Congrats! The design looks nice, but I'm not very fond of the website design. There isn't a single picture of Trefolo that doesn't crop-out some part of it. Also, every picture is in a "sterile" environment. It would be nice to have a picture of it on a real kitchen counter or coffee corner to put its dimensions into perspective, and also demonstrate how it "fades back into the environment".
Also, IMHO, the sustainability pitch is a nice one but needs to be put down in more precise terms. It is good as it is for people who would otherwise buy a Nespresso machine, but anyone who has bought something above that level would need more convincing.
Overall, a good espresso machine already scores pretty high sustainability-wise. Apart from the used of sustainable/premium materials, a key factor to that is the replacement parts and repairability. So, how does Trefolo do in terms of replacement parts and compatibility with 3rd party parts?
For me, the future lack of replacement parts is especially concerning for the Turbina coffee grinder. The use of bespoke grinding burrs adds a wow factor and may be functionally superior to other types of burrs. But this is the one part in the whole setup that is guaranteed to need replacement down the road. What are the provisions for that? How much would it cost? And if you decide to stop selling it, would you e.g. be willing to commit to releasing the burr design so owners or some independent manufacturer can machine replacements?
Thank you so much! I appreciate the advice about the potentially over stylized product pages. If you go to the store here, you can see many full profile views of the products:
- It's going to ship with a full spare parts catalogue available
- Full prusa-esque upgrade paths will be made available for existing customers
- Every single part on either product can be changed off with the removal of 1-5 screws.
- The switches, cords, buttons, and (gear)motors are all standard sizes.
- and I absolutely commit to open sourcing everything if a day came where the project could not continue (I have done this for previous projects, it isn't an empty promise)
You make a good point about the burrs being a non-standard size. The thing to remember is every size of burr was once a non standard size. One of the most important parts of being a good engineer is only making something new when you can truly add value, and I think the burrs are valuable enough to have them be probably the only non-standard wear item in either machine.
Just to chip in with the drive-by website feedback, I just realized that (I love everything about this and) I have no idea how big either the espresso machine or the grinder is. I think I'd really need some realistic (ish) kitchen photos with it in action to really appreciate what I'd be ordering.
Appreciated that you took the time to address my points. Glad to see that it's probably the website design that doesn't do justice to the product.
IMHO, you should be putting these details in the spotlight. As a new brand in the espresso world, this would help convince customers go with you instead of a tried-and-trusted brand with decades of history on their back. Also, if there is a hackable PID controller or if there are plans to add one, this would also be a selling point for many (see the renewed popularity of the relatively humble Gaggia Classic).
For the burrs, maybe running a lab test of Turbina against a traditional grinder of the same class would help make a solid argument for the new design. E.g. start grinding 2 kilo batches on each grinder and then take a sample and lab-test it for consistency. Continue until the ground coffee becomes inconsistent on both. Yes, this may turn out to be pricey. And maybe there are established test procedures that I'm not aware of (not a coffee pro - just pulled this out of my engineering bottom).
As a final comment, for the wooden parts of Trefolo, maybe a darker or even black varnish would look more premium/classy. The pale wood color is vaguely reminiscent of IKEA furniture, something you probably want to avoid.
Exactly this! It immediately turned me off from the product when I realised there isn’t a single practical image of it. It’s impossible to visualise how it would actually look on the counter.
Agreed. And please -- show a video of it working, start to finish! This is clearly a product designed to be a sensory experience, so let me see and hear this on a kitchen counter pulling a shot or two.
I would also like to see a user’s manual and a diagram of how it’s plumbed. Where does the hot water come from? Does the user supply their own kettle? Where does excess water go when pressure is released? How does the preheating cycle work?
Yep, you bring the hot water, the machine does everything else! There is a pressure seal directly in the group head that holds the water in at the end of a shot. You can preheat just by pumping water into a cup for a couple seconds, which is around the same as a purge cycle on a traditional espresso machine. The fluid path is kept as small and as insulated as possible to avoid thermal losses or unnecessary water being held in the machine.
I added a pre-release version of the manual to the warranty page! Please excuse any minor errors.
Hang on...you are running a plastic tube to a kettle on your stovetop?? There is zero chance that the water getting to the device is anywhere near the right temperature after going through a length of plastic tubing. As you know, temperature, pressure and grind are the three ingredients that make good espresso. This throws temperature control out the window and would make the temperature wildly swing depending upon the speed and volume of the extraction. Warm up time is crazy too, as you have to boil a pot of water. Most machines take around 30-40 seconds, but Breville has really perfected this and their new machines come up to temp in a miraculous 3 seconds.
