April Coffee Springs a Manual Grinder Into Production

All images courtesy of April Coffee.

Danish specialty coffee roasting company April Coffee is launching a manual coffee grinder of its own design called the April Hand Grinder 01.

Produced in partnership with Chinese home coffee equipment maker Timemore, the all-metal April Hand Grinder centers on a custom set of 48-millimeter April Gen1 conical burrs.

A Kickstarter campaign to fund the grinder’s first production run launched today.

The handle and body panels draw inspiration from Copenhagen furniture design, while an external adjustment collar controls grind size and a thumb rest helps stabilize the grinder during use.

Following the 2019 introduction of the April Brewer, a pourover device designed by April Coffee Founder Patrik Rolf, the company has expanded with paper filters, serving vessels, cups and water minerals. The hand grinder is intended as the final piece of that system.

The external dial features 10 numbered settings with 10 adjustment clicks between each. Although April says the grinder can work with a range of brewing methods, its instructions focus on a narrower portion of the adjustment range for use with the April Brewer.

At 950 grams, the grinder is relatively substantial for a handheld device. Rolf said that rather than leading with portability, the design focused on flavor when paired with the April Brewer and roasted coffees. 

“I believe that a lot of coffee research and approaches out there today around equipment starts with science first and taste later. In my experience, starting with taste first and then plotting the science afterward makes much more sense,” Rolf told Daily Coffee News. “We didn’t target a specific particle distribution from the beginning. We were chasing a specific taste experience, and we learned much later in the process what that meant in terms of particle distribution.”

Rolf, who placed second in the 2019 World Brewers Cup using a prototype April Brewer, has spent more than five years testing home coffee grinders on April’s YouTube channel, often evaluating them alongside the brewer.

He has also filmed 55 episodes in home brewers’ kitchens, documenting their methods and equipment. April has hosted nine April Brewer competitions, while Rolf has competed twice in the World Brewers Cup.

“It’s fair to say we’ve done quite a bit of testing,” Rolf said. “At April, we don’t produce or create just for the sake of it. We already had the brewers, the paper filter and the water minerals. Something was still missing.”

April Coffee was founded in Copenhagen in 2016. In 2024, the company expanded into its new roastery outside Copenhagen with a Loring S35 Kestrel machine. In 2025, April moved its Copenhagen retail store into a larger space and converted the neighboring former store into SP Coffee Shop.

April says the grinder’s design and production samples are complete, with manufacturing expected to begin after the Kickstarter campaign. Rolf said shipping to backers is expected to begin later this fall and conclude by the end of January 2027. Regular retail sales are then expected to begin at 2,500 DKK (about US$388) through April’s online and physical stores.

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