I was able to stop by the the Ueshima Coffee Company (UCC) booth, a company I first wrote about in the Day Two Report from SCAA 2003 Boston. Back then, no one over here had heard of these guys, and I found the halogen vacpot station absolutely intriguing. I guess no one else did at the time because the Boston show was a bust for them, with no sales generated.

What a difference a NY Times Article can make, I guess. It was enough to convince UCC to come back (though I think they'd planned it before the article), and also make a lot of people interested in this booth this time around.

Much of what I wrote in 2003 is the same this time around - a very cool (actually hot) heating system for high volume siphon coffee making is on display. It's a light show, fairly efficient, and even more expensive. Three burner units are $6,000, six burner units are $10,000, and a minimum $15K order. The $20,000 that the NY Times reported isn't accurate. I talked to James from Blue Bottle after that article was published, and the $20K number was in reference to the entire setup - fixtures, counters, the halogen system, the works.

UCC also brought their commercial cold drip coffee maker, which would probably do exceptionally well in some US-based cafes, what with the popularity of iced coffee. It's a slow dripper, but a double setup (it brews two huge pots per unit), and if run continuously, should produce about 10 litres or more a day.

I spoke to the booth owner, and he said this time around, the show was very good for them - many leads already in the book, and they hoped for more.

Siphon coffee makers - the new Clover for a lot of these third wave people. ;)

Here's some photos Beata took. I'll have some more later on.
.

Vac Pots and Cold Drippers

Siphon coffee

Light Show

He seems to like it