Besides that, anyone who has used an espresso machine knows that there's quite a bit of resistance when locking in a portafilter so that it seals properly. This thing looks like it would move off your countertop before the portafilter would lock in. Do you have to hold the legs with one hand while you lock the portafilter or something?
This is the main issue with those hand pull machines that don't have a boiler. It's so so fussy getting the temperature right, you have to warm everything up first then it's a race against time and even then you never really controlled the temps.
Sorry I can't look at your product page from work, but am I getting the correct impression that this machine doesn't have a boiler? If so, my (meant in good fun) suggestion is that you have in fact designed half an espresso machine :)
With all due respect, you have to figure this out since not many people are going to pay $700 for half of what a $100 device can do. Honest advice not a critique. It must be hard not to read the negativity from some comments but this is already a great job that you had done! You just need to continue building on it IMHO.
Yeah but having the water hit the grounds at the right temperature is what separates a great machine from an average machine. Yours doesn't do that. Congratz on everything you've done so far but I am your target customer and won't consider a machine that doesn't also manage the water temperature.
Externally supplied hot water through a plastic tube makes this a non-starter for me. You use almost no plastic (wonderful!), but the little there is has a lot of surface area touching hot water.
Have you thought about making a water heater accessory? I'd be open to collaborating - contact[at]otekengineer.com
That grinder is a thing of beauty. I was going to impulsively splurge until I saw the price (not complaining, you're doing the right thing by launching at a high price point).
> There is a pressure seal directly in the group head that holds the water in at the end of a shot.
Like a check valve? Does that mean that some (clean) water is trapped between the pump's output and the seal at the end of the shot? If so, this doesn't seem so terrible.
One thing I've often found odd about espresso machines is that they all seem to have some mechanism to depressurize the basket when a shot ends, and that this mechanism lets water that may have been in contact with the grounds go through some portion of the machine. What's the point? The pressure will naturally dissipate quite quickly through the grounds unless like kind of pressure-retaining basket is in use.
Basically it removes excess water from the filter, creating less soggy pucks. Easier to clean. I imagine the rapid depressurisation "upwards" may cause the puck to move a bit upwards, again, making it easier to remove.
I'd also like to add that everything I click seems to open a new tab/window. Can't I just view the coffee devices and store all in a single tab? Details? New window. Shop? New window! Back to the details? New window. Contact? New window!! I don't like having all these extra tabs to close without a good reason for it.
Because the problem is that it is not the "full body" of the coffee maker. Those pipes go somewhere. At least in the sense of how people usually think of an espresso machine the machine also contains the pump and the boiler. This apparently doesn't have those parts? Or if it has they are not good looking and minimalist enough to show.
We are discussing the photos as if those are the problem, but I think the issue people are having is with the product design. If I make a picture of a laptop on a charger people don't ask where do the cable go, because they know it goes into a charger connected to the wall. But with this people have to imagine a standalone boiler/pump setup just waiting to be connected into this coffee extractor thingy which is not a thing most people have (or expect to one day have ) in their kitchen.
Surely that image is a computer rendering and not an actual photo though! I want to see an _actual_ photo. Like on a counter. How big is it? Wires? Power brick? Cool concept, but hard to make a decision with so little information.
> Cool concept, but hard to make a decision with so little information.
It sounds like it is not hard to make the decision. I made my decision and it is a no. This is a cool thing for people who want to try the latest concepts but don't worry about it being an already polished and integrated whole product.
It is how some people kit build their Rutan Long-EZ to fly with, and some people just buy tickets from an airline. They are both flying but they are not the same class of thing. This is more towards the kit built airplane end of the scale for me than what I would be comfortable with.
> It sounds like it is not hard to make the decision. I made my decision and it is a no. This is a cool thing for people who want to try the latest concepts but don't worry about it being an already polished and integrated whole product.
I got to push back on this and align with the dozens of other comments being critical of the website. If I had the physical and budgetary space for it, I'd already be salivating at this point and wanting to hear more, polished or not.
But, the website is utterly lacking in conveyance of practical use and just dressed up in marketing design. While there is a disclaimer that the (device) design may undergo further revision, it's orthogonal to the fact that this completely kills any chance of an immediate, impulse buy (again, if I had the space). I would at this point be asking other buyers to post videos of it in use long after units have already been sold into the wild.
I do take my coffee somewhat seriously, with the consumption of fresh microroasted beans and a few prized pieces of brew equipment.
Want to try turning my comment more constructive (though my frustations with what passes for customer service/relations these days will bleed through)
I see that the OP has already stated they will upload some videos. That would be great; many angles, both in use and not in use, both overview and zoomed in on components.
I am not most people, but I would prefer the kind of videos without excessive (though not to say "devoid of") pre-/post-processing, editing, green-screening, video cuts every three seconds, and all that shebang. Even your teenaged child or friend/significant other conscripted for twenty minutes to hold the phone with a steady hand while you show things off, minimally rehearsed and to-the-point... would be _fantastic_.
