Even though those days might be long gone, one of our customers, Frans G. from Amsterdam, sent us some pictures and a story that harkens back to the bygone era of trans-Atlantic steamships. His story makes us want to step away from the computer and pick up a set of hand tools to build something that can last. In some ways it’s fitting, an heirloom box for an heirloom grinder.

Over the past weeks, Willi Egger has been building and finishing a travel chest made out of elm wood which he designed for my HG One grinder…No nail has been used, all wood-on-wood connections, just a few screws for the piano hinge of the front which has magnetic locks. One of the details I am very impressed with is the handle which is strong enough to carry the 10 kg of the grinder and the chest itself and yet it does not look crude, hiding inside the chest when resting.

Willi Egger is the versatile typesetter and book binder from http://www.boede.nl/ who has previously prepared the 2006 edition of “Het voorbeeldige boek” by Johan Polak for Balans publishers in Amsterdam. He also hand bound two copies of this book (as featured on http://www.kostverlorenvaart.nl/voorbeeldig/). Recently he has adapted software to typeset himself a very complicated English book of math for a publisher in the UK. And a few years back he was on the team of experts who did technical research to the options to save the Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam.

Thank you Willi for a great job on this chest! Next time I go on the road the HG One grinder will be traveling along safely and the hotel room will look splendid with this excellent piece of craftsmanship

Currently our order’s being loaded aboard the Vietnam Express (formerly the OCCL Italy) in the Port of Shanghai, and will set sail for Los Angeles tomorrow. ETA is Monday, June 10th. A couple of days to clear customs and then a couple more for delivery to our warehouse.

If you’re one of those obsessive compulsive types, like Paul and I are, you can check on the location of the ship by following this link to marinetraffic.com.

Thank you to everyone for your patience. The wait’s almost over!

For a variety of reasons too numerous to mention, Paul and I wanted needed another espresso machine. After a tremendous amount of deliberation, we ordered a Londinium I. We’re a start-up company and right now, every single penny and every single decision counts. We placed our order, and we got in the queue.

We received our Londinium I espresso machine this week. And strangely enough it inspired me to want to sit down and write something because the way it made me feel. This is an espresso machine, not the lost Ark of the Covenant or the Mona Lisa, and I’ve been asking myself have I gone crazy? This is a kitchen appliance that sits on my counter and makes hot beverages. It ranks below both my refrigerator and stove in order of domestic importance. And while I might be more pleasant slightly caffeinated, I don’t need coffee to survive. So why am I getting hung up over a hunk of chrome?

I could go on about the size of the group head, how quiet the machine is, and the benefits of a lever, but that’s been covered extensively on various websites. I don’t want to do that. All I’d like to say on that front is, the quality of the coffee being produced is truly excellent, and this machine is extremely well built. That done, I’d now like to make this a more personal editorial. A subjective rather than an objective statement. Once again, this is about how this machine makes me feel.

It sounds silly but, there is a totemic vibe to this espresso maker.

The Londinium I comes from a small, independent company that’s hell-bent on delivering quality on all fronts. Quality in craftsmanship, quality in the cup, and quality in price. What that tells me is the manufacturer is out to prove something. They’ve managed to bring to market a product that is disruptive. Consumers — and no doubt manufacturers — have stood up and taken notice. And I’ve been asking myself, what drives someone to produce a product like this?

In one word, passion.

My inner cynic is yelling, what does that really mean? Is it a facile marketing term being thrown about because it has a nice ring to it? In my mind no. There’s a sincerity and honesty to this word when used in the context of the Londinium I. Passion keeps you up late at night sweating the little details. It makes you run faster, work harder, and persevere. It motivates you to pick yourself up, and dust yourself off after you get knocked into the dirt. Passion drives the innovative spirit to do something no one else has ever done before. You can see passion in the LI.

We’re in awe of what’s been achieved by the LI. From personal experience, we know how staggeringly difficult it is to design, manufacture and finally bring a product to market. For us, the manufacturer has delivered on their promise. Yes, they’ve stumbled at times, and so have we. Everyone does.

From Paul and my perspectives, we’re proud to be able to support the entrepreneurial spirit behind the LI. To Reiss and his crew, well done and congratulations.

Paul & Craig

La Marzocco 15° portafilter

I wrapped up the CAD files and sent them to our manufacturer to have some samples made (for you old timers out there, yes that’s an SGI keyboard in the background).

Every portafilter is different, which makes it a bit of a pain trying to produce a product that tries to fit as many as possible.

Londinium I PF cradle

From the beginning, we planned to use two standard size bases milled out of aluminum, with interchangeable Delrin sleeves based on the various dimensions of different brands of portafilters.

For the La Marzocco 15° ergonomic handle, we extended to the height of the sleeve to accommodate the down angle of the handle, and for the Londinium I, we reduced the inside diameter of the sleeve and added a small corner piece to accommodate the 45° angle of the portafilter ears. On a side note, these cradles will most likely not work with spouted portafilters. The height of the spouts have proven to be very difficult to accommodate, and we’ve chosen instead to focus on naked or chopped portafilters.

