Specialita to Niche

Penance

Currently I have Mignon Specialita.
While I think its a good grinder I do fund it a chore to use. I started single dosing a few months ago, I enjoy a different bean for milk drinks to shots and my wife likes decaf. It’s OK but a pain to reliably switch between beans. We only drink espresso based drinks at home. I occasionally grind for Aeropress if we go camping.
The Niche seems like it would make grinding for different beans a lot more repeatable. Is there a big difference in flavour between the 2 grinders, would it be a worthwhile change considering my use case?

If I did get a Niche I would sell the Specialita so recouping some outlay.

Ernie1

This thread will have some useful insights.

https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/1215-grinder-upgrade-suggestions-but-need-compact-form/14

Controversial opinion but I’m still sceptical the Niche can actually switch between beans with the ease people talk about.

Completely open to be proven wrong because I’ve never owned one and it’s purely speculation, but I’d like to see three different beans ground at different settings back to back and making dialled in shots without any purging or adjusting.

Even if it isn’t quite that efficient though, it’s still massively regarded as the best single-doser and arguably the best grinder at the price point.

Penance

Ernie1 Thanks, i did search but missed that thread. some good info/opinion there which suggest the Niche would address my needs.

@Cuprajake Is the Niche reliable and easy to change the setting back to a previous position? The Specialita is nigh on impossible.

Cuprajake

i do that daily…. will grind a bean for me, move to a new number for the mrs with a bean for milk

once a ginders parts are full, then theres very little in the way of exchange as these grinders dont hold a lot of grouds to begin with, people focus on it way too much,

i could stick 1g of a different grind into another grind and you’d not know, it’ll just act like fines would in a much bigger way

Ernie1

Cuprajake

It’s not so much the retention I was curious about, more the setting. My Mazzer is insanely fussy, like .5mm off and it’s not dialled in.

Presumably the Niche is easier to get back to an exact setting?

MediumRoastSteam

Ernie1 It’s not so much the retention I was curious about, more the setting. My Mazzer is insanely fussy, like .5mm off and it’s not dialled in.

That’s because it’s not designed for that purpose, unlike the Niche.

Cuprajake

yeah its numbered and had a marker, the mazzers are ment to be set then run through a hopper full, ive never liked the adjustment on the mignon, its too fine on the adjuster

Ernie1

To be honest with you I’ve been hovering over the buy button on a Niche for about a month straight… really seems like you can’t go wrong.

-Mac

Ernie1 As long as you dial the beans in individually and record the settings for each, the Niche has no trouble switching between them accurately.

Penance

Thats where I am at the moment, flip flopping between ‘its definitely what i need’ and ‘its probably not worth the change’.
The lack of repeatability with the Specialita does really bug me. Im sure i could recover a reasonable amount of the price for a NZ ny selling the Specilaita, tho ive not checked s/h prices yet.

Cuprajake

there a good one fit solution, saves having multiple grinders,

i had the mazzer before the niche, but i always wanted a conical, so rather than another huge mazzer i went for a niche, its stayed on the bench, its easy for the mrs to use too,

she now uses both the niche and my acs evo

Penance

Think i’d have to leave home if i kept 2 grinders!

LMSC

Penance You can sell your Mignon once you get the Niche.

JHCCoffee

Penance Think i’d have to leave home if i kept 2 grinders!

Ditto for me, especially as I have 2 setups: one here in the City and one at our family cottage. I’ve upgraded my City setup, moving from a Bartaza Sette270 + Breville Duopro… to a Eureka Mignon Specialita with Lelit Elizabeth….and then recently bought the Niche Zero and sold Mignon just as the NZ arrived; never managed a side by side comparison.

As I modded the dial on the Mignon to a larger 3D printed dial (bought on Etsy), I was able to make minute adjustments, which was great. But it’s single dose hopper was not well designed and the grinder had modest retention, which meant grinding and throwing out a couple of grams of coffee every AM and/or at every grind setting change, which wasted coffee and time. And switching from espresso to pour over or moka pot was a big pain to note and remember how many rotations of the dial, from X.x number for espresso (which changes) by Y.y turns of the dial to z.z for pour over. So if you didn’t keep very very careful notes of each change, there was a risk of not knowing how to get back to your the espresso setting that you had spent time and coffee dialing in. It really is a one type of coffee (espresso) machine. And I really didn’t use it’s programming features. Never got to cleaning the burrs after watching a scary multi step video. So I sold it.

I’m now breaking in my NZ and am overcoming some initial teething pains. No grinder is perfect (not even an NZ or even a Monolith) and I am betting that most pallets would not be able to blind test which machine made which shot), but I prefer the NZ at this point.

Will need to confirm this, as my cottage grinder (Bartazza Sette 270) needs repair, so I can look my Kurig coffee drinking wife in the eye and say…its broken so we might as well put the repair money into a NZ.

Need to figure out a rationale for moving my City Lelit E to the cottage and buying a Lelit B for the City…. Hmmm.

Penance

LMSC that’s the idea

hubcap

I ummed and ahhhed about a Niche since it appeared. I had a Specialita and found it almost impossible to adjust for different brews etc’

I could not find the definative answer as to whether the Niche would do for me.

So, as I really liked the Specialita I decided to buy another and do not regret it.

A bit of an outlay but when has that ever bothered us 😉

Penance

hubcap A second Specialita would probably make me homeless!!

tompoland

hubcap I really liked the Specialita I decided to buy another and do not regret it.

The world needs more people like you!

hubcap

Penance 😂

gordy53

I have a 1Zpresso J Max that I use for my wifes Decaff and the Specialita for my Coffee as I found it too hard to get the correct setting for the 2 Coffees with the Specialita

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee Need to figure out a rationale for moving my City Lelit E to the cottage and buying a Lelit B for the City

I don’t know how often you visit your cottage, but one advantage of the Elizabeth is that you can actually quickly box it and take it with you.

The danger of having the Bianca is that… well… the forbidden word…. Upgraditus! You might eventually realise that you need a Bianca for the cottage too! 🤣🤣🤣👍