Technology has long been used to improve human efficiencies and make life just that little more convenient. The Niche Zero and Niche Duo grinders are perfect examples of high-end engineering and technology used to make the hard task of hand grinding beans into effortless consistency.
When it comes to brewing espresso, therefore, why not lean all in on the technology? After all, a significant part of coffee making is science, and accurate measuring and machines are great at that. Why not have a machine that does everything for us, grinding the beans, brewing the coffee, and pouring a perfect cup? An all-in-one bean-to-cup machine!
Of course, these exist and offer convenient coffee to home drinkers everywhere, but does putting everything into one machine really produce a worthwhile coffee, or is it a case of trying to do too much and losing in the process?
What a bean-to-cup machine means
There are two types of ‘bean-to-cup’ machine. The first is an all-in-one machine that aims for total convenience, controlling the whole workflow from pouring in the beans to a poured espresso-based drink. The second is better thought of as an espresso machine with a built-in grinder – the grinder fills a portafilter, but it’s left to you to tamp and pour.
We love coffee here at Niche, but we’ve never been snobs about it, and we’re not about to start. Can you get a decent coffee out of a bean-to-cup machine? Absolutely! It would be churlish to say otherwise.
The issue for many of us though, is that we don’t want to be held back with ‘good enough’. We want a great coffee, a stupendous coffee, a coffee that jumps out at us and dances like a party of enthusiastic revellers on our tongue – and we’re not going to get that from a fully automated machine.
What we are promised is:
- Convenience - Press a button, get espresso…
- Consistency - Automatically prepared coffee that follows an identical method every time.
- Competence - With significant research and development put into quality bean-to-cup machines, everything has been done to make the final brew as good as possible.
In exchange, we sacrifice something far more important – control.
And do we really get everything that’s promised?
Why control offers greater coffee heights
That perfect cup of coffee doesn’t exist. Oh, we can all strive for it, and sometimes we can even claim we’ve attained it, but coffee is as much art as science, and for all the clever calculations, it comes down to a matter of taste. What’s good for one person might not be the best for another and, even more than that, what’s right for you on one day might not be hitting the spot on another.
While we all have our preferences, the truth is that we enjoy the differences that come from exploring the variety of coffee – that's why one day Ethiopian may be more sumptuous than Colombian, or on another a rich chocolate blend may entice more than a light floral roast. It’s also the reason that one morning you might want an untouched espresso and later a silky latte.
For the home coffee brewer, tweaking and adjusting every aspect of your coffee-making experience is a core part to meeting shifting tastes as well as working towards that elusive perfection – and the more control you take away, the further away that moment becomes.
A machine with a built-in grinder will have predetermined grind settings, so you have very limited control over your grind size. If your bean demands a certain grind size and its somewhere in the middle of two settings (say 15-16), then you miss out. They also have very high retention (up to 2g), so you will never get the same weight of grind out as the weight of beans you put in. No matter what way you look at it, control is vital for a good cup of coffee.
Where the promises fall short
The promise of convenience is broken when a key manual step forms part of the process. Many machines presented as bean-to-cup involve a manual prep stage once grinding is done, while complex grind paths and unwieldy hoppers often make changing beans frustrating.
The promise of consistency is unfulfilled when the integrated grinder fails to ensure a uniform grind and suffers from retention.
The promise of competence is undermined when the quality of the components doesn’t meet the standards created by separate setups, when the lack of control reduces the ability to make adjustments, and when attention to manufacturing details ignores the effort to clean and maintain the machine.
Grinding – the variable that matters most
To improve on the most important part of the process, look to the grinder.
The grinder component of a bean-to-cup machine is where you’re most likely experiencing a drop off. It’s also where the Niche Zero or Niche Duo shines. A single-dose dedicated grinder offers:
Fresher coffee
The freshness of your coffee is an essential part in maximising the flavour of your final cup. Coffee is fragile, and once exposed to the air, it will quickly stale and lose the delicate tastes and aromas – beans left in a hopper are losing that essential freshness by the minute.
Then, we grind coffee to enable it to react to water and give up its essential components to the drink, but the process also increases its vulnerability – the very act that makes the coffee better at producing a delicious brew makes it more susceptible to the ravages of the air.
Keeping the coffee beans in an air-tight container is vital to minimise air exposure, and grinding a single dose makes sure that it remains as fresh as possible for as long as can be.
A Niche grinder is designed to meet this very specific need, grinding exactly what you need at the point of making the coffee - the weight of beans you put in is the weight of grind you get out. Bean-to-cup integrated grinders simply do not meet this level of precision, with beans exposed for longer and an excess of grinds a near-inevitable part of the process.
Virtually zero retention
Those excess grinds do more damage than might be supposed. As they cling to the grinder’s burrs and components between brews, they are subjected to hours – even days – of exposure to the air. In a busy kitchen, this can mean absorbing the flavours of burning toast, frying onions, or even the floral scents of washing clothes. The grinds then taint the coffee on its next brew, the old, stale grinds mingling with fresh particles, resulting in muddy, distasteful coffee that’s far from its expected brightness.
The Niche Zero and Niche Duo grinders are virtually zero-retention, which means there are no leftover grounds threatening your next cup. Time after time, your coffee is produced pure.
Unparalleled precision
Perfecting your coffee is a process of iteration with trust in consistency. When it comes to grinding, dialling in your finest cup requires step-less precision and assurance that when you return, your results are repeatable.
A Niche grinder provides a level of precision for grinds both fine and coarse that can be minutely adjusted until you find the very best level to suit your brewing process.
A wider range of brewing methods
The variety of espresso-based coffees is not meagre, and there are plenty of variations on these core drinks to enjoy, but it represents just one of several brewing methods. Other options, such as pour-over or French press, can offer a different style of drink, bringing out the delicate essence of lighter roasts or exploring a clarity of taste that can sometimes be subdued. The integrated grinder of a bean-to-cup machine is set as part of a single brew chain that lacks the versatility needed to explore other options.
The Niche Zero can move from the fineness of an espresso grind to a coarse filter setting with ease, while the Niche Duo is available with dedicated filter burrs for a precision experience that’s difficult to beat. Learn more about choosing which Niche grinder might be right for you here.
The control you crave
A dedicated grinder puts you back in charge of coffee care, dose size, grind levels, and consistency. A separate grinder and espresso machine setup removes unnecessary automation and replaces it with hands-on experience.
Enjoying the experience
There may be a place for an all-in-one bean-to-cup espresso machine for hurried coffee drinkers in today’s fast-paced life, but for those of us who see coffee brewing as a relaxing pleasure and not a chore that needs to be overcome, there’s no quick replacement for doing it properly.
At Niche, we offer a world-renowned grinding experience that helps make sure there’s no ceiling on how incredible you can make your coffee. Take a look at the Niche Zero and Niche Duo grinders today and take control of this most important step in the brewing process.
