Year in Review: Home and Prosumer Coffee Grinders

It’s been a topsy turvy year for high-end home coffee grinders, as electric grinder makers rolled out manual machines and vice versa.

More than anything else, the year in home grinders can be characterized by some big commercial names entering or re-entering the home kitchen.

Mahlkönig, Mazzer, Fiorenzato, Ceado and Etzinger were just a few of the established brands making big moves into the home kitchen this year. Interestingly, the trend came just as a number of established commercial espresso machine makers — SanRemo, Mavam, Nuova Simonelli, Rancilio and Faema among them — all launched single-group, home or light commercial machines this year.

As we clear the chutes of 2021 and get ready to load 2022 into the hopper, here’s a look back at the year in home and prosumer coffee grinding news.

[Editor’s note: This feature is part of our ongoing 2021 year-end coverage. Click here for additional stories, updated daily through Dec. 31.]

Image courtesy of Weber Workshops.

The Weber Workshops HG-2 Grinder is All Geared Up for Release

Yet hidden beneath the surface of the Weber HG-2 is a plethora of new features. Chief among these is a gearbox transmission housed between the crank and the drive shaft, allowing users to select the original one-to-one gear ratio or to downshift into a smaller gear for lower RPM per manual crank. The latter results in a slower grind, but with less physical effort.

Fiorenzato Launches Home Line, Introduces Fiorenzato Allground Grinder

Allground’s adjustment collar offers a range of settings with markers for “espresso,” “moka” and “filter.” The grinder’s body, offered in numerous colors and materials, houses a set of 64-millimeter, titanium-coated, flat M340 steel burrs designed specifically for this grinder, according to the company. The burrs are expected to grind up to 1,400 kilograms of coffee before requiring replacement.

Image courtesy of Mahlkönig.

Mahlkönig Re-Entering the Home Market with X54 Allround Grinder

The Allround’s name references both form and function. As its cylindrical body recalls the German manufacturer’s current lineup of commercial espresso grinders, the Allround has been explicitly designed as an all-around grinder for home coffee enthusiasts.

Weber Workshops Unlocks The Key Grinder

The concept of variability also extends from the HG-2 to the Key. Whereas the HG-2’s gearbox transmission allows the user to shift between easier cranking and slower output versus higher resistance and faster output, the Key Grinder maintains a variable-speed electric motor with speeds from 50 RPM to 300 RPM. The slowest setting on the Key is roughly the speed at which a person might turn a crank manually, and it goes up from there, Weber said.

New Kopi Deva Grinder Offers Home Users Variable Speed Without a Cord

The 64-millimeter flat-burr grinder features variable RPM and a short grind path intended to minimize retention, all while running on a 5000mAh rechargeable battery. The company says one charge of the battery can power the grinding of up to 3 kilograms of roasted coffee.

Image courtesy of Eureka.

Eureka Leans Into Single Dose Grinding with Newest Oro Machine

Italian coffee grinder maker Eureka has revealed the Eureka Oro Mignon Single Dose, featuring a notably tilted design to minimize grind retention in high-end home or other lower-volume settings.

Clive Coffee Unveils the Lucca Atom 75, a Self-Dialing Espresso Grinder

The Lucca Atom 75 comes additionally equipped with a patent-pending combination of hardware and software called TrueGrind technology that provides continuous recommendations for optimal grind settings as conditions change.

Image courtesy of Knob.

The Knob Coffee Grinder Offers an Interesting Spin in Manual Grinding

It centers on a conical burr set where the outer ring burr rotates while the inner cone burr remains fixed. Akin to the system designed by engineer Christian Etzinger and first brought to the electric grinder market by Baratza in its Sette mechanical grinder line, the Knob Grinder inverts conventional burr grinding action in which the inner cone burr is spun within a fixed outer cone burr.

Baratza Reinvents the Vario with the Vario+ and Vario-W+ Models

As the Bellevue, Washington-based company sunsets the original Vario models — first developed in partnership with Mahlkönig, which previously offered a version to European buyers — improvements sought by Baratza in the new generation are in the areas of durability, consistency and user experience.

Etzinger Gets Hands On with the Etz-I and EtzMAN Manual Grinders

The EtzMAN Basic and EtzMAN-W are essentially hand-cranked, motor-free versions of the EtzMAX grinders that the company launched in 2017. They are built within the same exterior cases as their electric forebears, but with suction cup feet for added stability.

Image courtesy of Mazzer.

Mazzer Goes Manual with the Home-Focused Omega Grinder

Coffee grinder manufacturer Mazzer has rolled out its first grinder explicitly for the home market: the Mazzer Omega. The Omega is also the first manually operated, non-electric coffee grinder ever produced by the 73-year-old Italian company.

Ceado Launches Grinder Brands Life and Leon, Plus the E37Z Barista

“For Ceado, ‘all-purpose’ doesn’t mean compromising the quality of coffee,” Fabrin told DCN. “Life can be the first step inside the world of coffee, but also the definitive grinder. It has been designed for consumers, not necessarily expert home baristas, who love beautiful objects.”