DavecUK yeah this is smart. I hid it because i’m anal about cleanliness in the videos, but that isn’t very helpful. I did film the power brick. seems it was cut in editing and I didn’t catch it when I reviewed the final cut! My apologies there.
Hello! I'm Lance Hedrick and I'd like to address some things!
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lancehedrick there is an inexplicable extra 200 euro charge.
That’s VAT for you (or IVA, em português), at 23%, and potentially other import duty. If you add 23% to £500, plus some other taxes, it can quickly go to the €200 you quote.
I’m not sure what’s the practice now, but last time I checked Niche was not removing VAT for exports. But that’s another topic already beaten to exhaustion on another thread in this forum. 👍
I remember shortly after the UK left the EU, Niche costing an extra €200, just because of the above.
but it works the other way too, buy a kafatek or a weber, £172 shipping make a total of £1400+import so a £1200 item costs 1700 ish
the only one dodging tax seems to be decent who sell a £4k machine but you get vat only on the software value of $500?
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
Cuprajake - As far as I know, things work slightly different in the US, as each state charges different taxes, which get added to the checkout price. Or, if the item exported outside of the US, you get a customs bill with the taxes due instead. In Europe, prices are often listed including local VAT, and, when exported, the VAT gets removed and then customs will collect the local VAT upon delivery by the currier.
It always amazes me that you go to the US and buy a toothbrush in a pharmacy and see the price of $1.99. And, by the time you go to the till, you’ll be charged, $2.09 (or whatever the local tax is).
yeah, i can only speak on bringing stuff into the uk, as ive had ice hockey gear from can/usa and also Europe in the past
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
Hey Lance. Fantastic video on WDT! Well done and very helpful. I had the right needles, but my motion was moving the grinds around to much. For deep WDT, I have been doing a widening clockwise spiral followed by a narrowing anti-clockwise spiral using 0.35mm needles; about 9 in a 3D printed tool. The anti-clockwise spiral moved the grinds around a fair bit. I then used these same needles for puck raking.
As a result of my potentially flawed technique, I found that a number of my pucks (maybe ⅓, maybe more) had 2 or 3 small holes in the top, which is evidence of channeling. And I have generally not been pleased with my shot taste consistency. Afew decent shots, but many unsatisfactory ones. So I will now test your technique, to see if things improve.
Thanks again for the great video!
I also watched James Hoffman’s video on distribution. While he goes through virtually every option, at the end, he shows what he does, which is pretty close to your WDT technique. Great minds think alike!
Question:
- Do I really need a separate WDT tool with 0.25 needles for grooming/raking or is my 0.35mm tool sufficient?
Two separate WDT tools with 0.1mm variance in needles… do people really do this?
Play nice 😂
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
I really liked the latest video on pour over. Will give the method a go in the morning!
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Whenever I see videos about puck raking and holes my mind always goes here:
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lancehedrick from australia what a niche costs ha!
Bought mine direct from UK to Australia for AU$1,000 landed over a year ago. But yes, if you want it tomorrow and buy from an Australian retailer like AlternativeBrewing then expect to pay AU$1,800. But I suspect that may be less to do with taxes, that’s more to do with a standard retailer mark up.
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AU$1000 is £560, so not such a big difference.
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InfamousTuba I just want more robust testing on the hypothesis, a very small sample size of tests on flats versus conicals is not enough data for me.
Background — I have a lot of experience with clinical trials from the day job, having enrolled lots of patients on clinical trials, and on the other end designing, running, and analyzing the data from clinical trials.
My takeaway from this study is that there seems to be no difference between conical and flat burrs in a blind tasting situation. If this is the case, it’s unlikely that redoing this test with larger numbers will produce a different result.
