My road bike tires are typically inflated to around 110-115 psi, which equates to around 8 bar. I'm sure there are some even higher performance bike tires that get inflated to an even higher psi level.

Larger, floor standing bike tire pumps have no difficulty reaching 8 bar, and I'm sure they could easily reach 9 bar as well. The small emergency bike pumps that one finds attached to bicycles on a tube have difficulty getting much above 60 or 70 psi in my own experience; enough to maybe get back home after changing a tire in the field, but not the usual inflation level for a road bike tire. Fatter tires (e.g. mountain bike or crossover) generally have lower psi inflation levels.

Since this product is being touted as something you could take along on a hiking trip, I think it is most unlikely that the sort of small pump one might carry in a backpack would be powerful enough to get real pump extraction pressures like one sees on a pump driven espresso machine.

And all of this assumes that there is some sort of air tank in the device that can store the pressurized air, because trying to use a bike pump to make an espresso at the moment when one is pumping seems beyond ridiculous to me.

ken

"Silca Espresso machine" LOL
I use to inflate the sew-up tires on my track bike to about 140 or 150, but I can't see taking a Silca floor pump hiking.

Interesting. Looks like it's designed to fit into a standard bike water bottle cage. I guess if you use CO2 cartridges instead of a bike pump it might work, or possibly one of the larger frame pumps that are capable of higher pressures. Not sure where you'd get hot water from if you're on a bike trip in the middle of nowhere, though. Most mountain bikers don't carry stoves, and it's not a good idea to start a fire in many areas. Still, it's an interesting concept.

Hiya All,

Full disclosure I designed the Airspresso and I noticed the links to the site from here.

So to answer some questions

1.0 The plastic used is food/medical grade so as not to impart taste and it can be CNC machined.
2.0 Yes it charged by a bike pump due to its size you can get 80 to 120psi in pretty easily even with the micro pumps my current favorites are

http://www.probikekit.com/display.php?code=A0992 for hiking at 59gm

and

http://www.probikekit.com/display.php?code=A1566 roughly 80gm for anything else

3.0 Its too small to go in a bottle cage but fits nicely in one of those tool cans that goes in a bottle cage otherwise the medium sized keepcup works well. http://www.keepcup.com.au
4.0 The design is almost completely passive to remove parts that can be damaged and make sure its fully field serviceable. So no air tank but a carefully designed shower screen and with an air buffer on top
5.0 Will try to post a video of a shot being made.
6.0 The small sigg vacuum flask will keep water hot for about 12 hours for those not carrying a stove. I've used this when xcountry skiing.

Brew on.

Steve,

Welcome to our forums!

Are you a "coffee person" who was motivated to design this device out of a desire to produce a good espresso in unlikely places, or, are you a geeky type person who took this on as a technical challenge? Please don't be offended by my question, but I am curious about that . . . . . A lot of the people who inhabit this website are into coffee in ways that some (normal people) might regard as being "over the top."

Not having tried your device (hint hint ) I obviously cannot comment upon it, but it does seem rather ingenious. One problem you will have marketing it in the USA is the fact that our nearly worthless currency makes buying goods from countries with strong currencies very expensive.

Have you thought about some sort of offshore manufacturing that might allow you get this product into our (world's largest) market at a more consumer friendly price?

ken

Desperation, not to put to fine an edge on it and I've always tinkered with things.

I've lived most of my life in Melbourne which has a strong coffee culture and some really great coffee. So "over the top" is considered normal. This was the uber cool machine of my youth, I can just about afford one now.

http://www.atomic.org.nz/

Its organic design is gorgeous.

When I traveled into the wild I suffered from the lack of a good "fix" and I tried a lot of methods and devices. The spark arrived when I went climbing in Italy with some friends. We started each day in a Rifugio with rolls a jug of espresso and one of milk and I thought I could build something that could be split across a climbing party and used to brew up coffee for all using what equipment we had at hand. The end result of that couple of years latter is the Airspresso at 200gms with a 59gm pump which produces Espresso for two or if you're addicted like me one.

The price is pretty much a function of the philosophy of the design it had to be light, it had to be robust, it had to take the same stresses the human body did and survive, it had to be field serviceable and it needed to knock out a good espresso in whatever conditions mother nature decided to throw at me. I could use cheaper materials but at the end of the day given the environment it needs to operate in espresso quality would suffer.

Steve_B wrote:When I traveled into the wild I suffered from the lack of a good "fix" and I tried a lot of methods and devices. The spark arrived when I went climbing in Italy with some friends. We started each day in a Rifugio with rolls a jug of espresso and one of milk and I thought I could build something that could be split across a climbing party and used to brew up coffee for all using what equipment we had at hand. The end result of that couple of years latter is the Airspresso at 200gms with a 59gm pump which produces Espresso for two or if you're addicted like me one.

The price is pretty much a function of the philosophy of the design it had to be light, it had to be robust, it had to take the same stresses the human body did and survive, it had to be field serviceable and it needed to knock out a good espresso in whatever conditions mother nature decided to throw at me. I could use cheaper materials but at the end of the day given the environment it needs to operate in espresso quality would suffer.

Maybe you could consider an offshoot product that would be more designed for travel, at a more consumer friendly price? If one was traveling then one could find a source of hot water, and although weight is important it is nowhere as important as it would be when one is "climbing."

ken