I felt like espresso machines were getting very large, plasticky, and app-integrated without actually improving the underlying technologies that make them work. The noisy vibratory pumps in particular are from 1977 and haven’t really changed since then. So I wanted to focus on making the most advanced internals I could and leaving everything else as minimalist as possible. The pump is, as far as I know, completely unique in terms of power density and price. Without spending several thousand dollars, it was difficult to find a machine with a gear pump, and adjustable pressure was also similarly expensive but this machine has those things and costs a normal amount to buy. You can also turn the pressure way down and make filter coffee.
I also saw so many people (including myself) using a scale while making espresso, and even putting a cup below the group head to catch drips, entirely negating the drip tray, so I basically designed for that! The profile of the machine is much lighter on the eyes and doesn’t loom in the corner like my old espresso machine did.
And for the grinder, basically everything on the market uses conical and flat burrs that have descended from spice grinders, and the same couple of standard sizes. Sometimes larger companies design their own burrs, but only within those existing shapes. There is sort of a rush to put larger and larger burrs into coffee grinders, which makes sense, but with cylindrical burrs, you can increase the cutting surface way more relative to the size of the grinder. When grinders get too big, maintaining alignment becomes mechanically cumbersome, but the cylindrical burr can be very well supported from the inside, and there is the added benefit of hiding the entire motor within the burr itself. The resulting grounds are just outright better than all the other grinders I have used, but obviously this is a matter of taste and my own personal bias.
The biggest downside for the grinder is that it doesn’t work with starbucks style oily roasts, because the coffee expands so much while traveling down through the burrs and can sometimes clog up the teeth. It doesn’t hurt the grinder but it does require cleaning (which is tool-free!). Another downside for both machines is the fact that they run on DC power so it’s best if you have a spot in your kitchen to tuck away the power brick.
I also made a kit that makes the gear pump a drop-in upgrade for other espresso machines, to reduce noise and add adjustable pressure.
https://velofuso.com/store/p/gear-pump-upgrade-kit
The roughest part of this process were the moments midway through development where they weren’t working at all. When the grinder is just jamming itself instantly or the fourth factory in a row tells you the part you’re making is impossible or the pump is alternating between spraying water out the side and into your face and not pumping at all. And the default thought is “Of course it’s not working, if this was going to work someone else would have already made it like this”. The route you’ve taken is fundamentally different enough that there are no existing solutions to draw on. You’re basically feeling around in the dark for months on end, burning money, and then one day, every little cumulative change suddenly adds up to a tasty espresso. And it’s not perfect yet, but you at least can see the road ahead.
Anyways, this is way more than I expected to write, thank you for reading! Tell me if you have any questions
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?
https://velofuso.com/store
You raise a ton of good points.
- 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.
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.
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.
https://velofuso.com/warranty
I definitely agree that there needs to be a simple clean 30 second video of the full workflow with every part visible - I will work on that ASAP.
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.
Also, for $700 independent reviews are also a must.
For the pump kit - this too looks interesting, but requires (way) more details. At the very least a list of supported machines and, again, a video or two of an actual retrofit. Dimensions, voltage (!), etc.
> The result is a freedom to use a far more thermally stable source of hot water - like the kettle you already have. And because no water is stored in the machine - it’s fresh every time.
Seems like a interesting idea, but I feel like there is a crucial point missing. What if I do not want a random water tube hanging into my water kettle? Feels like that is a big hole in a otherwise great thought through product.
If thermal stability is important enough to make such an advertising claim, you should probably show a comparison of input temperatures where the water meets the coffee over the course of multiple cycles against a representative competitor. With actual data rather than stylised cartoon graphs like in TV adverts for washing powder or whatever.
Woolly claims like that without clear evidence really make sound like audiophile woo territory, which would be a shame if you've actually done the research!
Also for $700 you don't want to be the guinea pig.
And don't get discouraged by the attacks on your web design, I think the website is excellent the way it is. Leave it to some reviewers to go into nitty gritty real world stuff; your website does a great job of showcasing the design language and what's great about the product.
And generally Show HN's posts are taken as a request for constructive criticism, which I think most are.
Specifically, those two tubes that fade into the darkness is just begging for an explanation.
I don’t know what it takes to build a computer, but I know what it takes for me to buy one. The feedback given is all constructive from people who are saying that this product is as it’s currently presented to their taste and the customer is always right in matters of taste.
