Slashdot Mirror
The Javabot Combines Engineering and Coffee
WormholeFiend writes "The Javabot is the coffee machine of the future — completely next generation. It is the fully-automated system that runs the Roasting Plant Coffee Company in New York and its design is illustrative of what can be achieved using new thinking and methodologies to something that was previously regarded as a black art. The system is part of the experience because the coffee system runs throughout the shop. It's the first walk-in coffee machine in effect, and customers sit there and watch as their coffee beans rush past in pneumatic tubes, as they move from storage bins to staging, roasting station, grinding and a brewing machine where they are dispensed with the repeatable accuracy of a purpose-built machine. Customers can choose from any blend of seven different beans and every aspect of the process is controlled."
Skyshadow's Law: The more complicated the coffee maker, the worse off you are.
The best cup of coffee I've ever found is from a little coffee shop near my wife's office in San Francisco (I won't say the name, but it's near the SoMa Caltrain station). They make their excellent brew in a decidedly low-tech way:
Each customer chooses the type of coffee they want or (and this is a better option) tell the barrista to use their judgement. The beans are scooped up, ground and then poured into a very conventional filter basket along with enough water to produce one cup of coffee.
And that's it -- the best cup of java you're likely to find made by probably the lowest-tech possible method.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
In that case, here's a link to the actual coffee shop that runs the Javabot
Just get a personal coffee roaster and a grind & brew coffee maker. I know, I know. You want pneumatic tubes. Who doesn't? But a personal hot air coffee roaster can be had for $80+, while a grind and brew can be had for $100 and up. The result is the same, even if it's not as fun to watch.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Let me get this straight...the coffee goes from green bean to brewed cup in the matter of (tens of?) minutes? Any true coffee connoisseur knows that "the coffee attains its peak 4 to 24 hours after roasting." Ref: http://www.sweetmarias.com/ and http://www.coffeekid.com/ and alt.coffee.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
It's not a toxicity issue, the gas is CO2. The issue is the flavor it imparts to freshly roasted beans. How major an effect it has probably varies from palate to palate. I've roasted my own coffee and gotten all kinds of results even though I've tried really hard to be consistent. Allowing the bean to out gas does seem to make a better cup but I say that with the proviso that I've never done a full-on double blind study to see if it's true or if I'm fooling myself.
Your idea of de-pressurizing the bean might work but before I went to the expense, it'd be worth doing the double blind to ensure it's necessary.
What makes the biggest difference is the quality of the bean. I've roasted Vietnamese beans that were god awful and Costa Rican beans that were sublime. Green beans come in all kinds of shapes and colors. The Vietnamese beans I sampled were a motley lot of various shapes in the same bag whereas the best beans have a consistent color and shape within the same bag. The color varies from region to region so there isn't a 'right color' as you can find good coffee in all shades of green.
One problem with this guy's business plan is dealing with neighbors who object to roasting coffee. I generate quite a bit of smoke when I roast my piddling pound of coffee and I have to wait until the wind is blowing away from one of my neighbors who has lupus. I can well imagine all sorts of problems trying to roast in a congested area.
With a couple pictures...
http://www.bornrich.org/entry/walk-in-for-a-cuppa-coffee-from-javabot
Not all that nice. After roasting, beans need 8-12h in open air to emit CO2, otherwise you end up with sour coffee (due to carbonic acid). Also, after the CO2 evaporates, it's generally agreed that a rest period of 4-7 days brings out the best flavor in roasted beans. Two machines would have been a better choice.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Does it make coffee as good as this one? (Requires a little more reading than Dilbert to make sense of everything but well worth the effort...)
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
According to TFA, they have storage for unroasted beans, and roasted beans, to allow them to sit to 'degas', as they call it. Roasted beans get dumped in the top of a cylinder, slowly making their way downwards as 'degassed' beans are pulled from the bottom and more roasted beans are added on top.
In a nutshell, 'they already thought of that'.
The smell we all like in good coffee shops is the smell of roasted coffee. On the other hand, the smell of roasting coffee is borderline horrible. It has that burnt coffee overtone we associate with bad gas-station coffee sitting on hotplates in those round glass pots.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
...is whether the coffee produced by the Javabot tastes good.
Never. It talks about "machine of the future," that it's purpose is "to produce the most flavorful cup of coffee available," efficiency, control, etc.
It does not say whether that purpose was achieved.
The writer does not say that he tried some coffee made by the Javabot and that it tasted good.
The writer does not quote anyone who says they tried some coffee made by the Javabot and that it tasted good.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I live about 5 minutes by foot from the Roasting Plant, and I can say with confidence that this is the best brewed coffee I've ever tasted. And I'm not the only one - the five or six friends (some of whom are connoisseurs) that I've taken to this place have all agreed that it's at or close to the top of all the coffee they've tasted.
The Rube Goldberg quality of the apparatus (it really is rather hypnotic to watch) naturally makes one suspicious that they sacrifice quality for spectacle, but the truth is that they designed the machine to make great coffee and then had a good designer make it pretty.
They use great beans and they don't burn them like Starbucks does. Though they will have a hard time sourcing enough good beans if they become a large chain, at this point, it's not a problem.
BTW, I promise that I have no connection to this establishment other than liking their coffee.
Dan