My last day at the SCAA show in Houston and I'm going to be checking out some more cool coffee tech -- including Baratza's new grinders that dose coffee based on weight, La Marzocco's pressure profiling espresso machine, and another really exciting tool to help baristas hand brew excellent coffee.

In the meantime, here is our overview from Tested to show the scope of the SCAA show and how we made it through day one.

Will Smith is one of the guys you see all the time at Tested. In addition to loving technology, Smith is a die hard coffee and espresso fanatic. Videos are reposted with permission from Tested.

Walking through the SCAA, you had to spot the vintage Faema Presidente lever group machine being manned by Gene Lemos. He is with Vaneli's Handcrafted Coffee and is apparently quite the collector of vintage machines (ed note - to see many vintage machines, check out CoffeeGeek's visit to the Cagliari Espresso Machine Museum, on Flickr).

This Faema Presidente is a beauty! It has been fully restored and uses mercury switches on pressure loops to control both the boiler and the thermosyphon for group temp. This is truly awesome work from a far distant time, and still makes excellent shots.

Faema Presidente Faema Presidente Lever machine, still fully functional.

Inside A look inside the lever machine

We're checking out the Baratza booth and looking at two new products that they are offering -- the Esatto and the Vario-E.

What’s especially interesting is that the Esatto isn’t a standalone grinder -- instead it’s a $150 add-on for the Tested-favorite Virtuoso and Virtuoso Preciso grinders. To convert your existing grinder to weight-based dosing, you simply slide the grinder into Esatto’s long tray, screw it into place, connect the grinder’s power to the Esatto, and lock the grinder in the on position. The Esatto’s scale slides into the bottom of the grinder’s hopper bin and comes with a new, slightly smaller hopper that rests entirely on the scale. The Esatto includes three configurable presets, so whether you’re making espresso, a press pot, or a pourover, grinding precisely the right amount of coffee is only two buttons presses away.

The Vario-E trades time-based dosing on the ultra-adjustable Vario for weight-based dosing. However, the Vario-E's scale is directly integrated in the grinder—obviating the need for a long tray to store the grinder’s power cord. Both the Esatto and the Vario-E promise to let you dose to within +/-0.2g--although in the floor demo I saw, the precision was better at slower grind rates. While I’m excited about the prospect of being able to skip weighing my beans every time I prepare coffee, I have a few reservations about Baratza’s early efforts. First, the Esatto’s tray is fairly deep. At 12.25 inches deep, it will prevent you from pushing your grinder up against the wall. I’m also disappointed that Baratza won't have a portafilter hopper for these new weight-based dosing solutions. The wide variation on portafilter weights and sizes prevents that, but weight-based dosing seems like a natural fit for espresso.

Here's our video look at Baratza's booth and their grinder lineup.

Will Smith is one of the guys you see all the time at Tested. In addition to loving technology, Smith is a die hard coffee and espresso fanatic. Videos are reposted with permission from Tested.

My last day at the SCAA started with me meeting my good friend Chris Kocurek in the roasting workshop area run by the Roaster's Guild of America. Inside this area was an array of commercial roasting machines and there with small groups learning about everything to do with commercial roasting, from the concepts of roast profiles and the results in the cup.

There was also a bit of a competition going on. Roasters' Guild members (and potential members) had the opportunity to practice roasting on real commercial drum roasters, learning the craft. Everyone got a chance to sample the coffees later on. There were enormous amounts of coffee in this area, and I was impressed by the work the Roasters' Guild did to not only have these machines set up, but also have all the venting in place so the entire room wasn't filled with roasting smoke.

Entrance to Roasters' Choice Area On one side, there was the Roasters' Choice Competition area; we headed to the roasting area first. Practicing Here a show attendee is doing their own roast on a small batch roaster. Note the complex venting system for dealing with roasting smoke.

A Lot of Coffee There is a LOT of coffee at the SCAA show, and certainly a lot - 100s of kilos worth - at the roaster sampling area. Roasting Discussions Ongoing discussions about the finer points of roasting coffee and how to do it.

Leaving the roasting area, we walked through the brewer's cup area where they had tables set up with folks making pourover brews of some of the world's finest coffee selections from this year two competitions - the Coffees of the Year and the Roaster's Choice Awards, both run by the Roasters' Guild of America.

I sampled some Hawaii Ka'u as well as a Colombian Geisha and the Santuario Bourbon. They were all very good, but the Geisha coffee was a standout for me at the show. One of the great things about the SCAA show is that you really can try some of the world's best coffees, especially if you know where to go. The Roasters' Guild areas were definitely one of those places.

