STiR coffee and tea magazine

Volume 3, Number 2

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18 STiR tea & coffee industry international Harley, Q grader, winner of the UK Cup Tasters Championship and coffee spe- cialist at London-based Falcon Coffees. Coffees included an African, Cen- tral American, Indonesian, South Ameri- can and a dark roast. After the 14 min- ute competition that followed the World Brewers Cup rules, the judges in a blind tasting of five coffees gave a combined score of 374.35 to the Steampunk and 373.35 to Cho's brews. A narrow win, but still a win; and for Bombeck, it proved one thing: "I guess it proves our machine works really well," he said. Bombeck came up with the idea for the Steampunk while working for International Coffee Traders in Bozeman, Montana. He thought his customers might like single-cup siphon-brewed coffee, but felt it would be too impractical for his shop: training would take too long and production would be too slow. So Bombeck, along with a pair of engineers, started their company, Alpha Dominche, in Salt Lake City and began manufacturing the machines, which sell for $12,000 to $16,000 depending on the model. The machine solves a lot of the problems with single-cup brewing, such as incon- sistent quality and a burdensome training process, according to Adam Mangold, the chief engineer at Alpha Dominche. "As we know from many highly successful companies, consistency matters," Man- gold said. "You can train a lot more people on how to use the recipe (consistently)." The drawback Bombeck proved the machine can — at least in capable hands like his — hold its own in cupping quality against a world-class barista. But Cho's article, which appeared in December 2013 online food magazine "Seri- ous Eats," cites a few other faults. "It's a microwave oven when what you want is a Dutch oven," he said of the si- phon brewers. Those machines oversimplify the coffee-making process while presenting no major improvements on the flavor of the coffee, he wrote. Brewing machines "seem to create more problems, while solving very little," Cho wrote. Bombeck and Cho may have illustrated this point during the competition. Bombeck seemed panicky, he bumbled with his machine, double-checked which grounds he was using, frequently searched around his station. "Don't worry," Mangold said to one of his colleagues quietly. "It's almost impos- sible to screw up." Meanwhile, Cho was calm as he worked with his tools: two electric burners warm- ing metal carafes, thermometers, two Virtuoso grinders, five pour-over brewers and a stack of paper filters. As if to emphasis his ease, he danced playfully to the music — loud 80s pop blasted in the warehouse — and he held one arm behind his back for much of the competi- tion. He also finished about a minute ahead of Bombeck. After the competition, when the judges learned which coffees were machine brewed and which were done by Cho, they said they were surprised. "It's cool to see the machine can be that consistent. I'm actually surprised to see they took (the win)," Pereira said. The event concluded with a Wrecking Ball, and Alpha Dominche BBQ and keg- ger. Unresolved is whether Steampunk and similar machines create more problems than they solve; as Cho observes in his online review, that question will remain until another day. EQUIPMENT NEWS Barista Nicholas Cho Inventor Khristian Bombeck Steampunk Brewer wins by a point.

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