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.
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)
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)
Comments (13)
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.
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!
have a look at some of the other improv everywhere stuff, they make it their mission to cheer people up and add a little extra enjoyment to their lives.
they once came all the way to my town in the UK for a stunt. and i didn't find out until later, and apparently barely anyone turned up to help, compared the the hundreds that have joined in in the past over in the US.
However, I do have to condone anything that makes so many people smile.
Case in point: my husband and Zach were in DC during "Capitol Pride" weekend. They were waiting for a metro train, and when it stopped, Zach started high-fiving people as they came off the train, and others as they got on. Soon it became a party, with a large group of lesbians cheering everyone who got a high five.
My husband said it was very cool. :-)
It's not like the "germs" bore through your skin and release their toxins into your blood stream! :D
I set up this facebook group last year and we have almost 400 members! It's spreading the word of Escalator High Fiving! It's the future!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=30531925216
or just search Escalator High Fiving in groups.
Please have a look if you're that way inclined!
Cheers
Rich
As far as people having less germs on their butts or genitalia, I imagine neither alternative would have gone over quite as well as just using his hands.