The Clover Coffee Machine

An $11,000 coffeemaker that brews one cup at a time! There are only about 200 Clovers in existance so far, but their popularity is taking off at coffeehouses around the US.
Designed by three Stanford graduates, it lets the user program every feature of the brewing process, including temperature, water dose and extraction time. (It even has an Ethernet connection that can feed a complete record of its configurations to a Web database.) Not only is each cup brewed to order, but the way each cup is brewed can be tailored to a particular bean — light or dark roast, acidic or sweet, and so on.

The Clover works something like an inverted French press: coffee grounds go into a brew chamber, hot water shoots in and a powerful piston slowly lifts and plunges a filter, forcing the coffee out through a nozzle in the front. The final step, when a cake of spent grounds rises majestically to the top, is so titillating to coffee fanatics that one of them posted a clip of it on YouTube.

If that’s not enough, the first $20,000 siphon coffeemaker was recently imported from Japan for the Blue Bottle Café in San Francisco. Read about both these new brewing methods in this article from the New York Times. Link -via Geek Like Me

(image credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

some people just have too much money. how about using that $20k for something that betters society? i don't even want to know what people are paying per cup, it'll just make me angry.
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My local java fave, Stauf's Coffee Roasters here in Columbus, Ohio has had one for about a year now. My wife works there, and has pulled a couple of Clovers for me in the past. The coffee was good, but the cup sells for about double what a normal cup sells for at the counter. My wife tells me that many people prefer the clover cuppas, and sell 6-9 cups sold each day. Given that a two group La Marzocco espresso machine sells for under $20k, the $11k price seems somewhat high, but then ALL the high end professional coffee gear is pricey, whether in this country or in the Land of Extreme Coffee, Italy.

Sorry if I made you blow the final gasket, SW!
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@sw:
Hmm, my favorite coffee shop in Los Angeles (Intelligentsia) has only Clover-brewed coffee. I'm not sure if it's that Intelligentsia isn't Starbucks or that the beans were freshly roasted and fresh in general or something, but I like it a fair bit (although I don't order coffee most of the time, more of the other drinks..tea, espresso, whatever). While the final price depends on the coffee of your choice, I think it's around $2-3 for like a medium sized cup. I was there today morning and I remember seeing a sign for two different coffees that were priced at $2 and $2.50.

However, I don't really disagree about how the money could be better spent..I think the coffee I make at home with my cheapo grinder and french press (prolly $150 at most) with the same Intelligentsia beans taste just as good. Maybe it's the coffee itself and not how it's made. *whistles*
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I'm a big coffee fanatic, and there's huge differences between different beans, makes and roasts of coffee - I can taste most of them too, and I love it that coffee gets some cultural appreciation.

But ... I just looked at YouTube for one of those aforementioned videos of Clover coffee. The process is lovely, the coffee looks delicious. But then they poured the brew into an ol' plastic cup. A PLASTIC CUP! For heaven's sake, is there any better way to ruin even the most average coffee than using a frickin' plastic cup for it??

Heretics!
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Yeah, if you're going to ENJOY a cup of coffee, sit down and use a proper ceramic cup. If you need a fast cup on the go to wake you up, don't pay premium prices.

I really don't have a problem with professionals paying outrageous amounts for equipment. It's an investment, and other restaurant cooking gear can cost as much. To compete for the many customers these machines will serve, you have to have an edge. If someone paid that much for a personal brewing system, I would think they are nuts.
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I am trying to compile a comprehensive list of locations that have Clover machine in place and collect as many recipes as possible. All the data is for public use, just to keep the Clover community going. I started with locations and have quite a few now. Would be great if someone could share recipes as well at http://www.beclover.com
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