I've just finished watching the latest Brian Quan video where he spends time with the owner of kafatek. I found these videos fascinating yet a little frustrating and I'm not sure whether if it's just me or not. Whilst I can't knock Brian for his passion or enthusiasm I feel like these kafatek videos have slightly missed the mark from a technical standpoint. I'm not an engineer, nor do I have an engineering background so I might be way off but it irritated me slightly that Brian doesn't have this background or that way of thinking either so he kind of comes across as a bit of a fan boy in my opinion . I would have loved to have seen Brian take someone with him with an actual engineering background who would have been able to allow Dennis to flow into full "geek mode" to pardon the phrase. An example I can give is with the lelit Elizabeth review and videos done by Dave. Nowhere else have I seen a review to that technical standard by anyone else in the coffee community that I've come across. So much so that I've been researching my first proper espresso machine purchase as an Xmas present to myself and I'm 99% sure now that I'm going to go with the Elizabeth because of Dave. So many reviews and videos that I've come across are all the same and pretty uninteresting but I learnt a ton from Dave's reviews and write ups. I also found it a little amusing that Dave's review was the only one to highlight how setting a timer for a shot to run is a little pointless but it's a good feature if you use it as a failsafe incase something happens as you start to pull a shot and you are not there to stop it. As I said previously, I might be way off with my take here and I'm not trying to cause controversy but I'm interested to know what you guys think and whether any of you feel certain lines of questioning was missed or not fully explored in the videos?

> @"EddieMoonshine"#p71436 As I said previously, I might be way off with my take here and I’m not trying to cause controversy but I’m interested to know what you guys think and whether any of you feel certain lines of questioning was missed or not fully explored in the videos? I didn't listen to the interviewer….I tried to listen to everything Denis said and watch the video and background stuff very carefully. Clearly Brian knows very little and understands less about engineering, so adds no value.

@"DavecUK"#p71439 We need a "Dave meets Denis" podcast special.

> @"EddieMoonshine"#p71440 We need a “Dave meets Denis” podcast special. That, I would enjoy doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2tIZ_xBnKw&t=30s Prepare to be triggered more oh rescuers of humanity….

@"Raja123"#p71464 I hope Denis had some decent tunes playin' through his air pods 😂

Sure Brian quan is something to do with fellow, and also has a part in a coffee roasting business..

@"Cuprajake"#p71469 Works for X Bloom too?

Well none of them are doing it out of the goodness of their heart.

Fair play to Brian and I really don't want to start a pile on because he's obviously very passionate about coffee and is doing well for himself. It's just that the series of Kafatek videos seem to me to be a massive missed opportunity.

It takes Brian's level of passion to arrange or push for a visit. People commenting negatively often don't have the drive to do these things. We shouldn't beat up on him for not doing "what I'd do if it were me".

Brian Quan's Kafatek video series

Systemic

Until you mentioned them, I’d never heard of the Ubergrinder.

Petre

I like the idea of not having old grounds stuck in screw holes and released at random time.

dfk41

Petre Once compacted they are very unlikely to release…..even if they did, the minute amounts we are talking about, could you taste them?

Systemic

I can
Giphy - Jim Carrey Coffee GIF by Sonic The Hedgehog

chlorox

I suspect that whatever changes to taste that blind burrs will add, it will be imperceptible to human taste buds. That seems to be the consensus as far as the results that 102mm mizen blind burrs have produced vs 98mm mizen burrs so far anyway.

Anyway whatever the explanations of why they are so good etc., grinders like the kafatek are just beyond my budget for them and may as well be unobtanium. In this regard I am just glad I managed to find a used 98mm grinder at a good price and will have to stop my titan grinder ambitions at that stage!

JonWoo187

chlorox No doubt as people with the flat burr chasing is a bit much. If they put put more effort into sourcing different coffees, roast development they’d pick up FAR more change in taste/texture than what any burr set might have to offer. I find conicals to be more rewarding as they are blind in design for those seeking the unobtanium, bwahaha, as I find flats to be simply boring. The placebo has a strong effect for those willing to spend thousands on a grinder and a ridiculous amount for different burr sets.

mykm

Systemic I’m a little late to this discussion but if you have watched how the Monolith grinders have evolved, most of the newly added features have been customer or community driven. Blind burrs are on most people’s checklist of must have features when shopping for a new grinder. It’s a box ticking exercise. There’s little to no conclusive taste benefits reported of any blind burr but if you don’t listen to what customers are wanting and make the effort to give them what they want then you’re narrowing you’re audience in an already narrow niche of the market. I can appreciate a manufacturer who steers their products based off changing trends and is not rigid in thinking it’s not required especially at the expense of what it takes to implement those changes just to make people happier with the purchase. These videos really showed off the difference in my opinion of what a small business invests in competing with large more mass production companies. I have a Monolith MC5 and was happy to see where and how it was made.

dfk41

JonWoo187 What you seem to forget, is that the vast majority of stuff on forums and this forum, is opinion. The thing about opinions is, we can all have one and we can all be right. You cannot dismiss your opinion on flat versus conical in the generic way that you have. Personally, I also prefer the profile a good conical grinder gives you. My Niche Zero uses Mazzer Kony burrs and I think their reputation is unquestioned now. I also have a Solo T64 grinder that came with SSP burrs. I get some good results without spoonfulls of placebo but I still prefer the conical taste. Can I conclude anything from that or maybe the question ought to be, can you ?

