Hardware
Über Boiler
Slow coffee All-in-one
100% Von Coffee
‘Über Boiler': you can't help but think of the clothing brand ‘Von Dutch', a fad among logo-hugging adolescents with baseball caps. Other than the combination of English and German in their brand names, there seem to be few similarities between the brands and their target markets. I can't quite picture the intellectual father of the Über Boiler- James Hoffman - walking around sporting a ‘Von Dutch' cap. Hoffman is definitely 100% ‘Von Coffee'.
James works for the famous coffee roasters Square Mile Coffee in London and was even a winner at the WBC championships in 2007. He is the coffee-nerd incarnate, looking for answers to questions no one ever bothered asking. In this vein he propagates espresso without crema, because crema doesn't taste good, and went on the hunt for a coffee machine that simply didn't exist. Wouldn't it be practical if you could control water temperature, coffee/ water ratio and timing completely, when brewing slow coffee?
At that particular moment in time, each brewing amounted to clumsy juggling with scales, boiler, thermometer and stopwatch. On top of this, it was practically impossible to tap water at exactly the desired temperature. An appliance that could offer an all-in solution however, did not exist. In 2009, James sat around the table with Paul Stack from Marco, a Dublin-based renowned producer of hot-water appliances for brewing coffee and tea. James shared his ideas with Stack and people in Marco's R&D department. He then got to work and came up with a prototype for the Über Boiler a few months later. Watch this video-cast to get a taste of the enthusiasm of that moment:
Technology is a big part of the Über Boiler, as the appliance was designed to meet high demands regarding the exact regulation of temperature and specifically, exact reproducibility.
The system looks like a designer beer tap, with a set of scales built into the drain tray. The whole device is smoothly integrated into a work surface. The ‘drain surface’ contains a display (the ‘barista interface’) and four control buttons. The quantity of coffee and water to be used is measured in grams by the integrated electronic scales. Weighing is after all more precise than measuring by sight. Spilling poses no problem, as drainage is in place.
How it works
· Place a Chemex underneath the dispense nozzle.
· Tare the scales via the designated button to 0 g.
· Measure the exact amount of coffee by reading the weight off the display.
· Tare the scales one more time.
· Open the tap and pour the exact amount of water at exactly the right temperature onto the coffee. Use a timer to measure extraction time. Programming the desired settings is simple. The values are easily read off the display.
The Netherlands
In the Netherlands, the importer of the Über Boiler Espresso Service West, sought collaboration with renowned entrepreneurs, interested in piloting the Über Boiler as part of their slow coffee concept. Rick Woertman (De Espressofabriek, Amsterdam) and Karel Rietveld (Hopper, Rotterdam) have accumulated a lot of experience, using the Über Boiler.
Watch impressions of the Espressofabriek, Amsterdam on this video.
For purchasing details, contact Espresso Service West: +31 (0)70 362 48 72