A good quality machine, which produces excellent results, for a very reasonable price.
Positive Product Points
Overall quality for price. Good performance. Relatively solid construction for plastic.
Negative Product Points
All plastic external construction. Dodgy Dualit style grill painted on the front. I‘m now drinking an awful lot more coffee !
Detailed Commentary
This Grinder should now be listed as the Solis / Starbucks Barista / Dualit EL60, since it‘s now being distributed (in the UK at least) by Dualit (the toaster people). I haven‘t seen the Solis version here, but the Barista is available at Starbucks.
My Dualit branded model cost 60 pounds (about 90 dollars) and came in a rather fetching black and silver finish instead of the brown and gold livery of the Solis and Starbucks. The only down side to the colour scheme is a grill pattern (like the toaster) printed on the front, which some might find a bit naff. The external casing is all plastic but, as plastic goes, it is well made and seems pretty robust and also looks pretty solid (more so than the Gaggia MM for example).
Compared to my previous grinder (a braun blade machine) this one is superb. It is relatively quiet (for a machine which is after all grinding up coffee beans) and the noise it produces is quite low frequency and therefore easy on the ears. It seems to produce little or no static while grinding. It grinds quickly producing very uniform quality coffee grounds and little or no mess around the machine. I was really very surprised (almost shocked) at how much the taste of my coffee was improved. I do not own an espresso machine (yet) and make coffee with a moka pot, a single cup gold filter, a filter machine or sometimes a french press. The Dualit produces a grind which is coarse enough for the latter and, at about five dots up the scale, perfect for the three former methods. The top of the scale produces a very fine grind which, I‘m pretty confident, would satisfy the highest pressure pump machines.
It is simplicity itself to use. The timer produces consistent results but it takes a little experimentation to work out what settings to use for grinding the exact quantity you need (for any particular brewing method). The only minor drawback is that the grind quality adjustment, is not supposed to be moved (with beans in the machine), unless the motor is running. This means a small amount of wastage when moving from one setting to another. If you do not need a doser and want to grind precise amounts (small or medium) directly in to a hopper, I would highly recommend this machine. I understand that there might be some differences in the burrs depending on the brand by which these machines are labelled. I‘m unable to comment on that except to say that the range available, on my Dualit machine, should be adequate for all coffee making methods.