Don't even need to publish it on the official website if you deem it too tacky; but it will be infinitely more valuable to have on the ready than no demonstration at all if people are reaching out to you through channels like HN or even any address listed on the website. IMO.
The only way this type of thing takes off today is if it gets reviews. I am sure he will send out test devices to the usual suspects and we will see third party reviews.
I think people are being a bit harsh about the site and presentation. I think most of the criticisms are legitimate, but it is only fair to recognize the trends right now; it is no better or worse than most any other new product website - which tend to be similarly devoid of real information, no matter how much the product might cost.
From looking at the site and reading his comments here, this is a soft-launch / teaser, and he seems receptive to feedback. I look forward to seeing how things progress. I especially look forward to some solid videos showing everything in action. As with all things coffee, I can only be cautiously optimistic. But that means he is doing great :)
A bit of a catch-22, right? In any case, there is going to be an "in the meantime" until reviews get published, and probably even more time before some more well-known channels possibly decide to get their hands on it and talk about it.
Any effort to get early wave buy-in from a certain (IMO critical and not uncommon) type of enthusiast (i.e., someone like me) in that meantime will be cripplingly handicapped by their web presence lacking information and not showing anything w.r.t. what the real-life use looks like.
I suppose that's my feedback, but you are right about the good move to make themself available here for feedback/Q&A. I'm jealous that I don't have the funds right now to actually consider buying one, so I'm here pontificating instead.
I personally am heavily considering pre-ordering a pump for my old Ms Silvia that has already undergone the knife many times, and then more long term I really like the idea of the grinder. But I won't be buying until they do their follow up and provide the richer detail you require as well. I was mainly saying it is not a special omission that indicates anything about the product to me (unfortunately, that is the state of the relevant arts right now).
I suppose it says something important about the major defects with modern marketing that many people stopped there. Although I often would do the same, I did not, because I sense there is something great in this product line, and I want to be uncharacteristically patient to allow it to blossom.
Push back on what exactly though? I claimed that it is not hard to decide if one wants to buy it. I just decided that i don’t want to buy it. It sounds like you came to the same decision. So what is exactly the thing you disagree with me?
Well, it's not hard only because the website completely lacked any useful detail to inform the decision. In the end, it's a great play by OP to come here and open up a Q&A.
Reading between the lines, I’m pretty sure the pump is integrated in the housing (that’s their custom “bespoke, brushless gear pump”), and the boiler is your electric kettle. So I think you could just drop the end of the tube into your kettle and call it a day.
The kind of coffee enthusiast who is going to preorder a $650 unreviewed coffee machine probably has at least one temp holding kettle they use for pour over.
But fully agreed this needs some clarity on the website.
OH! I think you might be right. Oh! That explains it. Thank you.
Thinking about it now, of course. What else would the power lead be for? It doesn't heat the water. The pump being in that part can be the only other explanation.
> The kind of coffee enthusiast who is going to preorder a $650 unreviewed coffee machine probably has at least one temp holding kettle they use for pour over.
Yeah. I think that's the key here. This is for an enthusiast who wants the latest coolest tech, and is willing to accept some amount of discomfort for it.
It's interesting that he's made this visual mistake even as a person whose main concern is the product. So many photographers/videographers make the same mistake, and I guess he's copied them rather than thinking through what his market needs.
The error is basically to film the product as if it was a sexy woman. I'll put it bluntly: I don't want to fuck your product. I might want to buy it but only if you show me the practical details. (Speaking generally - I'm not in the market for a coffee machine). Videos that solely try to convey allure and mistique are a net negative for the vast majority of products.
I for one can't read a word while there are moving pictures around. That's one of the main reasons I block ads. So please, remove the video and stick with stills! Animated stills while scrolling is fine, however.
Also, IMHO, the sustainability pitch is a nice one but needs to be put down in more precise terms. It is good as it is for people who would otherwise buy a Nespresso machine, but anyone who has bought something above that level would need more convincing.
Overall, a good espresso machine already scores pretty high sustainability-wise. Apart from the used of sustainable/premium materials, a key factor to that is the replacement parts and repairability. So, how does Trefolo do in terms of replacement parts and compatibility with 3rd party parts?
For me, the future lack of replacement parts is especially concerning for the Turbina coffee grinder. The use of bespoke grinding burrs adds a wow factor and may be functionally superior to other types of burrs. But this is the one part in the whole setup that is guaranteed to need replacement down the road. What are the provisions for that? How much would it cost? And if you decide to stop selling it, would you e.g. be willing to commit to releasing the burr design so owners or some independent manufacturer can machine replacements?