Some of the designs I'm seeing on Aliexpress are quite interesting:
This one seems modular in how it works with air pumps or gas canisters like a Mypressi or a Portaspresso, but it has a look all its own:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805008533575.html

This one's surprisingly cheap, but I'm not sure exactly how it works, perhaps like the EspressoForge:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802323758180.html

This one is ugly looking, but is perhaps the most interesting as it can switch between pneumatic pumps or the hand screw espresso:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804850344907.html

This one is a complete and utter ripoff of Aram espresso and they really should be prosecuted for patent infringement. I don't feel that way about the others and they seem creatively different:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804724118933.html

Does Aram have a patent on that design? Portapresso came up with that style of the screw mechanism a decade before Aram. They also incorporated the pressurized canister to work with their machines.

I think the basic screw mechanism of a machine should be fair game for competitors as should creating a pneumatic system, as long as they are innovating around it in some ways. Individual features on products are mimicked and often improved upon all the time. That's how capitalism creates new products. But in the last case, the device looks almost identical to the Aram, and could sell as a counterfeit. That to me is problematic. None of the other three linked devices have that identical look and function of competitors, and seem to me actually creative and interesting.

Hopefully they will eventually make a machine that will reach near espresso brewing temperatures without too much effort. These are still far from that goal

Hard to imagine that temperature issue being solved without electricity. The same holds true for already popular all-manual, non-electric espressor makers like the Robot, Forge, Portaspresso, Aram.

vit wrote:Hopefully they will eventually make a machine that will reach near espresso brewing temperatures without too much effort. These are still far from that goal

Portaspresso espresso makers have a unique design - there is no shower screen in GH. So an immersion heater can be used to heat GH like open boiler, extremely easy to preheat the group head to any brew temperature, high or low.
https://portaspresso.com/shop/ols/produ ... r-espresso

jamesz wrote:Portaspresso espresso makers have a unique design - there is no shower screen in GH. So an immersion heater can be used to heat GH like open boiler, extremely easy to preheat the group head to any brew temperature, high or low.
https://portaspresso.com/shop/ols/produ ... r-espresso

That's still using electricity. :-)

I modified my Robot so that it had a non-metal piston. That provided the same temperature response as an aggressively preheated metal piston. Then I heated up the portafilter holder by placing it on my gas stovetop (no electricity) until it was very hot. And I got this brew water profile:




I didn't preheat the basket itself. If I had the temperature would have been a few degrees higher.

I don't like a workflow that includes cooking my portafilter on the stove, electric or not. But I suspect that a non-metal portafilter (and basket) would accomplish the same thing as my experimental non-metal piston did. And that is what I imagine is the future for small, portable espresso devices. It awaits the material science guys to engineer something that is durable and food safe while still having the desired thermal properties.

jpender wrote:That's still using electricity.

I modified my Robot so that it had a non-metal piston. That provided the same temperature response as an aggressively preheated metal piston. Then I heated up the portafilter holder by placing it on my gas stovetop (no electricity) until it was very hot. And I got this brew water profile:

You can also preheat Portaspresso Rossa the same way.

Robot, Portaspresso, Flair ... are more or less ok, but I meant above four Chinese coffee makers (and some already existing) - I'm not sure how to actually achieve the temperature ...