icke wrote:. . . i found a peugeot grinder
here that looks promising.
anybody seen one of those before or even used one???
I used a Peugeot Costa Rica grinder a few months ago, albeit briefly (it was present for my father). I assume the Nostalgie model would be mechanically identical to it. The grinder was very well finished; it felt good and solid -- more so than my Zassenhaus -- but the grounds it produced were very inconsistent. They were also rather coarse: with the burrs touching, it would produce grounds that were, for the most part, not quite as fine as I would like for using in a cafetière, and certainly not fine enough for drip or, presumably, for an Aeropress. As I recall, it produced relatively little dust, but a good deal of large chunks of coffee. It had trouble feeding beans into the burrs, too, presumably because they had to be so close for a usable grind that the beans simply would not fit through until they had been bashed around a little.
Peugeot has a good reputation, and I certainly don't mean to sully it, but I would be somewhat cautious about buying a new Peugeot grinder for the time being. Like Zassenhaus a couple of years ago, they seem to be having problems controlling the quality of at least some parts. The shop from which I bought it had so many returned Peugeots, I'm told, that they returned all their stock and no longer sell the grinders. That said, I bought a pepper mill last year that was made by Peugeot, and it works perfectly.
If anyone has any information to the contrary about recent Peugeot grinders, I would be happy to hear it. It was a lovely grinder, apart from the grinding.