Comments on Niche Zero Review - Page 14

#131: Post by **gchapman** » May 26th, 2019, 5:17 pm

TheN5OfOntario wrote:I'm not sure what the 'recommended' frequency is, but I do it about once a month because it takes less than 5 minutes to do, and it allows me to keep calibration in check. It should be noted that you can only calibrate reliably with a completely empty grind chamber and burrs.

Cleaned and calibrated it. Calibration was off by maybe 1/2". Running more beans through, I've not yet had a repeat of the grinder stalling... not yet!

#132: Post by **gchapman** » May 26th, 2019, 7:51 pm

TheN5OfOntario wrote:It should be noted that you can only calibrate reliably with a completely empty grind chamber and burrs.

Thanks. Wasn't aware of that. Makes sense...

May 26th, 2019, 10:43 pm

While we're talking about cleaning and calibrating, my sweeper arms don't have any mechanical linkage to the rotating but or shaft. Friction is the only thing making them turn. That's somewhat unexpected for me...

May 27th, 2019, 12:08 am

But if it works, it works.

There are times that developers/engineers needlessly over-engineer a product and it just drives the cost up.

The Zero seems to have been targeted at high value for the price and that means using techniques that work vs. techniques that are overkill.

I have a big Macap conical that has the sweeper driven but it leaves half a dose in the channel from the burrs.

I've been sweeping that out for every espresso for over a decade (so, 2 doubles a day * 365 *10 and it is well over 7,000 times) and so I am the happiest camper in the forest to not be doing that any longer

Anyway, mine is working like a champ.

Max./

#135: Post by **drgary** » May 30th, 2019, 1:32 am

luca wrote:Hi Gary,

Just in case we confused anyone into thinking that our tests can give broader insight than they do ... I think that our results stand for the proposition that with lightish and darkish standard espresso roasts, for espresso extraction, the difference was small, when compared with an EK43 that I had aligned with the marker method and the stock 2015ish "coffee" burrs. I don't think that we really generated any useful information about Niche vs EK43 in the filter or cupping realm, since we used the light espresso roast for that and it wasn't really light enough to make especially pleasant cups (this was my bad - I suggested it - sorry) and our palates were a bit shot, so, whilst there weren't really clear winners there, everything kind of sucked. I don't think that that's a data set that's worth drawing any inferences from. If all of the cups were great, then that might be informative.

I'm sure that we would all have liked to have been even more thorough, but I think we were kind of struck by the enormity of the task. There are only so many hours in a day and so much coffee that can be tasted before palate fatigue sets in! The espresso results basically took us a morning of testing out different coffees and getting things dialled in and set up (we had to eliminate some commercial espresso blends that weren't good enough to be worth testing) and then an afternoon of actually pulling the shots and tasting.

Cheers,
Luca

Thanks, Luca. I've modified the sentence you highlighted in my review by adding the bolded text: "I'm surprised that Sam and his crew's blind tasting found the Niche holding its own compared to an aligned EK43 and Kafatek Monolith Conical for relatively light and dark roasts pulled as espresso." If that's off please let me know.

#136: Post by **TV33** » May 30th, 2019, 2:51 am

I am not a professional. I went from the Eureka Mignon to the NZ. I think there are many coffee lovers at home who will never put the price of professional equipment in a grinder. There is also the question of the place taken by the material on the work plan.
I am VERY satisfied with the NZ. The difference is obvious with the Mignon (who has been a good learning companion). For a price that is reasonable I think I have a very good result in a cup. The retention is really minimalist and the ritual with the cup suits me perfectly (I tried to grind in the filter holder directly, successfully, as I did with the Mignon, but I returned the use of the cup). I do not have a problem of static electricity, the coffee does not go everywhere. there is certainly a little bit, but as I like the practice WDT (I often go to smell the coffee after doing a WDT, I love it).
I concede that the NZ rounds the angles, which suits me with the clear roasting that become more docile. In short, all that suits me. I just wanted to tell this testimony of an amateur so far completely satisfied by the NZ.

#137: Post by **luca** » June 9th, 2019, 6:43 am

drgary wrote:Thanks, Luca. I've modified the sentence you highlighted in my review by adding the bolded text: "I'm surprised that Sam and his crew's blind tasting found the Niche holding its own compared to an aligned EK43 and Kafatek Monolith Conical for relatively light and dark roasts pulled as espresso." If that's off please let me know.

Hi Gary,

Thanks for changing it, and sorry for being a pedant, but I think it's better to say:

"espresso made from relatively light and dark roasts sold for espresso"

The distinction is that the light roast that we used was light relative to espresso roasts, but it wasn't light relative to all roasts. It was a bit more developed than a Tim Wendelboe/Coffee Collective style nordic roast and, indeed, that's why our cupping right at the end wasn't informative: the roast was maybe a tad too developed for any of the cups to taste good to us, so it didn't really provide any useful information on cupping performance.

The reason why I'm pointing this out is because I would hate people to think that we tested super-light, right at the boundaries, filter to nordic roast type espresso. We discussed whether we should do that and we thought most people are probably not going to buy the niche for that and we only had a limited amount of time to test, so we prioritized getting through the extremes (without going into over-developed territory) of the universe of what people usually use for espresso in Melbourne. If people want us to put the niche and the EK head to head for super light/filter type roasts, I can talk to Sam and maybe we can do that. I actually have some Tim Wendelboe coffee on the way, so if we get some time, we might be able to do that.

Overall, though, I've got to say that for regular espresso use, I'm quite impressed with the niche. I can definitely see it being at a budget sweet spot and I think that for most people, it will probably be rapidly diminishing returns spending any more than that.

Cheers,
Luca

#138: Post by **drgary** » June 9th, 2019, 12:25 pm

Hi Luca,

I've edited that passage. Please let me know by PM if you'd like it tweaked further. I think you would make a contribution many would like to see if you do a blind tasting comparing the Niche and a Monolith or EK43 using a Tim Wendelboe or similar Nordic roast not sold as espresso.

#139: Post by **luca** » June 13th, 2019, 5:45 am

Hi Gary,

Thanks for bearing with my pedantry!

I'll talk to Sam and see what I can do about giving lighter roasts a shot. We've got a session coming up where we'll cup the TW coffee anyway, the Niche is pretty portable and Sam's ability to dial in a shot quickly and make it repeatably is quite impressive, so it might be pretty easy to do. Likely this time around we'll need to do it on my Decent machine instead of the Vesuvius. We can try to use a similar fairly standard brew pressure profile and I suppose it might be even better, in that we can graph the pressure or flow that each grinder produces against each other ... and then scratch our heads about whether the differences are significant and, if so, what they mean!

Cheers,
Luca

#140: Post by **luca** » July 11th, 2019, 8:11 am

Gary, just a little update from me - I set us massively too much to get through in our cupping session, so we didn't have a chance to test the niche VS ek with light roast coffee. Hopefully an opportunity will present itself a little down the track. On the plus side, the TW coffees were stunning!