chlorox

JonWoo187
It’s the opposite for me - I find conicals boring compared to flat burrs. When I shifted from 68mm compak k10 conical to ssp mp and ssp cast LS burrs in df64 grinders with light roast beans, it was a. Sea change with flavour nuances I couldn’t taste in the former popping out for the first time. My k10 has been sitting virtually unused for all the time I have had the df64. And now that I have the p100, the df64 next to it is unused !
As dfk41 said however, one man’s taste is another man’s poison. So you may love conicals but someone else may like flats and it’s All good as the world is big enough for both types of coffee enthusiasts.

Adrianmsmith

JonWoo187

You miss the point again!

This is a hobby, to me at least.

I love the design and engineering ot certain products as much as drinking the coffee!

I just recently purchased kafatek flat max 2

Because the coffee it will produce is 5 x better than the niche Duo, every shot. NO

Because it will be 3 x better than the Mazzer Philos then. NO

Ok, must be because its twice as good as the Weber Key. Also, NO.

So as i have all the above it seems like a total waste if money!

Some of us purchase certain equipment to evaluate and enjoy its design .

How much of the price of a Kafatek is profit, labor, machining costs and design plus contribution to the ongoing “project”. I can’t put a figure on it, but id say, quite a lot.

Is that a hidden fact or did someone think the motor was worth 2k alone as its made in japan?! Doubt it.

Does it make better coffee than my Key or HG-1 prime ….

On a tuesday and saturday, yes depending what meal i had the night befor!!

It boils down to what Better actually is.

So far im thinking it will be a long term purchase. Love the design and over the top engineering but that is one reason i purchased it.

Did i expect the coffee to taste totally different to any of my other grinders. Obviously not.

Does the coffee taste different to the Key. Yes it definately does. But which i actually prefer depends what day and mood etc

Might even try to purchase a mr Puff, cap and wdt tool just to make it complete and to see if its better than the piece of crap Craig decided to sell with it. Should have looked in the box that “has all the original accessories in it”. Should have remembered that phrase, trust noone!

Im not sure how popular these are on here.

I am sure anyone they appeal to will enjoy tham for what they are.

Would i say “ to get great coffee you need to ditch your philos, key, zero etc and buy one if these or you will never taste great coffee” . Most definately not.

Has anyone regretted purchasing.

@Systemic

Should i sell it and get the blind burr 2025 model 🤪

🤞🏼 Hoping for an answer along the lines of, the blind burrs are great but possibly not worth actually upgrading to (please!).

JonWoo187

dfk41 Not forgetting anything as IMBHO pretty much everything in life IS subjective. Some tend to go on and on about things being objective as in claimed ‘scientifically supported fact’ and I call B.S. on that as well.
Point I gladly make is if people put as much thought into the coffees they choose to use they can tailor that to find what they want batch-to-batch instead of spending a buttload of money on burr/grinder swaps. It’s mind blowing how green selection/roast development plays by far the largest part in the equation that equipment chasing will never touch.

dfk41

chlorox The K10 was the finest grinder I have ever had, if you could swallow the retention issue. I often consider buying one again, but am I being nostalgic? I then had the E10 and taste wise, it was not in the same field

Systemic

Flat vs conical is a bit like arguing which end of the egg is best to open.

JonWoo187

Systemic Agree, same applies to brand performance/quality. Like the constant mention from some on forums that La Marzocrappo is the ultimate all others should be compared to, when I found them to be barely tolerable in a commercial use setting.

Adrianmsmith

Systemic

Theres only one answer to that. The pointy end 🤪

Systemic

JonWoo187 It’s mind blowing how green selection/roast development plays by far the largest part in the equation

Over the last few years, there have been major strides in this area. Take naturals for example - SCAA used to regard natural processing as flawed with taint. Modern processing methods have tamed the heavy boozy fermented notes making natural processing, for me, far more enjoyable.

JonWoo187

Systemic I’ve never had any real respect for the SCAA and their retarded ‘standards’… For many yrs I’ve strongly preferred naturals over any other process method for that extreme ‘funkiness’ that just can’t be matched for my taste/texture preference.

Systemic

Years back, I had the opportunity to test out a GS3 manual. Trying to control the pressure with the manual paddle was impossible let alone replicable. I put some of my failure down to my not having any prior experience but discounted this watching the GS3’s owner have little more success than me. My conclusion - what was the point of the machine having a manual pressure profiling paddle if it didn’t work?

chlorox

dfk41
The HB forum proclaimed the k10 as one of the so called titan grinders at the time so I bought two units for home and the office, and they served me well for more than 10 years. Apart from getting jammed with beans a few times and stalling as a result, it served me well and for the dark roasts i used exclusively at the time, they were great. I only found them lacking for flavour note differentiation and separation when I started gravitating more and more to lighter and lighter roasts.

dfk41

chlorox If your office is less than 10 miles from NE23 I will buy one from you…….LOL

chlorox

dfk41
Well out of range LOL

dfk41

chlorox Phew!

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