Baratza to Launch the Sette 30, New Brew Burr at SCA Expo

The Baratza Sette 30. Photo by Baratza.

A  year ago, grinder manufacturer Baratza launched its innovative new line of grinders, the Sette Series, at the SCAA Event in Atlanta. This year, again at the annual specialty coffee trade event in its hometown of Seattle, Baratza is rolling out the final piece of the Sette’s initial lineup: the Sette 30, a pared-down, lower-priced, all-purpose edition.

The Sette 30 shares the basic format and founding technology of its siblings, the 270 and 270W. It occupies the same number-seven-shaped form and footprint, and offers the same LCD display and digital timer for dose control on its face, along with the same straight-through, vertical grind path, the same innovative high-efficiency grinding technology and an equal range of 30 steps of adjustability from espresso-fine up to press-pot-coarse.

It does not, however, include a micro-adjuster for the tiny tweaks necessary to dial in espresso, or the convertible fork for switching between a portafilter holder and a receptacle holder. The fork on the 30 is fixed in position to hold the bin, as the grinder is squarely aimed at serving as a brew grinder, for pourover and immersion methods.

The Baratza Sette 30. Photo by Baratza.

“It’s really designed to go into the niche closer to where the Virtuoso is today, which is a really great benchmark for manual brewing,” Baratza Founder Kyle Anderson told Daily Coffee News, adding that aside from being a pared-down, barebones iteration of the Sette with a lower sticker price ($249 MAP), the most significant departure from its predecessors is that it comes with its own distinct burr geometry cut specifically to grind for brewing.

The Sette 30 burrs, designed by Christian Etzinger, are available now and can be swapped into the other models of Sette for optimized performance in the brew range. Said Anderson, “It’s the same grinding mechanism as the 270. Exactly the same, with the exception of the cone burr, and that cone burr is going to be available for the 270 as well.”

As for further innovation from Baratza going forward, Anderson said that while the focus for now remains on the first three products in the Sette Series, the groundbreaking technology at their core has opened plenty of doors for the future and will be the basis for plenty of new products for the foreseeable future.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t have tricks up my sleeve. I’ve got more things I want to do than time to them,” said Anderson. “We just listen to what people want and try to bring them to market.”

As the Sette, despite being a generally consumer-oriented product, has since its launch also found its way into service in commercial café settings here and there — including, Anderson pointed out, by David Schomer at the espresso bar his cafe Espresso Vivace — this might just eventually include a beefed-up Forte-style Sette. “We might just do that,” Anderson teased.

Baratza plans to present its full range at its booth at the upcoming SCA Event, where the company will also host Mark Folker as he displays and demos the Trinity brewer using Baratza grinders.