It's a beautiful pump, but feels like only part of what an espresso machine is.
What heats the water? What provides temperature control? How would I produce steam?
It is so single purpose that it does not feel useful by itself, it feels like the prototype for part of a whole.
I like the idea of it, and I like the idea of "part of the whole" being a composable coffee machine where one could put together components which were all independently maintainable and highly serviceable... this feels like a taster for that, but by itself is very expensive for a pump that claims to be an espresso machine but could not produce an espresso alone, and would need something else to make any espresso derived coffee.
What this replaces is a lever espresso machine, but I'm not sure anyone with a home coffee machine would've purchased a lever espresso machine without the integrated boiler... and if they would, then this is right there https://bellabarista.co.uk/collections/lever-machines/produc...
You would benefit greatly from a video that showed the workflow end-to-end of making an espresso... from bean to the final drink.
Flair, which you linked, is hugely popular. Several people in my office have one even though I would not consider them coffee enthusiasts like myself.
Most people are going to have a decent electric kettle anyway (especially if they want to make pour overs) so being able to save costs and counter space by reusing what you have already makes tons of sense.
If you told me I could get something roughly equivalent to the Flair, for roughly the same price, with programmable flow profiling? Hell yeah!
I have the budget and desire for a Decent, but not the counter space or interest in cleaning and maintenance. Something like this machine would be very appealing.
I have a Flair and I'm not that happy with it. It looks beautiful but I feel like they pulled a fast one by providing the, cheapest ugliest power brick ever. There's lots of other small issues that makes it frustrating to use on a daily basis, although it's a great conversation piece for sure.
I feel this one is trying to do the same thing, all focus on the pump, 0.1% plastic - but ignore that huge plastic power brick, that doesn't count.
When it comes to espresso machines the devil really is in the details.
> I have a Flair and I'm not that happy with it. It looks beautiful but I feel like they pulled a fast one by providing the, cheapest ugliest power brick ever.
What power brick? Flair makes manually operated, lever-based espresso makers. You heat the water in a separate kettle and you can buy whichever brand of kettle you prefer.
Are you referring to a Flair grinder? That seems irrelevant to the gp’s point.
No, I'm referring to a flair 58 lever espresso machine that has a heating element and power brick. The older type of flair doesn't have that, instead you are supposed to take out the metal core and submerge it in hot water every time which sounds even more annoying.
I have looked before and never found one. I just spent ten minutes on Google now and got nothing except for identical replacement bricks. Some by third parties but looking exactly the same.
If you know of something better please share a link.
What heats the water? What provides temperature control? How would I produce steam?
It is so single purpose that it does not feel useful by itself, it feels like the prototype for part of a whole.
I like the idea of it, and I like the idea of "part of the whole" being a composable coffee machine where one could put together components which were all independently maintainable and highly serviceable... this feels like a taster for that, but by itself is very expensive for a pump that claims to be an espresso machine but could not produce an espresso alone, and would need something else to make any espresso derived coffee.
What this replaces is a lever espresso machine, but I'm not sure anyone with a home coffee machine would've purchased a lever espresso machine without the integrated boiler... and if they would, then this is right there https://bellabarista.co.uk/collections/lever-machines/produc...
You would benefit greatly from a video that showed the workflow end-to-end of making an espresso... from bean to the final drink.