I've backed several projects on Kickstarter. I've seen some crazy things get the funding it needs to come to fruition, and I think it's great that there is going to be a new tool to help people join the coffee world. That being said, I was mortally offended by that video presentation. If you are at all serious about making your own coffee at home, chances are you already own a decent machine and grinder. Promoting the product by marginalizing the skill required to actually grind and produce your own coffee is insulting. They aren't reinventing the wheel. As far as I'm concerned it is a Nespresso Lattissima with its own grinder. They share the same price point. If you are a "skilled barista" why would you use this anyway?

It will be soon be coming up to 4 months after the completion of funding and the progress appears to be that absolutely nothing has happened (which will come of no surprise to anyone here) and the communication has been lacklustre. But still there are backers living in cloud cuckoo land who believe that it will be delivered this summer.

I think they timed their campaign wrong, by the time it was funded and they got their money it would have been mid December, which puts you squarely in the lead up to Chinese New Year. In Hong Kong we have 3 days off, but for the factories in China they give the workers a long holiday and usually production is locked down Oct/Nov time. After that time, their focus is on completing those orders before the CNY holiday and they very rarely entertain new ideas, orders or products. I would guess they have spent 3-4 months struggling to get answers from suppliers and making very little progress, especially since they are obviously starting from a blank page.

Given that the creators are based in HK and had just a few days holiday it is quite weird that they have not had time to give any real updates in this time.

Their page on HKSTP is now blank:

http://www.hkstp.org/en-US/Company-Dire ... emid=52537


Google cache from 3/1 still contained info:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us


Searches for "arist" and "nbition" are returning no results. They also do not appear under the alphabetical listing.

I wouldn't worry too much about that, they have the ear of the HK Government so they have probably been given a better space.

Looks like you're right, I found them under "Incubatees in Programme"

http://www.hkstp.org/en-US/Company-Dire ... ramme.aspx

If I was a proper backer and expecting a machine this summer I would be more concerned about the slew of job ads they have on HK websites looking to fill positions for the sort of people you would look for when you are developing a machine.



There was another job a few days ago but it has been taken down. I'm not stalking them as I have better things to do, but I was looking at placing an ad for Cafelat and saw these.

hehe...are there people that still think this was ever really a possibility?

I think they will eventually get a machine built, of some kind. Most likely something very similar to a super automatic that is already being made in a many China factories. They have cash, support from the HK government, and very close and easy access to the China manufacturing base across the border in Shenzen. They could have a cookie cutter super-auto out of a china factory in a matter of months if they wanted. Will it be a REVOLUTIONARY new coffee machine making the best espresso and lattes? No.

I have to respectfully disagree for several reasons.

It would have to include

1 a burr grinder with adjustable settings
2 a refrigerated compartment for milk
3 a variable pressure pump
4 precise temp control in a small footprint
5 variable pressure tamping that can mutate as it applies pressure
6 the ability to control it wirelessly
7 the ability to interface with the devices programming to create specific profiles for varies beans and to recognize NFC cups
8 the ability to get online and process recommendations based on specific ingredients on hand and available online

Without those things, at least most of them, it is not at all what was advertised.


Heck just the burr grinder and ability to control the water temp is going to break the bank for the prices they sold them for.

Adding in the other features it is a clear case of intentional deception in my eyes.

Though, let's say they did pull it off just for fun. Even if everything else was done right, it is built around an internal burr grinder. At this prices it's obviously going to be very low quality to fit in all the other "features." Not only will the grind be low quality but there will be unavoidable retention, and with old poorly ground beans going into every shot all the coffee coming out of it will be awful, even if at they did apply 20lb spinning temping force is used with variable pressure and constant temp shot.

This was clearly never intended to go to market, imo. Everything else is just being done to placate those that fell for the gimmick upfront and hold the wolves at bay.

Just curious, but does anyone think that coffee-related KickStarters have unusually high failure rates, or at least unusually high "borderline fraud" rates? ZPM, Arist, Invergo are just a few. And while ZPM predated the rules about not being able to demo or render anything that didn't actually exist, Arist and Invergo were certainly funded under these rules. If there demo videos were camera tricks, I would think backers would have some recourse.