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Roast and drip in one machine on Kickstarter

PostPosted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 5:44 pm
by midnight_storm

PostPosted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 9:55 am
by GreenBean
I have just skimmed through some of the description in the link and haven't watched the video so I may well be misjudging this. Do they really believe they can get good coffee from a 3-4 minute total roasting time and no rest/degassing between roast and brew?

PostPosted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 2:36 pm
by double_shot
The pitch in the video goes on about the various stages of getting the bean to the cup. The emphasis being on direct purchasing from the grower, other than that the message seems pretty pointless. The idea they seem to be promoting is circumventing virtually every stage of the coffee supply chain. Which seems far fetched, unless they are proposing some sort of special delivery process of domestic quantities direct from the grower to your door. Where would the quality control be? How would each farmer store their crop and how will it help their cash flow? Logistically (in every sense of the word) ridiculous! At the very least you would need syndicate buyers to replace the traditional buyers and then the syndicate would be limited to a finite number of growers in each region. They would still have to import, store and package the coffee before shipping to the end user. It's hard to see where the benefit they are promoting to growers and drinkers can be realised. We already have independent buyers/sellers who eliminate the unnecessary stages where possible. Tax, transport and storage aren't going to exit the equation.

It seems like a crowd funding exercise built on an appeal to emotion style fallacy and unrealistic supply fantasy. And then as greenbean says what about the degas time? I know some people don't bother with degassing when the coffee is going to brew as press or drip etc. A few days rest doesn't seem to be a problem in my experience. They also seem to be ignoring any advantages there maybe in roasting a larger mass. They don't seem to be considering blending which tends to make for a better drip or press coffee and larger mass is beneficial in blending. They also made a big deal about the smell of fresh roasting coffee which in reality isn't a big deal - roasting popcorn doesn't smell very much different. The pleasant smell people associate with fresh coffee comes from the grinding and brewing not roasting surely?

I can't see that this would appeal to serious coffee drinkers, especially those who roast their own beans, which are available as greens from different growers in a wide range of varieties from known/trusted sources.

I think most coffee drinkers would like to see growers rewarded fairly for their efforts and governments, corporations and general labor market abuses would appear to be their biggest enemies - not the consumer who pays high prices due to the same interference.

It's not a project I would take seriously. The video is very slick so they seem to have funds available. If it was a worthwhile project and given the low sum required they could fund the project conventionally.

Maybe I'm just way too cynical?