Prototype rendering by Bonaverde
After two years of research and development, Berlin, Germany-based entrepreneurs under the name Bonaverde are raising money for a new product that they say will “upset the value chain” and make all people who roast coffee obsolete.
Two days into their kickstarter campaign, the Bonaverde team had already surpassed their aggressive $135,000 fundraising goal by nearly $60,000 and counting. What are people paying for? A single 20-pounds-or-less unit that roasts, cools, grinds and brews coffee, all at the push of the button. Bonaverde describes the roasting component as “a rotary system with a high-alloyed stainless steel container,” adding, “that sounds so German.”
The group is working directly with coffee farmers, and hopes to revolutionize the way coffee is purchased and consumed throughout the world by eliminating the likes of third-party buyers, importers, roasters and retailers.
“Help us show the world that it is time to change the way coffee is perceived, traded and enjoyed,” Bonaverde says. “With the world’s first roast-grind-brew coffee machine we can disrupt the value chain, empower farmers and bring you the fairest and freshest coffee experience right into your own home.”
We’ve had the machine itself described to us by one coffee equipment professional as “wrong on so many levels,” but we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concept. Sound off in the comments section below.
Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
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they forgot one important thing in the chain of what this machine does to the coffee: let it rest. coffee must rest before it’s brewed. 1 day, 5 days. depends on the coffee. and, coffee is only as good as the farmers, millers, importers, etc etc etc…this is a prime example of folks that a) do not know a thing about excellent coffee and b) do not care a bit about excellent coffee. git yer ROI on boys. enough said.
Aside from resting your roasted coffee the single best improvement in quality comes from buying whole beans and grinding them just before use. The second most important is buying freshly roasted coffee.
This is like offering a banana-peeling machine to banana growers.
Do they know even about the different tastes of different coffees .. Mere business drives them right away ..
As a coffee roaster for a small company, this idea annoys me to no end. They can sell these machines to places like McDonalds or places where they don’t care about the finer tuning of their roast profiles but I hope this never catches on.
Coffee roasted seconds before being ground and brewed is not going to taste as good as beans roasted to a profile that suits it best then after proper rest brewed with perfection using a style of choice.
But it is going to taste way better than any coffee that was roasted and ground 3 months ago.
This is not going to make microroasters or specialty coffee shops obsolete. But it might make coffee at coffee chains taste passable.
as coffee futures slide lower and specialty coffee privitized lots increase in value, the coffeesnobbery will never die. Most of the public, 80% still says foldgers is the best in America. Although LaVazza will try and change that this year, the rest of the majority of the 20% says Stumptown Rules.
Does supremecy return up the coast when the US champ is crowned in Seattle next year, or does a Blue Bottle, Ritual, SightGlass or FourBarrel become the new number one.
Regardless, Germans, can brand and market this and the new super roaster will buy it and yes, unless you are growing in the greenhouse in some remote US State, or got the super soil, tea, shade trees and growing conditions for the illest microlots.
the majority of the coffee drinking culture, does not care, nor want to pay that price for the rarest of size 17 solely, Hand Sorted Geisha from Typica pre roast in parchment, of the finest Blue Mountain’s offering, period.
For those that do. That Jamaican coffee costs 100 a pound.
I hate to sound so rude, but I really hope this idea fails. This is an insult to many in the coffee community.
The farm direct aspect frightens me. Are these guys able to source good beans?
The cost of sending over a little bag for personal use from the farm is going to cost a fortune. Unless these guys are actually going to act as traders and buy wholesale and warehouse in Europe – which then defeats what they are claiming to do….
Yeah this is really annoying. Why would specialty coffee companies want to take the specialty out of their business? The special thing about all these processes is that there are people with a passion for what they do behind it, and use their own unique selves to bring the bean through its journey, NOT in some factory cookie cutter way. I feel explaining this is unnecessary because it is obvious to the coffee enthusiast people who really care. The point is not production, etc. etc. There’s so much uniqueness to this industry and I just love it. The more you put in from your own creativity, commitment, care and knowledge, the more you get out.