Colin Harmon, one of the members of the impressive All-Star team behind the design of the Nuova Simonelli Mythos One Clima Pro Grinder gave a presentation on said grinder that certainly worthy of a look. Anything that has David Walsh weighing in on things grinder related always earns my attention. I enjoyed it and found it interesting although it's obviously marketing heavy as a solution to cafe's woes more than a home user, but I admire their efforts either way. It certainly seems like any advancement that leaves a positive change in the cup (the bottom line of a cafe being another topic altogether) is a good one.

His comments about "Pocket Science" and things like taking out and washing burrs with soap weekly to increase extraction by a full percent, both stand out. Personally, I liked seeing the slide showing the massive variety of just flat burrs that they tested, and a few of his comments on them.

Before outright dismissing the whole thing as nothing but advertising, consider:

The middle ground stance on whether it's all marketing tactics vs sound science pushing product design would allow one to question whether they set out to find what burr type tasted the best, before adopting a system to build around, or, could it have been a convenient agreement after finding one particular type was better suited to their other goals? I hope it's the former and it would stand to reason that it is; the only situation where I could imagine a group of popular coffee experts unanimously or overwhelmingly finding one burr type (flat vs conical) to be better than the other, without double blind tests and objective data would be one that would be easily disproven or shown to be financially motivated once the grinder sees real world unbiased testing. It seems to me to be quite the opposite, that knowledgable baristas were finally allowed into the R&D lab and allowed to shape and design the grinder they needed to suite their needs in a cafe setting, or maybe I'm just too optimistic. It would be a healthy topic to discuss as to how much of this would benefit the home enthusiast though. I think anyone can appreciate a reduction in waste. The thought of having a convenient and fast grinder with a low retention throat is a win for all of us.

But overall, my main reason for sharing the video was my curiosity that was spurred by their flat vs conical choice and reasoning as to why. I feel mildly unbiased having both and using both for espresso, but it's interesting to me nonetheless that a group like that could claim that overwhelmingly they prefer a flat burr. Yet, like the tides coming and going we'll have folks share their impressions here (impressions that carry a lot of well earned respect) that they've found the parlay into flat burrs in espresso for their cafe, come up short and return to conical. I honestly don't really give a damn about the argument if it's an argument just to win internet points. I don't really care if one side is right or wrong. What I would like to see made more clear is if there is a consistently superior burr type across a margin of coffees. It's either the emperor has no clothes or, most major manufacturers of espresso grinders don't like the expense of starting from scratch on a design. I think straw man arguments can be quickly stacked up for either side of the fence. I'd really like to see a large study conducted unbiasedly and blind to all and see if there is any evidence pointing one way or the other, or is the whole debate just fuel for more "pocket science" arguments?

Anyways, the video is here and it's quite well made.

Very interesting presentation! I particularly was a bit shocked when he said wash the burrs regularly.

Tom, does it make you want to rush out and buy a Mythos?

When he used the term "Pocket science" I had to laugh because it applies on the Forums.

It doesn't make me want to rush out and buy anything. Everywhere I turn I run into a grinder as it is. But, there's always next week.

If this study you are wishing to have is ever coming up I would be the first to read it. I am convinced an unbiased study will not come up soon because somebody has to pay for it. This is not just a little homework for enthusiasts. Consequently the result of any think tank researching about a certain issue will end up in the solution of the party paying for the think tank.
Btw I have the Mythos one sitting next to other grinders daily pulling shots with many different coffees. It does an excellent job but other premium models do as well!
At the end it's still all about the coffee right?

It seems like some of these recommendations are based on using a high grown hard bean coffee that is very lightly roasted. I wonder what the results are when a low grown heavier roast level coffee processing method is used in the testing.

Flipper wrote:If this study you are wishing to have is ever coming up I would be the first to read it. I am convinced an unbiased study will not come up soon because somebody has to pay for it. This is not just a little homework for enthusiasts. Consequently the result of any think tank researching about a certain issue will end up in the solution of the party paying for the think tank.

But there's a counter argument to this. Look at David Walsh's phase 1 study looking at extraction, strength an preference. He set up a free Google doc and had volunteers in the coffee world submit their data. That was essentially free, the only "expense" was the effort and time of the volunteers involved. You likely cannot come up with any absolute right or wrong conclusions initially, but using the same methodology as what Walsh did, and separating the data based on flat vs conical burr, the data would still accumulate and likely start to reveal something insightful. Wether it is ultimately useful data may be elusive (brew water variations alone would skew a lot of the findings unless it too were standardized, and making things even more difficult). But it could certainly be undertaken without corporate sponsorship and bias.

What were the results from the Phase 2 survey?

TomC wrote:But there's a counter argument to this. Look at David Walsh's phase 1 study looking at extraction, strength an preference. He set up a free Google doc and had volunteers in the coffee world submit their data. That was essentially free, the only "expense" was the effort and time of the volunteers involved. You likely cannot come up with any absolute right or wrong conclusions initially, but using the same methodology as what Walsh did, and separating the data based on flat vs conical burr, the data would still accumulate and likely start to reveal something insightful. Wether it is ultimately useful data may be elusive (brew water variations alone would skew a lot of the findings unless it too were standardized, and making things even more difficult). But it could certainly be undertaken without corporate sponsorship and bias.

I am with you Tom, it could be done with voluntary efforts. Still there's one big issue: the coffee bean. There's no standard coffee bean with standardized characteristics on the world. So no matter how precise your studies will be with countless data from a representative group you will always lack one essential thing: repeatable conditions.
On every study being launched there will be hundreds stepping up stating that her or his coffee from around the corner of nowhere tastes better on this and that equipment.
From my point of view I tend to use equipment of a certain professional quality and concentrate on the origin of the coffee. And as a very subjective opinion I very much prefer flat burrs!

There are at least 2 undefined and undefinable variables, no standard green coffee bean with standardized characteristics and no standardized processing to roasted coffee. What this results in is the first valid point of evaluation is the taste of the final product in the cup. Taste is very subjective and personal.

Hello:

OldNuc wrote: ... the first valid point of evaluation is the taste of the final product in the cup.

Indeed.

OldNuc wrote:Taste is very subjective and personal.

Very much so, an easily forgotten fact.

Cheers and HNY,

CIV