Decent Espresso–with the promise of manufacturing a machine under $1000–will unveil their new espresso machines on a coast-to-coast tour.
At this point, you’ve probably heard of Decent Espresso, the company that was built out of the remains of the failed ZPM Kickstarter, promising investors that they would get a café quality machine for $400. We covered the resurgence of the company, under a new name and new ownership, and now the team at Decent Espresso is ready to unveil their two models, the DE1 and DE1+, for a coast-to-coast tour of the United States, starring the highly anticipated machines and led by company owner, entrepreneur, and coffee enthusiast John Buckman.
The promise of Decent Espresso was to produce a high-grade home espresso machine for less than a thousand dollars, and the DE1 model provides just that. œThe DE1 aims to give LM Strada EP level coffee, features pressure profiling, accurate water temperature via our water mixing technology, automatic pre-infusion end detection, includes a tablet (and is tablet-driven), shares John, who has released a series of videos and tutorials to explain what all these technological advances mean. And for even most seasoned coffee professionals, the technological jumps that the DE1 has made to the science of espresso are pretty innovative. What does water mixing technology mean, for example? Basically, it means removing the boiler which œallows us to lower the price quite significantly, and using two temperatures of water ”one slightly too hot and one slightly too cool ”to obtain the perfect temperature for espresso.
While Decent Espresso does fulfill their promise of a reasonably-priced machine, John and his team also created the DE1+ to offer more tools and technology to home brewers. œOn the DE1+ we have the added feature of temperature profiling, which can be set manually (change the water temperature at different stages of the shot) or can be set to automatically adjust the water temperature to obtain a desired set temperature in the basket itself. The DE1+ has a high-speed temperature sensor in the diffuser above the basket to enable this.
Temperature stability dictates a lot of the innovations that Decent Espresso hopes to pioneer. While some of the above features might seem confusing, they contribute to the overall ability to predict and control the temperature of water, which is surprisingly hard to do. œTo achieve temperature stability on the DE1 and DE1+, we (a) electrically preheat the group head to the set point (b) preheat the water tank to 50 ºC at power-up, so that we have less heat to add when your espresso is made (c) just before the shot starts we circulate water through the entire system, just behind the group head, and don’t start the shot until the entire system is stabilized in temperature.
Along with the temperature stability innovations, there are a number of other features that the DE1 boasts, primarily a large tablet that œbasically operates like one big button. You can use the tablet, which is positioned on top of the machine, to start and stop shots, and to engage the steamwand ”there are no knobs or paddles to work with (although a much more advanced model, the DE1PRO, does have a paddle for real time pressure profiling). On the DE1+, the tablet software is more developed to allow users to manipulate more features and create custom brew methods. Both models look identical and are made mostly of ceramic and metal, which makes them easy to clean, and look like most kitchentop appliances you might have in your home.
If you’re confused or if you think all these things are too good to be true, you can test a machine for yourself. John and his team plan to travel up and down each coast, demo-ing both models and letting baristas and home brewers alike test the features on each. The west coast tour is planned from November 6-26, and will kick off in the Bay Area, with stops in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and Sacramento. The east coast tour kicks off shortly thereafter from November 27-December 4, with stops in Montreal, New York, and Boston. John and his team have also made videos demonstrating all the features of each machine, and have generally been incredibly transparent throughout the research and development process, producing a number of videos throughout. For updates on their tour check out their facebook page or keep up at decentespresso.com.
Your skepticism is absolutely appropriate for any new company and product, and especially so for one saying they innovate as much as we do.
That’s why we’re showing up at cafes along the west coast, over the next 3 weeks, so that people can see, touch, try, taste, and decide for themselves.
– John from Decent Espresso
is it as good as the claims. i’m (still) intrigued, but as a past kickstarter backer, i’d like to see some evidence of the reality back up the marketing claim before investing in this.
So .. have you tried it? Does it live up to the bold claims it makes. As a past kickstarter backer, i’m intrigued but reticent of someone preselling their machine without UL certification (given this was a big part of their failed kickstarter story)