For what it’s worth, Decent would be the least “shady” of any business I’ve dealt with. I literally can not think of a person or a business that’s been more open and transparent in my 40+ years in business.

John Buckman is on at least 4 publicly accessible forums that I know of, taking questions and answering them in an open and transparent manner. Rather than harbouring and posting about shady business practices, anyone can go ask him directly. He will offer you a rational and well thought out explanation of exactly why they do things they way they do.

In terms of steaming, the XXL model is apparently the bees knees. The others are generally regarded as ok but not stellar.

most forums is copy and paste, perhaps i dont see the interactions as much. wasnt a dig, just dont like that you have to be part of the club to join a place, esp when posts like this come up with the op asking questions, that if it were any other machine there would be a wealth of knowledge avilable,

Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

    Re Decent’s supposed predatory pricing. It’s more complicated than we think.

    I note that many Brits like to travel to or own property in the Caymans, which has no income taxes. And both the Caymans and Ireland are notorious corporate tax havens. And that many Brits, especially those who can afford to buy expensive espresso machines, use every income tax loophole they can find. Two supposed wrongs don’t make a right. But Decent’s VAT pricing is a drop in the bucket.

    And..What about the pricing of the item itself? If a machine is competively priced or put in sale, is that predatory? If Niche put their machines on sale, or charged reduced VAT, would anyone here complain?

    And what about espresso products that are made using non-union labour? Or low-wage labour? Is that predatory? Where is your favourite Niche or other machine built? (China). Btw, I’m actually a supporter of paying fair wages.

    What if a manufacturer reduces manufacturing costs and is able to pass that savings through to the consumer? Is that predatory?

    Just saying that the topic is much more complex than it seems.

      people dont half get their knickers in a twist, i for one dont care what decent do, im about £2000 away from buying a decent,

      every thread has to decend into he said she said,

      i wish i could afford a cayman island then i could fuck off over there and never have to deal with people again,

      Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

      JHCCoffee And that many Brits, especially those who can afford to buy expensive espresso machines, use every income tax loophole they can find.

      With all due respect… what an insulting statement…. Wow. Just wow.

          Cuprajake most forums is copy and paste

          Not my point.

          He’s on multiple forums multiple times every week and makes himself available and answers questions clearly when put to him. That’s my point.

          Before anyone posts about shady practices, give him the opportunity to answer those concerns. Isn’t that what we would all want if we were him? The opportunity to answer a question rather than having suspicions about our integrity posted publicly?

          In terms of knowledge about the Decent, there’s 208 pages of knowledge about the Decent on CoffeeSnobs alone, not to mention HB, Discord (massive) and YouTube (ditto).

          Seriously, if some one wants to know something about the Decent, go to one of the forums or platforms mentioned above or simply just ask John directly.

          The whole notion of information about the Decent being kept behind closed doors is simply not true. There are giant bucket loads of information available about the Decent.

          People point to Diaspora as being a closed community, and it is. But as mentioned above there are at least four forums featuring open and active threads for Decent owners and non owners. How many open forums on the Decent do people need? Hardly a secret society.

          Definitely not a dig at you Jake, but there are others that slag John and Decent from a vacuum of ignorance or perpetuate mistruths without even scratching beneath the surface of those mistruths.

              tompoland

              no worries, tbh im just getting to the stage where im jaded with the whole coffee industry and community.

              misconseption purley as out of price range, i only read about things that intrest me

              Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                Taxation aside, they have some excellent videos on youtube under the dial in decently series. It would be good to see similar from other manufacturers/vendors.

                MediumRoastSteam With all due respect… what an insulting statement…. Wow. Just wow.

                No insult meant. Canadians and Americans do the same. It’s just that you can’t complain about VAT avoidance and then also limit your income tax exposure in the same breath.

                I’m not saying people of your or my means don’t pay our fair share of taxes. But we do have accountants that know how to limit tax exposure.

                  think you have a misconception of the wealth of the uk lol

                  Data on the average annual gross salary percentiles in the United Kingdom in 2022 showed that the bottom ten percent of full-time workers earned an average of 19,403 British pounds a year, with the top ten percent of workers earning around 62,583 pounds a year

                  What is an above-average UK salary? In the UK, £50,000 could be classed as an above-average annual salary. The UK average salary for a family with both parents working is £40,000, so £50,000 would be an above-average income of 67% more

                  Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                  Yeah.

                  Not sure how it works elsewhere in the world but most employed individuals don’t even have an accountant as there’s no need if your employer is sorting your tax/NI contributions and there’s no obligation to send anything to HMRC unless you’re doing additional work that warrants a tax return.

                  Dividend tax has also been raised in recent years bringing those more closely in line with income tax.

                  What a lot of people also neglect to remember when blaming the 1% for their supposed tax avoidance is that they contribute more than a third of our nation’s entire tax bill. The top 10% contribute two thirds. Subsequently supporting public services to an enormous degree.

                  To put that into perspective, that’s over £200 billion in tax contributed by the top 1%.

                  So the few we hear about in the news for questionable tax schemes aren’t necessarily a reflection of our entire country.

                    Ernie1 that’s no way to speak about MP’s🤣🤣🤣🤪

                    Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                      Anyway back to our conversation about making great espresso using the Decent espresso machine.

                      John has a great product that has and continues to evolve through alot of R&D investment and kudos to him for these contributions. I’m looking forward to enjoying the fruits of that.

                      Thanks for everyones thoughts and ideas on the machine and its accessories.

                      The world’s your lobster with a machine like that. You can do as much or as little as you like

                      Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                      DavecUK I’ve bought a lot of software, via download, from overseas and the vendor has charged vat. It’s perfectly possibly for Decent to do so as they do for hardware.
                      Giving their customers the option to not pay given they know they are shipping to the UK feels is wrong.

                          simonc Giving their customers the option to not pay given they know they are shipping to the UK feels is wrong.

                          But…not illegal and they do state you are responsible for paying applicable local taxes.

                          Contact me

                              DavecUK I’m not sure. There is a single transaction for purchase of an espresso machine. You aren’t buying useless hardware and then entering a separate transaction for software.
                              Yes they tell you to self declare VAT but as they know they are shipping to UK and are already collecting and remitting Vat there is no good reason for them not to collect the full vat at point of sale other than saving customer on duty and allowing them to dodge vat to make their machines appear duty.

                              They are also arbitrarily deciding on a much lower value for duty (lovely round number their hardware happens to cost) which should be due on full amount and they dont tell you to self declare that.

                              Imagine of Tesla who sell direct did this where their value is also a large part from software, and where it’s partly explicitly paid for with FSD

                                Back to things Decent.

                                @tompoland @JammyDodger @Redla

                                I watched John’s video on the new Grouphead design and its pretty compelling. He has incredible espresso machine design expertise. At a deep level of detail. And he is a great (in a positive sense) salesman. I’m sold on that upgrade.

                                So, to avoid the “sloppy puck” issue referred to earlier in this post, if I swap out the brass part and wish to keep the same headspace as before, will the Sworksdesign Group Head Diffuser be sufficient or do I need the Sworksdesign Spacer Kit? What is your version and how is your Decent group head set up?

                                Thanks @tompoland and the other Decent owners here.

                                  A sloppy puck is only a pain to clean, has no relevance to the shot

                                  Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                                  A sloppy puck also becomes a dry puck if you leave it to drain for a few seconds while steaming milk.