The new Zassenhaus mills are still nice to look at and fun to use, but they're useless for making good coffee.
Positive Product Points
• Beautiful to look at • Manual (That's what I got it for — I love being as close to the process of coffee-making as possible) • The wooden box is well made
Negative Product Points
• The grind is very uneven • After three months of light use, the burrs are very (and unevenly) worn • The posts that stabilize the bottom burr are made of plastic and have significantly eroded, making the grind less and less even over time
Detailed Commentary
I bought this because Zassenhaus hand mills apparently used to be of amazing quality, with burrs that last a lifetime and an even grind on par with electric machines costing several hundred dollars. This is obviously no longer the case. I've heard that many others have discovered the same thing with newer Zassenhaus mills; I only wish I'd realized this before making my purchase. I consider this $105 down the drain.
It is a beautiful grinder, and it is fun to grind my coffee with. It takes less than a minute to grind 14.5 grams for an 8oz cup of manual drip coffee. Unfortunately, the lower burr is not properly stabilized, so there are always larger chunks of coffee as well as fine powder. Set it to a finer grind, and you get an over all finer grind; set it to a courser grind, and you get an overall courser grind. But the powder and the chunks are always there. It's a shame.
