vit wrote:As I understand from the video, first he pumps the hot water a few times from beaker to the cylinder/piston assembly and back, in order to preheat it, which looks like a clever solution. Then he turns the knob on 3 way valve to the other side and pumps the water from the cylinder into the brew head

However, it looks like he forgot to heat up the brew head, as I don't see the pipe connected with it. And the brew head is, as it should be for that price range, quite massive ... so it looks like this is just another cold brew espresso machine in price range of Strietman ...

Hope I'm wrong ...

After watching the video a few times in a row, I don't think your wrong, of cause you could run a warming flush through the head.

However you still don't have very good temperature control, and a few back and forward heating up circulation isn't going to heat it up enough, normally you would need to warm such things up over several minutes, I simply do not see this machine being warmed up sufficiently to make quality espresso, especially not the lighter end of the scale.

And In my country for the price of this, I could almost get the Streitman CT2, or I could get both the Flair58 and OE-1 and still have money left to spend on coffee.

There is no truly "food safe" plastic no matter what companies say. This is especially so for hot and acidic foods, both of which coffee is. Something always leaches into the food/liquid, so much so that scientists are now finding high levels of plastic in our blood. Tritan is not safe either.

Not a lever, but a paddle... probably the cheapest way to have profiling today ... too cheap to be true, even if it's coming from china...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/98 ... fee-lovers

Hoon did a live demo of the X Bar. An interesting concept (using compressed CO2 or air for pressure), but seems finicky. He remarks that the CO2 cartridges do not get many uses before being depleted, and the compressed air might be a challenge (but he does use a small air compressor). I think the main issue may be the thermal mass of the group, and temp management might be similar to the Flair.

I'm engaged in the xbar project in kickstarter.
i think i use this without co2 cartige, more with bike pump on the compressor tank ( for tubless tire).

I think Sprometheus did a review of the Xbar on Youtube. It seems like it's an okay unit, but pressure profiling can only be done off CO2, it doesn't do fine control of pressure very well, preheating is an issue like it is with most manual levers, and you can maybe get 3-4 espressos off one cartridge. It seems like a fun machine that can make great espresso, but it doesn't sound suitable for a daily driver.

Not really a kickstarter project, but just ready to order since today: https://manument.com/en/preorder

Edited: solved issues with vimeo link

Interesting idea for a lever (on demand boiler) but at €8K _$9.5K USD) it's roughly 2x my budget for a machine, grinder, roaster + accessories.

coffeeOnTheBrain wrote:Not really a kickstarter project, but just ready to order since today: https://manument.com/en/preorder

coffeeOnTheBrain wrote:Not really a kickstarter project, but just ready to order since today: https://manument.com/en/preorder

8000 dollar?! You nearly made me spit out my coffee.

Hello:

mohragk wrote: ... nearly made me spit out my coffee.

I had just finished my second double espresso latte, but I did start laughing out quite loudly.
Must have been the excess coffee.

A question came to me right away:

If this contraption can be thought of as really being worth US$8K ...
... just how much is a thoroughly researched/designed, documented and exquisitely hand crafted Lapera worth?

The things we see these days. 8^° !
Must be this Covid thing.

As always, just my $0.02
YMMV.

CIV