so this is basically google sky with some photosynth rendering?

congrats! its good to know the smart people are breeding!

in my experience, coffee stains silicone coated utensils pretty quickly... I wonder how that lid would hold up?

#15 - I've been a part of several bench tests of the clover and I have to say your presumptions about it and your underlying theory are off the mark.

There is PID temperature control on the brew chamber and water temp at the inlet is set to account for the differential of heat loss. The vacuum extraction is more akin to a reverse espresso than any french press and takes 1/5th the time of total immersion brewing.

Like any brewing method, there are plenty of ways to screw up even the best beans (precise dose, precise grind, proper temperature, correct agitation). In the right hands the clover delivers a cup with a depth and clarity of flavor that you'd be very hard pressed to match with other methods.

And as for visible oils - if you see oil floating at the top of your brew, you can be pretty certain its rancid.

because I was paged...

I'll echo many of my coffeenerd colleagues in lamenting that this is yet another article that focuses more on the supposedly high price tags of commercial coffee equipment than on coffee itself. Just about any specialized tool in a commercial kitchen or coffeebar is going to set you back - this shit isn't made in the tens of thousands by Sunbeam.

As others have pointed out, vac-pots aren't really very expensive and what Blue Bottle has here is a custom 5 head halogen burner whose steep ticket price probably has as much to do with the declining value of the dollar as anything else. Considering all the costs that go into opening a coffeebar, $20k is not really that obscene.

Ultimately the brew from any device is only ever as good as the coffee you begin with.

Their promo videos don't inspire and the thing looks about sexy as the label maker I bought at Target yesterday. If Amazon had gotten this product right (and the opportunity is certainly out there) this would be truly revolutionary. This seems like a hodgepodge of crippled capabilities with a pricepoint too high to establish a real market. Perhaps they're okay with failure in version 1.0 because they can afford a learning experience?

I'll wait for my Apple Tablet. As much as I lust for the unrealized potential of ePaper, I'll be perfectly content to read in bed on the bright screen of a small/light, uncrippled computer.

I'm humping my LCD. This is good shit.

80C is not hot enough for coffee. 90-95C would be more appropriate.

interesting detail - both the original panorama and the sony ad have nods to Space Invader at the opening. That should indicate that this was more than just coincidental inspiration though the bunnywave makes it pretty clear.

I for one welcome our new gel-haired iptv overlords. please have an episode in the future with Joel Johnson disemboweling a lobster.