HB wrote:This is what I have to look forward to when my boys are college age?

That depends how early they start taking part time (or summer) IT jobs.

Thanks for the tip, the Le'lit option was looking much sweeter given the price difference ($200<$500).

HB wrote:I hate to sound like an old-timer, but when I was your age, I was happy with a dorm fridge and going to McDonald's was a treat I could afford only once every few months. And you're asking about an espresso machine and whether a Mazzer will shoehorn into your dorm room?

I remember going to the Student Union and hitting the ATM machine for $5 at a time...

aindfan wrote:Thanks for the tip, the Le'lit option was looking much sweeter given the price difference ($200<$500).

Dan was kinda quiet about it, but it looks like you can save an additional 10% with a new years coupon code per the 1st-Line homepage AND this is introductory pricing. It's almost like making money!

My roommate worked at Taco Bell part time and closed, so we had all the bean burritos we could stand. After a month, we had all we could stand.

I could make ramen noodles into a gourmet meal and was even known to catch a fish or two in a pond by campus and cook them over an open fire, but I like that kind of thing.

When I started in the IT field the information super highway was a two lane dirt road.

Fyi, when I started college, ATM was an asynchronous transfer mode and you got cash from the lady behind the counter.

So, this vs the Quickmill doserless grinder with stepless adjustment... what are the pro's and con's ? Anyone try both ? I have been looking at both and now can't decide.

Oh and I'm in college too, don't worry it's not a common thing for college students to buy $300 espresso grinders and $1,000 lever machines.

mikemar42 wrote:So, this vs the Quickmill doserless grinder with stepless adjustment... what are the pro's and con's ? Anyone try both ? I have been looking at both and now can't decide.

I'm looking more closely at this one. Seems to be neater (in terms of grinding straight into the PF), the metal chute will probably help with static, and I'm assuming it does not have the problems with the finer grind settings giving the touching-burrs noise. Also, this one has conical burrs, so ___(insert benefit of conical vs. flat burrs here... something about lower motor speed perhaps?)___.

Also, this one is $100 less than the QM.

mikemar42 wrote:Oh and I'm in college too, don't worry it's not a common thing for college students to buy $300 espresso grinders and $1,000 lever machines.

Agreed. It is, however, common for my friends to wonder why I would EVER consider spending more than $20 on the coffee machine, $20 on the grinder, and why ordering fresh coffee online is such a big deal. It's a tough job to convince friends that I'm not crazy (giving them a taste of a cappuccino helps). Of course, having read this forum since last June, I am now switched over to the mindset that dropping $500+ on a Mazzer and $1500+ on a double boiler machine is not too insane. At the very least it has been done before (but not by me... yet).

At one point I was considering the QM vs. Rocky for my office. At that time we were going to a pour over/filter for the staff and espresso for me. This change was a no sweat on my MM at home but Chris' told me to go with the Rocky, the QM would be a hassle to make big changes.

Marvin

I went ahead and purchased one of these. I ordered it yesterday at 9:00 AM. This morning at 11:30 AM, it was in my hands in Massachusetts (despite the fact that I just used free UPS ground shipping). I was very impressed.

I haven't had too much of a chance to use the grinder, but I figured I would post my first impressions.

First off- it is small. When I first saw the box from 1st Line, I was sure the order was wrong (we ordered 2 grinders- one for me and one for a friend but the box was just barely bigger than the box my Rocky came in)
But sure enough, we opened the box and there were the grinders. The grinder is definitely smaller than the Rocky (and it goes without saying that it is smaller than the Mazzer line). This also means that it will fit wonderfully on my cabinet.

The body is made out of bent sheet metal. It seems sturdy enough. It is not as beefy as a Mazzer or even a Rocky. The hopper does seem a tad bit fragile.

Basically, this grinder is very simple. You pull the hopper off, and there are the conical burrs. The front chute comes off (for easy cleaning, though one of the issues is that it seems a little hard to get it in and out). The path from the burrs to the chute is very short. There is a large on/off button on the side and a button in the front, which is pushed by the portafilter.

After setting it up, I began to ground coffee. I was very impressed by the quality of the grind. Despite being doserless, there is little clumping. The coffee seems as if it is coming out of the doser on my Rocky. I haven't used a Mazzer Mini, so I can't compare to that. In addition, the grinder seemed to be quite fast compared to the Rocky (this could just be because the burrs are new).

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the lid to the hopper. It has a lip on it, which means if you push it down, it will clear a lot of the grounds out of the chute. I am not sure whether this was intended, but it works quite well (much like the "ClickClack" mod for the Rocky). I might put some tape on the inside of the lip so it can get a tighter seal.

In conclusion, from my first impression, I like this better than either version of the Rocky. The grind seems to be a bit more consistent, it is easier to use, it is smaller, and it is cheaper. It does not look like it will be as durable as the Rocky (but then again it is not nearly as heavy, weighing in at under 9 pounds), but for home use this is fine. Basically, this grinder is designed to be used as an espresso grinder in the home. It achieves that design goal quite well.

When I get a chance, I'll do a side by side taste comparison with the Rocky.

-Ben

I picked one of these up too; nice thing about being across the Hudson from 1st-line is that UPS delivers overnight Initially I was worried that it got damaged because it was making a bit of a chirpy (not quite scraping) sound that wasn't present in Dan's video, but Jim assured me that it seemed normal to him.

I'm still a newbie, with my first espresso machine just a couple of months old - one of the throngs with a starbucks barista from the holiday sale - so my impressions probably won't be as useful as some of the more experienced folks here. I had gotten a barista grinder (the solis 166/saeco titan clone) with my espresso machine, so that's my baseline for comparison. My observations about the grinder so far:
- it's really small, just a bit bigger than the barista grinder, so it fits easily in the same space
- the hopper is a pretty tight fit. The "cup" shape is almost horizontal at the neck, so beans can get stuck if you're doing just-in-time grinding
- the edges all around the case are fairly sharp and exposed
- the upper burr is housed in a black plastic carrier
- the grounds exit chute is very short, and the chute itself is a very tight fit that was slightly warping the top panel on the grinder I received
- approx. 4.2g of grinds are retained. Most of that is in the chamber (3 large plastic "push" vanes), about 1.2g of it lodges in the chute or in the exit area that is exposed when the chute is exposed.
- the grinder is pretty fast, compared to the starbucks one. I can rotate the basket in the portafilter to even out the distribution (which definitely dresses left), but I have to cycle off a bit or else it'll overflow too fast.
- Turkish or even finer (clay?) is possible - found that out by mistake when I got impatient trying to dial it in. The stepless adjustment is very fine - I lost track of how many turns it took to get from drip to espresso.

So far I'm very pleased with the grinder. With the New Year discount, it was quite a bargain. The small size makes it NY-apartment-friendly, but it's a bit on the noisy side. It's too bad that it's difficult to adjust for multiple methods, because it makes a much nicer tasting drip grind than my starbucks one!

I am in the market for my first grinder and noticed in one of the post that they are or will be available in Canada.
Could some one tell where I can purchase one in Canada.
Thanks for the great web site and all replies
Gary