Also there is a matter of knowing your audience. The website looks top notch to people who build websites not to people who buy expensive coffee equipment. There doesn’t seem to be a single non cgi or cgi-like image of the machine or video of it running. These things a trivial to add, so it’s fair to give OP the feedback that this should be added.
There's no way someone who designed, manufactured, tested and refined all this original equipment wouldn't include some technical photos, documents, experience or anything to 'sell' the product. And with pre-orders? There isn't even a single video of it making espresso without total cropping.
For reference - The owner lists his studies in media design and works for Terra Kaffe - claiming involvement in building Terra Kaffe TK-02
I'll happily change my opinion if anything resembling original invention is presented.
Anything is possible, but I don’t know why you would jump to that conclusion without taking the opportunity to engage with the OP.
All the images look to be animation which is a warning sign for me.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-control...
I spun up a little project a few years ago and designed a product based around analog synthesizers. It was something I really loved doing, and I dropped videos of the R&D process all the time. How could you not!? It's the best part of the process and it's great marketing too. Again, things just seem strange here. I hope I'm wrong. Someone in this thread seems to have bought one, so I suppose we'll see.
(Unless you're comfortable with that of course!)
What heats the water? What provides temperature control? How would I produce steam?
It is so single purpose that it does not feel useful by itself, it feels like the prototype for part of a whole.
I like the idea of it, and I like the idea of "part of the whole" being a composable coffee machine where one could put together components which were all independently maintainable and highly serviceable... this feels like a taster for that, but by itself is very expensive for a pump that claims to be an espresso machine but could not produce an espresso alone, and would need something else to make any espresso derived coffee.
What this replaces is a lever espresso machine, but I'm not sure anyone with a home coffee machine would've purchased a lever espresso machine without the integrated boiler... and if they would, then this is right there https://bellabarista.co.uk/collections/lever-machines/produc...
You would benefit greatly from a video that showed the workflow end-to-end of making an espresso... from bean to the final drink.
Most people are going to have a decent electric kettle anyway (especially if they want to make pour overs) so being able to save costs and counter space by reusing what you have already makes tons of sense.
If you told me I could get something roughly equivalent to the Flair, for roughly the same price, with programmable flow profiling? Hell yeah!
I have the budget and desire for a Decent, but not the counter space or interest in cleaning and maintenance. Something like this machine would be very appealing.
I feel this one is trying to do the same thing, all focus on the pump, 0.1% plastic - but ignore that huge plastic power brick, that doesn't count.
When it comes to espresso machines the devil really is in the details.
https://us.rok.coffee/products/presso-smartshot-soft-tealhttps://aeropress.com/products/aeropress-coffee-maker-premiu...
Good luck !
"...it doesn’t work with starbucks style oily roasts" I think this is a feature :)
Then better to not to say it at all. I don’t think anyone on HN should call someone else’s work “trash”.
I personally really liked the website on mobile. Other than missing a demo video it communicated the value proposition.
The price and full profile pictures should be visible on the store page without adding to cart, maybe something is going wrong?
Here is what it looks like on all of my computers:
https://imgur.com/a/3FHyw2b
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Our kitchen doesn't have much counter space, but that Presso Smartshot looks good (at least in the video). Do you happen to know if it's actually good?
BTW I had no idea Aeropress now sells a non-plastic version. I guess the output is the same.
Any paid template from any of the big website building companies would be better than what you have at the moment.
Also, photography-wise, as a lot of other people have suggested here, take a few steps back. Just show the whole product on a worktop, without videos. You're not Apple; it’s not iconic yet. A close-up won’t suffice. We need to see the whole thing static, not in a close-up video all the time. (The reason you’ve done this is that you’re very familiar with the design. Visitors are not—you’ve forgotten what it’s like to see it for the first time.)
I hope this comes across in the way it’s intended. The device is gorgeous; it should be treated with the respect of a good website.
Maybe part of the problem. I suspect that is not the whole reason. I think they are not happy (consciously or unconsciously) with the appearance of the pump and/or don't consider it part of the product. And that is why they are excluding it from the images. Sometimes literally photoshopping it out.
https://velofuso.com/store/p/gear-pump-upgrade-kit
This is a Squarespace site. See: the favicon.
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