Oakland-made coffee brewer Ground Control has attention buzzing

Bay Area cafes tend to sell dual kinds of season coffee: one done around pour-over, where a barista solemnly streams H2O onto drift for one accurate cup; or one done around collection brewer, an programmed appurtenance that can make a gallon during a time.

Some high-end coffee companies like Blue Bottle Coffee surveillance a tellurian hold of pour-over and disagree collection brewers are quite utilitarian, too mostly creation mediocre, burnt-tasting coffee. But Eli Salomon, owner of Oakland manufacturer Voga Coffee, thinks pour-over varies too many from barista to barista, and that a high cost of labor concerned means a coffee — frequently $5 in a Bay Area — is too expensive. Plus, it requires business to wait.

Salomon wanted to combine a best of both methods and emanate a collection brewer that could simply and consistently furnish coffee that is usually as smooth, honeyed and customizable as good pour-over.

The outcome is called Ground Control, and we competence have already seen a appurtenance peering out from behind a opposite during a series of Bay Area cafes and restaurants, including Equator Coffees Teas, Dandelion Chocolate and Chez Panisse. It looks kind of like a robot, with an Edison light bulb-esque tip that spurts out glass — and it’s wowing internal roasters.

“It’s one of a best cups of coffee I’ve ever had,” pronounced Helen Russell, CEO of Marin County’s Equator.

Voga wants to reinstate any season coffee brewer in a world. It has sole a machines to cafes on churned continents and won a Specialty Coffee Association’s Best New Product Award, deliberate a coffee industry’s tip respect for blurb equipment, in 2018. Ground Control is loosely formed on a siphon — a opening coffee builder invented in a 1800s that’s mostly pronounced to furnish a cleanest crater of coffee given it entirely immerses a drift and keeps a H2O heat solid as it brews.

Those dual beliefs lift over to Ground Control. Beyond a size, digital keypad and many programmable functions, there’s one huge difference: The appurtenance brews a same drift churned times.

“We’ve combined a new scholarship of coffee that breaks radically any singular sequence that was formerly famous in coffee brewing,” Salomon said. “Everything is upside down.”

A coffee fiend with no grave coffee attention experience, Salomon wanted to emanate a new season coffee appurtenance that would make a many tasty batches possible.

Salomon desired coffee done with a siphon — Blue Bottle Coffee’s Mint Plaza plcae is famous for a lit-up bar of opening coffee makers. But siphons usually make one apportionment during a time. He envisioned a giant, vacuum-powered, siphon-style appurtenance that could make some-more coffee faster and be commercially scalable.

In 2013, he called his longtime crony Josh Avins, who had usually finished his Ph.D. in chemistry during Columbia University, and explained a idea. Avins flew to San Francisco to build a antecedent and exam a speculation in Salomon’s home. It worked: Salomon was anxious with a result. But Avins suspicion they could do better.

“Josh cracked (my) suspicion into a million pieces, and we picked it adult and we came adult with something a lot some-more beautiful,” Salomon said. About a year later, he rigourously combined Voga Coffee with Avins and Jason Sarley, a feeling researcher with a attention announcement Coffee Review.

Avins was meddlesome in coffee from a chemistry perspective. In a lab, he ordinarily worked on extractions, a procession used to besiege a piece when it has been churned with others.

“What is coffee brewing yet another extraction?” Avins said. “I thought, we never do a singular descent in my lab. Let’s decoction a coffee some-more than once.”

Salomon suspicion Avins’ offer was crazy. Rebrewing drift regulating a pour-over method, for example, would emanate small some-more than unwashed water. Over-extracting — vouchsafing a beans and H2O hang out too prolonged together — notoriously creates a sour cup. It went opposite all he knew about brewing good coffee.

Yet that crazy suspicion is what creates Ground Control tick. Water entirely immerses drift on a bottom of a machine, afterwards a opening pulls a coffee to a tip and dries out a grounds. The routine repeats twice with uninformed water, drizzling a gallon of coffee into a thermos or carafe.

“Every decoction brings out a opposite covering of flavors, and afterwards we mix them together,” Salomon said.

That’s also where a customization happens. Cafe owners can emanate their possess recipes for any form of coffee they carry, tinkering with a volume of time of any descent for adult to 6 extractions, yet Salomon typically recommends three. A disproportion of a small second in any of a decoction cycles can emanate a radically opposite cup: maybe some-more acidity, some-more sweetness, some-more floral notes, some-more chocolate.

“That’s been a many sparkling thing for me: formulating a crater we want,” pronounced Rich Avella, co-founder of Highwire Coffee Roasters, that uses a Ground Control in a Berkeley cafe.

The volume of control and probability with Ground Control led Avella to get absolved of Highwire’s pour-over line in Berkeley. Many cafes surveillance pour-over for a precision, with a barista delicately streaming H2O into a filter for about 5 minutes, that gives a H2O a possibility to solemnly remove a best season from a coffee grounds. But that faith on a tellurian hold means pour-over can be formidable to do good consistently, and some business don’t wish to wait that prolonged for coffee.

With Ground Control, “we can offer a singular start that’s in a unequivocally tailored recipe to broach a good crater — and it’s prepared right now,” Avella said.

The time-consuming inlet of brewing any crater to sequence caused Dandelion Chocolate to stop charity pour-over — or any season coffee — during a Valencia cafeteria for years. The cafeteria was too bustling to hoop a volume of orders, and collection brewers on a marketplace didn’t interest to owner Todd Masonis. Then he met Salomon and attempted a crater brewed on Ground Control.

“When people try a chocolate, some say, ‘I didn’t know chocolate could ambience this way.’ we felt a same knowledge with a coffee,” Masonis said.

Now, Ground Control is during all of Dandelion’s 3 San Francisco locations as good as a new Las Vegas cafe. In further to season coffee, a appurtenance allows Dandelion to decoction cacao nibs for cacao beak coffee.

Highwire Coffee in Berkeley and Equator Coffee during Fort Mason became a initial dual cafes to get Ground Control machines dual years ago. Now, there are roughly 70 commissioned around a world, including in Canada, Colombia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Salomon pronounced Voga is articulate to coffee bondage and convenience-store chains, that could move that series adult significantly in 2020. Voga’s idea is to move a machines to about 300 some-more locations this year.

Salomon believes Ground Control is a initial critical new record in collection brewing given a initial programmed season brewer in 1954. Recent innovations that have vehement a coffee attention have focused on single-cup brewing, such as 2005’s AeroPress and 2007’s Clover. A renouned at-home brewing tool, a AeroPress looks like a hulk syringe and entirely immerses drift like a French press, solely a use of a paper filter means a finish outcome is smoother. Meanwhile, Starbucks purchased Clover, that uses a opening and digitally controls a heat and series of seconds a drift correlate with water.

The growth in collection brewing is sparkling for tip roasters like Equator’s Russell, who pronounced good coffee beans can be busted by an crude brewing process. (“It’s like listening to Mozart on AM radio contra going to a symphony,” quipped Salomon.)

But Salomon says Ground Control is also meant for dilemma stores that wish to take their season adult a nick or for places that offer yet don’t specialize in coffee, like Berkeley bagel emporium Boichik Bagels. Machines start during $6,000 — some-more than a customary season brewer yet reduction than a blurb espresso machine. Salomon hopes his appurtenance creates good coffee some-more democratic.

“Coffee used to be something that was permitted to everyone, and afterwards we started to see a change toward really costly coffees,” he said. “We’re not here to make a imagination cafeteria fancier.”