Pop up coffeebars The tasting areas had pop up style coffee bars offering manual drip representations of all the top scoring coffees. Setting up the next brew Setting up the next brew as the coffees were very popular for a variety of SCAA show attendees.

Tasting Area The tasting area for the two competitions was nice and big, and very popular throughout the SCAA show. Manual Pourovers and Discussion The SCAA has come a long way from how these kinds of events used to run. In years past, these coffees would be served via big bulk brewing devices.

Uber Grinder

We're back on the showroom floor and like most of the people here at the SCAA show, we wanted to get to La Marzocco's booth. They were out in full force with two of the Strada machines (both 3 groups) in the booth, all fully functioning. In fact, there were two more 3-group Stradas in booths neighboring to La Marzocco's booth as well.

La Marzocco's booth also prominently featured the Marco UberBoiler units and the Marco Ubergrinders. One thing that caught my eye was a neat little "Shot Puller" machine that La Marzocco had brought to the show. It is essentially a single boiler paddle group machine with PID control and pressure profile like a Strada and looks quite a bit like the GS/3. I had an opportunity to pull shots on it early in the day myself when things were a bit less hectic, but as the show really got underway, La Marzocco's booth get very busy and crowded.

Here's some pictures from La Marzocco's booth, including one of Home Barista's Dan Kehn, who was there during my visit.

Machine Everyone's Interested In The La Marzocco Strada - the machine everyone is really interested in this year at the SCAA. Pressure Profiling, Manual Group control. Shot Puller Here  is La Marzocco's little "shot puller" single boiler, single group espresso only machine.

They Make Them Tall in Seattle They make them very tall in Seattle - Dan Kehn from Home Barista on the right, Andy from LM on the left Strada Group Detail The Strada's pressure gauge actually rises as pressure increases in the grouphead - physically rises.

Uber Boiler The Uber Boiler's profile is definitely a high tech eye catcher for any cafe. Uber Boiler Front view of the Uber Boiler. In the background, that's Jon Lewis, the 'Barista Poet" of past competition fame.

Busy Booth LM's booth was busy the entire show. Lots of great hands on training going on. GB5s and Kent Bakke Two GB5s, an auto model (left) and semi auto (right). Kent Bakke, with glasses on head is in the background. He's a principal owner of La Marzocco.

While in Baratza’s booth, I had a chance to chat with Bill Crossland, a former La Marzocco engineer who has designed and built what promises to be a really nifty automated pourover machine designed for home or light commercial use. Bill’s pourover machine offers precise digital controls for water temperature, water flow, and pour time. With a targeted water temperature variance of less than 0.5C, this machine should take much of the guesswork out of formerly manual brewing techniques. It also features programmable head movement, an adjustable rack system for Hario-type pourover cones, and a two-liter reservoir. Unfortunately, Bill only had non-working prototypes working at SCAA this year, but he’s hoping to enter production within the next few months.

I also managed to hook up with the Bill and Andrew from Luminaire for a demo of their latest LB-1 prototype. Like the Uber Boiler, which I saw yesterday, the LB-1 is designed for baristas to use in busy cafes to assist with manual brewing—everything from pourovers to press pots. What makes the LB-1 special is its boiler-less design. Instead of working around the problems that come with a boiler, the LB-1 uses a custom in-line heater designed by Luminaire. Paired with a flow meter, timer, digital controller, and solenoid flow valve, the LB-1 gives the barista control over every single variable related to water. The device can literally produce water at the proper temperature as quickly as a barista can put fresh coffee under its spout.

Speaking of the spout, the long, flexible tubing is wrapped in an adjustable insulator and dangles a few inches below the top of the device. For manual techniques that require the barista agitate the coffee slurry, he or she can grab the insulator and move the tubing using the same motion he would using a kettle. The LB-1 controls the water’s temperature and flow rate while the barista manually directs water flow to achieve the desired turbulence and agitation. This is another device I can’t wait to see in action at my local coffee shop. Luminaire expects the LB-1 to ship by the end of summer and cost around $2500.

Here's Tested's show report for all these manual pourover water machines, including an interview with Paul Stack of Marco, makers of the Uber Boiler.

Will Smith is one of the guys you see all the time at Tested. In addition to loving technology, Smith is a die hard coffee and espresso fanatic. Videos are reposted with permission from Tested.

Right across from La Marzocco's was Cuvee Coffee, based out of Texas (20 miles west of Austin). They're notable as a good coffee company and they also had had a couple of baristas in the United States Barista Championship which was also going on at this year's show. They also apparently had loaned a barista to La Marzocco to work on booth machines which were Stradas.

Cuvee does a great job roasting and they were showing off some nice offerings as one of the local Texas roaster-retailer representatives at the show -- in fact they do Texas very proud!. If you're looking for an online ordering company to try coffee from, give them a try.

