Coffee and bright ideas? They go together like a horse and carriage …
1. Fixed-gear no-brainer
The fixie grinder Pic: Daily Coffee News
“I have been riding fixed wheel and drinking double espresso religiously for ten years,” co-inventor of the fixie grinder Dave Buonaguidi told the Daily Coffee News website.
The grinder has a 20-gram capacity and takes 100 revolutions of the wheel to grind the coffee – about 600 metres depending on the wheel-rim size.
Co-creator Dan Hill says: “As far as I’m concerned this is up there with the discovery of fire and the creation of the internet in its value to the people of earth.”
2. Crazy Israeli lab espresso machine
Laboratory Espresso Machine Pic: Designboom
This contraption relies on the Venturi Effect to allow users to produce perfect espresso shots, say its Israeli creators, David Budzik and Adi Schlesinger.
There could be more pics on Designboom
3. Hands-free Aeropress – with a twist
Almost hands-free Aeropressing
Pic: Brewbar
Brewbar is a mobile coffee van in Coventry in the UK. The Brewbar crew like to bring some “wow” factor to events – especially with this almost-hands-free two-at-a-time Aeropress thingy.
They travel in a customised H van and also set up a geodesic coffee dome.
Here’s a video of the hands-free Aeropress machine in action.
4. Pedal-powered espresso
The Velopresso Pic: http://www.velopresso.cc
What do you get when you combine a pedal-powered coffee grinder, a tricycle and a gas-fired lever espresso machine? Low-carbon coffee wherever a bike can go, say the designers of the Velopresso, which won a Deutsche Bank design award in 2012 and is now in production in east London (of course).
You can buy one for just shy of £10,000 – plus P&P.
5. Franken moka pot
Moka lab … Pic: Frans Goddijn
This one will take some explaining … Amsterdam-based Frans Goddijn combined a Bialetti moka pot with a vintage German laboratory hotplate and some heat sensors and monitors to make what he reckons is the perfect stovetop espresso.
The lab hotplate – a Retsch RühroMag MH12 – contains a rotating magnet that turns a small piece of metal Goddijn inserts in the Bialetti’s water chamber, agitating the water and, he says, making it heat more evenly.
Read a bit more on Daily Coffee News.
6. Cold-drip architecture
The Goth-Punk cold brewer
Pic: Dutch Lab
An architect, an industrial designer and a graphic designer walked into a Korean coffee bar … and this fantasy cold-drip brewer was the punchline.
The designers and the coffee bar owner call themselves Dutch Lab, and they have produced a whole architecture-inspired range of high-end cold-drip coffee brewing apparatus.
… and one great April Fool’s Day joke
From the good folks at Google
Matt Holden 