• Grinders

  • Niche Zero - One Year in Review

LMSC It’s simply an idea at the moment in the mind of Lance and myself…in fact he might well be further ahead in his thinking than me. Who knows how it would impact light and medium light, until someone tests it. Lance is the one talking about Gorilla Burrs and I guess it will be down to people to buy them independently and fit them to the Niche if they want to. The Gorilla Burr idea is an independent one from Lance and not yet tested.

I think you are looking at the finish line and no one is in the starting blocks yet.

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    DavecUK 100%. In theory one could add an external voltage regulator to slow down the rotation but there’s the risk of a stall. I have to say the idea of a NICHE with flat burrs has its attractions.

        Grahamsphillips 100%. In theory one could add an external voltage regulator to slow down the rotation but there’s the risk of a stall. I have to say the idea of a NICHE with flat burrs has its attractions.

        Huge risk of stalling and you cannot fit/mount flat burrs inside a Niche zero, doesn’t spin fast enough either.

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          Inspector That’s quite literally the 300-pounds gorilla… and you can decide of what “pound” I’m talking about.

            There is always the discussion of clarity…I’ve often wondered if less texture is seen as greater clarity.

            I’ve often thought it would be great to all have 250g or 500g of the same coffee and do a mass tasting of pour over, espresso, Americano Done on different grinders and kit, so we know what the coffee is but no tasting notes.

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              DavecUK There is always the discussion of clarity…I’ve often wondered if less texture is seen as greater clarity.

              I would think of texture as how it feels in our mouth / on tongue? So, I would look at texture as a light bodied cup, medium or full bodied. The light body / mouthfeel is on the brighter, high acidity / astringency sides of the scale.

              MWJB summarised clarity as “too vague a term and has too many other potential confounding factors.” Notwithstanding this nice summary of what a clarity is, I like to keep it simple and call clarity as an ability to “separate (detect) the different flavours / tasting notes”, which I think is very difficult if one is pulling 1:1.5 or 1:2. Perhaps, as Rob said, may be one needs to pull an espresso at 1:2.5 to 1:3, assuming it is there in a cup to pick up.

              So, when a lot of people pull a shot at 1:1.5 or 1:2, and say the cup is muddled or there is no clarity, I always wondered how is it possible to see through the clarity / flavour in such a highly concentrated liquid? Of course, I have never had a chance to pull shots in conical and flat, say for a light roast, to understand why baristas can pick clarity in flat grinders.

              The discussions on these during the last few days suggest that body/mouthfeel, texture, flavour or clarity (if separating flavour notes is clarity), aroma, palette and after-taste all need separating.

              In summary, I don’t think texture is clarity, which, if all it all possible to delineate in espresso, rests crucially on the mercy of roasters! I also think we are too busy chasing these as rarities and not, perhaps, enjoying some very good coffee as much as we all should! 😊

                I’m not a great fan of April reviews but its interesting that broadly they are making the same points as Lance. My perspective is that the NICHE is really oriented to Espresso and while it can do pour over that’s not where it shine.

                  21 days later

                  Yeah. I saw that. It would be interesting to do a comparison with flat burrs. Tricked out DF64 vs Niche maybe? Sprometheus upgraded from a Niche to a Lagom p64 and seems happy.

                  • MWJB replied to this.

                    Grahamsphillips It would be interesting to do a comparison with flat burrs. Tricked out DF64 vs Niche maybe?

                    Why does the DF64 need to be tricked out before comparison with the Niche?

                        DavecUK Nice and short! Not surprising what a blind test could do. They thought the Key gave them clarity, while it was actually the Niche. It goes to show how opinions can change in an unbiased environment; also, muddled, clarity, etc are probably in the mind of the reviewer based on how they want to look at it!

                            (Disclaimer: I’m a satisfied Niche user)

                            I think we should see all the above videos as entertainment, and likely the tip of the iceberg of some commercial interests (from either the video producers or some equipment manufacturers). Basing purchasing decisions on a very small sample of tasting experiences from one or two people doesn’t seem that reliable an indicator for our purchasing decisions. There are many other factors potentially at play here.

                            There does seem to be a threshold below which workflow, taste and customer satisfaction is relatively poor, but it seems that it gets quite subjective above this (even some of the usual recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt, as they are hints which do not always apply - see for instance the recommendations for temperature and roast levels)