Cuvee Coffee Rachel McKim from Cuvee Coffee along with some of the guys visiting from the La Marzocco booth

Pourover Pourover was certainly everywhere at the show this year, including Cuvee's booth.

Quick update: Well I've made to Sunday morning of my 17th Specialty Coffee show. And if you've been to a show before or followed these posts, you know what that feels like: exhaustion?

Sunday is always an exciting conclusion filled day at the show.  We'll see the finals of the USBC and also the Brewers Cup, a new Coffee of the Year and Roaster Choice awards. And later this evening, the announcement of the newest United States Barista Champion.

I can tell you Pete Licata is carrying the "expectations" of a champion on his shoulders as the crowd at this show seems to agree he is the favorite to win it all. His performance is polished, and professional. His routine itself makes him a top contender, as he takes coffee from Cherry to Cup.

Pete picked the cherry off of the tree in Ka'U Hawaii. Using a Yellow Caturra and a Red Caturra variety. He then carries the coffee to Miguel Meza's house where he process's the coffee in his back yard. Using buckets to perform a dry fermentation with part of the coffee and the remaining coffee is processed as a natural.

So Pete will compete using coffee actually grown in the United States. He continues the process after drying these coffees by roasting his own coffee and then blending it.

There is much more to this performance and it will be a tough one to beat if he can pull it off with few mistakes.

(ed note: update - Pete Licata indeed has won the USBC! Congrats Pete!)

You couldn't help but pause if you happened to be walking by the Hario booth - it tends to grab your eye. They have some really lovely products including a great array of items slated for release this year. (ed note: we also have some bad news about Hario's booth regarding an apparent knock off product, covered in a later entry).

Some of the new products shown off at Hario's booth include pourover brewers with integral scales, and some interesting new double-wall press pot designs.

Hario Booth The booth was fairly wide open with a lot of room to move around. Their products were everywhere, and most had a coffee purpose (Hario is mainly known for tea products in Japan)

Double Wall Everywhere Hario was big on two things at this show - variants on the V60 brewer, and double walled vessels of all sorts, many with the ripple effect of the V60.

Pourover Stands Hario showed off a variety of pourover stands, including some with scales. (ed note: there was also one unfortunate knockoff of a Clive Coffee Stand, which Hario has not licensed or paid for).

Double Wall Press Pot One of their new double wall press pots.

Brewing Stands You can see in this picture something that at first glance looks like something akin to the Eva Solo, but it's mostly a manual pourover device.

Next I returned to the La Marzocco booth, where I got the see (and finally taste) the results of the Strada's pressure-profiling design. Changing the pressure used during the extraction resulted in wildly different tasting shots from the same coffee. Flavor profiles ranged from bright, acidic, and almost citrus-y for shots drawn at lower pressures in the normal 25 seconds to thick, rich, chocolatey shots drawn with a pressure profile that started very high (around twelve bars) but quickly dropped below 3 bars for the remainder of a very long shot pull. I can’t wait to see what baristas do with these machines when they get out in the wild.

I was also able to drop by the Rancilio booth and get a good walkthrough on the new XCelsius machine from Glenn Surlet of Rancilio. This machine is different from the Strada in that where the Strada is about pressure profiling, the XCelsius is about temperature profiling -- raising or lowering the brewing temperature real time. Our video report is from both booths, showing some of the great new technology these companies are creating to make espresso better.

Will Smith is one of the guys you see all the time at Tested. In addition to loving technology, Smith is a die hard coffee and espresso fanatic. Videos are reposted with permission from Tested.

I dropped in on the Mypressi booth, which was right around the corner from Hario. I got a chance to speak to Stephen O'Brian, owner of Mypressi and he told me that they have some truly exciting developments coming out very soon.

Perhaps the biggest news and something not many people know is that a new version of the Mypressi is coming soon that includes a charging station to electrically charge the handle for a couple of shots at a time so you won't need cartridges. It is going to be called the Airo System. Still portable, but as portable as your phone or iPod is - it needs a charge every once in a while (I guess every few shots!).

Mypressi also two other new products coming soon: a nifty little brewing station that holds the unit for convenience. Some people in the past have made these (most notably some competitors in previous Barista competitions), but Mypressi plans to make a more official version that matches the style of the Mypressi espresso brewer. They were also showing off a travel kit / container called the Mypressi Travello.

They were also announcing a fully new version of the Mypressi, a V2 version that uses a rubberized coating to surround the brew chamber that will hold in heat much better than the older models (which have thermoplastic surrounding the brew chamber). They've also addressed the o-ring issue some people have had, and the cartridge leak (on some V1 models).  For kicks, the V2 will also be available in red.

