Oh...my...god... http://gizmodo.com/5567432/la-marzocco- ... am-machine

Ironic that profile 3 and 4 are essentially lever machine pressure profiles. Have we gone full circle, lever to pump then a pump simulating a lever at a few thousand times the price of the lever? I know, lots of other things going on inside the Strada, but it is interesting that a lot of the pressure profiling setups essentially imitate a lever machines more gentle pressure ramp profiles. It would be interesting to compare a Strada and a spring lever side by side.

If anyone has one sitting around, I just had another 40 amps of power dropped into my espresso bar so we could hook a couple up to test, but I doubt that will ever happen.

cannonfodder wrote: Have we gone full circle, lever to pump then a pump simulating a lever at a few thousand times the price of the lever?

Dave, this model follows quite a few 'innovations'. Originally, the only issue with levers was that it was manual labour. Pumps took over, and have reduced the amount of actual energy expended by the individual baristi to pull a coupla thousand shots a week. This is what LM has done to make the pump still do the work, but now do it as well as a lever operated machine with an expert barista at the other end of the lever. Or some other profile that you happen to like better.
It's all about getting stupid machines to work as well as highly trained baristi, or using computational power to 'swap out Luigi for Marco' (changing the profile) for any particular pull.
For someone who can manipulate pressures via a lever any time he wants, not so big a deal, I guess. But how many times have you heard, "Shop X is pretty good, if you get there when that barista with the pierced temporal lobes is there' or something similar? This allows that barista's 'style' to stay at the shop, even when he's playing guitar at the local shelter in his Emo band.

I suppose the biggest difference from lever machines is the temperature control.

For those who missed the Anaheim SCAA show, the Strada will be demonstrated at Caffe Culture in London this week and at LM's next "Out of the Box" in San Francisco later this summer.

I am not saying it is not innovative, and as I said there is a lot more going on under the hood. Concentrating on the pressure profiling alone, most of the profiles I have seen tend to look a lot like lever profiles. Thought that was interesting.

Profiles prolly mimic levers at first crack because that's what folks at first want to emulate. They evolve to something else after a while.

-greg

They could evolve in something else. Let's hope so for La Marzocco et al.

gscace wrote:Profiles prolly mimic levers at first crack because that's what folks at first want to emulate. They evolve to something else after a while.

+1

Greg,
How the heck are you! You are right. They do mimic some of the know profiles. LM will be conservative with the profiles they recommend since it is a sensory based experience. As you probably already found out about pressure profiling, an Awesome profile to you will not be Awesome to everyone.

But remember when temperature was at this point of evolution, there were similar discussions and now most accept that subtle changes in temp (whether real or just accuracy differences) do change the flavor profile. Now it will be up the to enthusiasts to discover what profiles will be better for specific coffees. It won't be immediate due to low production (Strada) and cost but hopefully I can do something about this in the next 6 months.

Bill C