It is far more common for a positive result (there is a difference between conical and flat burrs) with small numbers to change to a negative result when done with a larger sample size than it is for a negative result with small numbers to turn positive when it’s done with a larger sample size.
wilburpan I agree, I don’t think I would expect the result to change all that much. However, there are a good number of changes between their protocol and a more robust one that I would implement, which I have outlined. Coming from a neuroscience standpoint with a good amount of experience designing and critiquing methodology for experiments, the testing and ‘pseudoscience’ surrounding a lot of coffee, especially in regard to equipment and grinders is frustrating. Trying to find good data on burr geometries, grind size analysis and even different pour-over brewers is not always that easy but companies and people in the industry still say that one product performs better than another without presenting data.
Once the Christmas rush has passed and the product development I am doing has finished I would like to design some experiments on different grinders, different burrs and different equipment. I think it would be fun to pit some of things against each other in a lab environment and see if what some of the coffee community says holds up under examination
Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more
InfamousTuba …even different pour-over brewers is not always that easy but companies and people in the industry still say that one product performs better than another without presenting data.
If this happened, then there would be data, the fact that there isn’t tends to speak for itself (assuming we’re talking about the commonly used brewers like V60, Chemex, Kalita Wave, Melitta etc. the only differences I have found are the speed you need to pour the water to get the same extraction from one to the next, the effect of different papers in the same brewer on flow & suitability vs brew size…other than that, they do the same thing when dialled in)
MWJB exactly the conclusion I came to, a lot of claims are made about products and I’m sure companies must spend a lot of time testing a product against competitors. Some brewers are nicer to use than others, but as far as taste goes I don’t see any differences in most of them
Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more
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InfamousTuba exactly the conclusion I came to, a lot of claims are made about products and I’m sure companies must spend a lot of time testing a product against competitors. Some brewers are nicer to use than others, but as far as taste goes I don’t see any differences in most of them
But therein lies a large pitfall.
Surely, for any exercise in which we treat data gathering as King, it needs to be measuring something that’s objectively measurable? How coffee tastes isn’t. Some, for instance, burr geometries and the resulting consistency of grinds no doubt are measurable, but the taste resulting fron using them? That’s much more subjective.
And as you point out, you don’t see (taste) a difference in most of them, and nor do I, but neither of us can tell what someone else can taste because none of us can experience the other’s taste buds.
I’ve related a story before, I think, where a friend swore he could tell if I’d made his tea using a spoon that had stirred my coffee. I thought he was winding me up. We used to have a couple of gaming sessions a week, so for about 6 months I very carefully either did his tea first, or washed the spoon I’d used for (instant) cffee before stirring his tea.
Having not had him comment/complain about a coffee taste in this tea, for that 6 months, I conducted an experiment. I made my coffee, washed and dried the spoon, dipped it ONCE in my coffee, shook off any loose coffee from the spoon and stirred his tea maybe two rotations.
I said nothing and gave him his cup, sat down and prepared to pay (racing MotoGP bikes I think), and he took a sip of tea. He immediately said You used the coffee spoon in my tea, didn’t you?". The kitchen isn’t even on the same floor as where we were gaming and there’s no way he can have known. It can only be that he could taste the tihy bit of remaining coffee in the whole cup of tea. I certainly can’t. I didn’t believe he could either, and thought he was winding me up.
When he can taste that, and I can’t, and I doubt many could, I can only conclude there’s a big difference between his sense of taste, and certainly it’s sensitivity, to mine. How can we objectively determine what tastes better?I mean, maybe 1000 people not being able to taste that coffee ‘taint’ doesn’t mean he can’t. I might genuinely prefer a V60 to a Clever, or whatever, but it doesn’t invalidate it if someone else prefers the Clever. Similarly, I love coffee but can’t stand coffee cake. My brother loves coffee cake, but can’t stand my favourite, a nice fruitcake. Who’s taste is ‘wrong’? Neither, of course.
So the elephant in the room …. we can break burr geometry down all we like, and examine consistency of grounds sizing but how can we coherently categorise which tastes best? Or more specifically, to whom?
We might get 999 out of 1000 prefer version A to be, but I (or you) might be the 1000th person that doesn’t.
My objective, and I assume every here to, has taste as ther No.1 priority. Data analysis only gets us so far. It might point us at a probability of tasting better, but only one method will be certaon - taste it for ourselves. And it’s frustrating as hell. 😀