Bob, I'll bring my Cremina over to Mike's house unless you have time to visit at my place, looking forward to it. As a side note we have the Nyeri Hill and the coffee was a stand out to the buyer of Mike's Synesso when she came to pick it up. I don't recall which large Southern California cafe she worked for but said the Kenyan and roast was the best she ever had.

Northern CA (Bay Area) - Sightglass. She said it was an excellent roast of an excellent coffee.

And it was!

I've had my Monolith Flat for a little over a week and am very pleased! I chose the flat because:
- I already have two 68mm conical grinders
- my Conti Prestina lever is terrific at layered, nuanced shots.

The build is impressive and it's very straightforward to operate. Consistency is not an issue - ever. The fun is in evaluating the effect of varying the multiple features (grind, speed, etc) on the shots. It's not an issue to switch back and forth between decaf and caffeinated beans because the adjustments are so precise.

The only disappointment is that even set at its widest the nifty portafilter holder won't take my Elektra A3's tubby portafilter. It has to rest on top of the forks. The Prestina's portafilter fits if I angle it in. NOT a big deal considering the quality of the grinding!

Edit: Denis saw this post and immediately emailed that he will send me a mod kit so that the holder will accommodate my portafilters! How can you beat that for customer service???

Wanted to share a shot.... My brother brought me a bag of freshly roasted Ethiopian from Five Watt in Minneapolis... The Monolith Flat was able to pull out sweet orange fruit instead of the lemon peel I usually get in these light roasted SO's.

Had such a great pull as my after lunch pick me up!

Just a FWIW: I am thoroughly enjoying my new Flat. I haven't been able to do any A/B testing with the Grist and I'm pulling beans I'm not familiar with (the Caffe Lusso Gran Miscela Carmo Denis provided with the Flat), so direct comparisons and/or perspective don't really exist right now. Of course like many of you I couldn't wait to run even 5lbs of beans through it to lap the burr edges so I started pulling shots immediately with the Slayer setting and dose information Denis provided. Wow is the short course

I had a cabinet sitting in the house we recently purchased for the purpose of moving the Slayer from our already abbreviated counter space to it; shortly after I received the Flat I took everything down (Slayer, water feed system, etc.) and sub'd the 2002 Cremina (with 2016 group) in its place and have been pulling wonderful shots using the Flat without issue. I'm awaiting a couple more fittings for the Slayer water connection so the Cremina is serving full time espresso duty until mid-next week.

I am getting incredibly consistent pours; just like other's have reported. I never had a problem with my Grist but a couple months ago I noticed the upper bronze bushing had developed some side-to-side play and shots deviated just a little: Just a little, but noticeable. And the new bushing hasn't arrived yet. Regardless, the Flat is pure joy to use and I am super glad I jumped on this train!

So thank you to the Monolith fans, both Conical and Flat, that were early adopters and provided the impetus for folks like me to pull trigger without much if any risk.

Thank you Denis! I wish you much success and can only hope you can keep up with demand while keeping the QC bar almost unrealistically high, especially given the relative price point ...