Last, but not least, Mypressi also had some new cups and saucers designed in the Mypressi look. I'm not sure if they will be for sale, but I hope so - they looked very cool!

These are great products by great people, and that seems to be a theme running through this show!

Mypressi Airo Signage for Mypressi's newest prototype idea - a rechargeable Mypressi. (apologies for the flash overexposure) - Claims are it should charge in under a minute to do one double shot.

Red Mypressi and Stand The Red Mypressi plus their new stand. You can also see the new cups done in the Mypressi design.

Pulling shots Mypressis were pulling shots all weekend long at the show.

Trevello The new travel kit that Mypressi will soon be offering.

Mypressi Stand The black Mypressi on the new stand design. Also check out the cups and saucers.

I made my way to the Synesso booth to check out the machines and the people who make them. Rumour has it that Synesso was going to be showing brand new technology at the show, and they didn't disappoint. Mark Barnett (principal Synesso owner) was in the booth talking about the new version of the Synesso Cyncra which will be offered with separate heads for paddle groups or volumetric brewing groups (both on the same machine) as buyer choices. The new volumetric heads look quite good and in some cafes, offer real quality control for better espresso production.

The shots from the Synesso booth were by far the best I had at the show; but to be fair I never got any from the barista competitors.  Part of the reason was that Synesso had some great coffee available to use in their booth, and they brought in some seriously high-calibre baristas to pull shots. They were also using Anfim grinders - all in all a very sweet combination.

Synesso with Different Groups Synesso with different groups - a volumetric group (closest to camera) and the traditional paddle group.

One of my last visits at the SCAA show was to a booth run by a company called Ceado that was showcasing some new grinders. The folks from Whole Latte Love plan to carry their grinders and requested that CoffeeGeek check them out, so I took up the task.

Ceado has a line of new grinders that should compete well against a variety of existing-market grinders, including the Mazzer Super Jolly and the Mahlkoenig K30. One grinder in particular looked very promising -- the Ceado E37 Electronic Grinder. These grinders are beautiful as well as functional, featuring some advanced engineering that results in a very good featureset. I will be doing a full review for CoffeeGeek using a demo that I'm taking home from the show, but i'll say in advance that I am impressed as far as my initial exposure to this product.

Ceado Grinders Linup of Ceado grinders that are coming to the US. Ceado E37 Controls A definite competitor for the Compak K30, this is the electronic dosing (by time) grinder from Ceado

Substantial Burrs The burr group for Ceado's grinder. Burrs A nice burr system including a stepless design

They say creativity is "hiding the source." If that's true, than what do you call blatantly copying an original design and making no attempts to hide the source? I call it ballsy corporate theft.

We designed and manufactured the Clive Stand in cooperation with Delaney Kelly of Carthagh Design. A quick walk through the convention halls at SCAA in Houston gives you an idea of how difficult it is to create a proprietary product without someone else copying it in a matter of months.

Melitta purchased a Clive Stand from us on February 23rd, then copied the design for its own purposes. Below, there is a picture from the SCAA convention Melitta booth. We know they bought a unit from us back in February (Jeff Bridges at Melitta bought one). It appears that they bought it just to create a knockoff. When they were asked at the show how much the stand is or will be, they said "$15-20 wholesale." I guess questionable labor in China really makes things cost effective. I emailed Melitta and received in response a name and address to send a demand letter, but no comment.

The other photo attached to this email shows the Hario/Sungarden booth, and their copies of the Clive Stand. We were told "August availability." when asked about the stand. Hario is well respected in our specialty industry, so it is painful to see this company blatently knocking off our product design.

We're a small company in Portland, Oregon that spent months working up this design with Delaney, and now big companies are appropriating our design for their own purposes.

Hario Booth - Clive Stand Knockoff Hario had their knockoff of the Clive Stand prominently featured. It is slightly different from the Clive Stand (the back is more straight at the top) but the shape is too close for comfort. Melitta Booth Clive Knockoff The Melitta booth also prominently featured a knockoff, which is almost identical to our Clive Stand.

Editor's Note: prior to publication, CoffeeGeek contacted both Melitta and Hario to seek clarification or a response regarding these products and the design that is clearly created by Clive Coffee and Carthagh Design. Neither company has responded to our information request.

Competition is a big part of the SCAA. Everywhere you turn there seems to be another one going on, from barista championships, to cup tasting championships, to brewing championships, and even roaster and coffee of the year championships. Here's Tested's report on a few of these coffee contests.

Will Smith is one of the guys you see all the time at Tested. In addition to loving technology, Smith is a die hard coffee and espresso fanatic. Videos are reposted with permission from Tested.