Once we get the samples back and have tested them out, we’ll be putting them online and up for sale!

On our last shipment, we took pre-orders or deposits for grinders. This time around, we decided we didn’t want to hold on to customers money unnecessarily and feel we (hopefully) have enough inventory to satisfy demand.

The plan is for final assembly and inspection to take place in batches. When a batch is complete, we’ll add inventory to our store and customers will see the amount of stock ready for purchase. Alerts will be sent via our facebook page and Twitter feed. Knowing that some people are resisting the social network epidemic, Paul being one of them, we’ve opted for a more direct approach. You can sign up for email notifications on a per product basis through our store.

Join Waitlist button

To join an email waitlist, you have to create a user account. When setting up your account, we recommend inputting your billing and shipping addresses. In the future, when you try to complete a transaction, you won’t be able to check out without this information in place.

If an item you’re interested in purchasing is out of stock, simply click on the Join waitlist button on the product description page. Once on an email list, we’ll alert you when we have inventory in stock. At any time, you can unsubscribe to a list by going to the product description page and clicking on the Leave waitlist button.

As mentioned in our Privacy Statement, we do not sell, give, share, rent, barter, or lend any of your personal information to anyone. You’re too important to us as a customer for us to betray that trust.

Unless you opt in or request us to do so, we will not send you any marketing information. If for some reason we do send you unsolicited email we apologize in advance. Let us know and we’ll get you off our list as soon as possible.

]]> http://hg-one.com/email-waitlist/feed/ 0 http://hg-one.com/back-on-track/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=back-on-track http://hg-one.com/back-on-track/#comments Sat, 11 May 2013 15:00:54 +0000 Craig http://hg-one.com/?p=5264

Good news on all fronts!

We received our latest shipment of burrs from Mazzer. In case you were wondering, this is what 300 sets of 83mm conical burrs look like. What are they doing on the floor you ask? In total all the burrs weigh close to 600 lbs, and we don’t have a table that can safely support that load.

Speaking of burrs, we’d like to announce we won’t be building a 71mm version of the grinder in this production run. Based on customer feedback and anticipated demand, we decided not to order any 71mm machines. If we hear from customers that they want them back, then we’ll roll them out again.

On other fronts, the first set of grinder parts have cleared the anodizer, and the second set should finish next week. After that phase is complete, it’s on to assembly, packaging and shipping. It looks like we’re on target to re-open the store the first weeks of June. We’ll post more on the next shipment as information comes in.

Thank you everyone for your patience and understanding.

Kind regards,

Paul & Craig

basket holder in place under funnel

The basket holder self centers and snaps into place with a recessed magnet, mounted into the underside of the base of the grinder.

The basket fits snugly inside the holder.

Two finger recesses on either side of the basket make removal easy.

A clear funnel sit directly on top of the basket.

The final piece is a clear funnel. A quick stir, helps reduce the volume of the grounds and aids in re-distribution.

The pictures and movie are of an early prototype, and Stephen’s confident the production versions will be more refined. If you’re interested in commissioning Stephen to do custom work for you, please contact him directly at ovrthhl@me.com

Craig’s Atomic Espresso Maker

The in-laws, missus and I started our trip near Brisbane and gradually worked our way down to Sydney. Along the way I found out that Bon Trading Company in Woollarha was still producing the Atomic. The problem was that while researching the Atomic, I discovered the Otto Espresso Maker. Craig Hiron, a visionary intent on reintroducing stove top espresso making, had designed a revolutionary espresso maker paying homage to the classic lines of the Atomic. The question of course was, which one to buy? The classic design that I had always loved, or the modern high tech version that solved many of the original’s shortcomings. I couldn’t decide–so I bought both.

Exerting considerable peer pressure on Paul, I convinced him to buy one as well. The interesting part to this story is that in some way, the Otto is responsible for the birth of the HG one grinder. One evening over martinis, Paul and I decided we wanted to make a grinder that was as beautiful and functional as the Otto. The Otto takes a classic idea and makes it better, while keeping all the things about the original that make it great.

Paul’s Otto Espresso Maker next to the HG one grinder

A couple of days ago, Craig Hiron of Otto kindly dropped us an email to say hello and pass along his complements. Craig is itching to try an HG one out for himself, however our next shipment hasn’t arrived yet. So if there are any HG one owners in Sydney that wouldn’t mind giving Craig a demonstration, please get in contact with us, and we’ll make the introduction.

The best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry.

Try as we might, some things are simply out of our control. Speaking to our manufacturer, our next order will be slightly delayed by approximately three weeks. While we were hoping to be able to start taking orders and shipping mid May, it’s now looking to be the first week of June.

While machining is complete, the parts are being held up at the anodizers. The anodizer’s production schedule is backlogged and we’re waiting for it to clear so our order can be processed. The good news is our shipment of burrs is due to arrive shortly, and all of the accessories that ship with the grinders are ready to go.

Our sincere apologies to customers that are waiting to place their orders. The plan is to take your order and ship your grinder at the same time. We should be able to keep a permanent inventory in house moving forward. Please bear with us a we go through the growing pains of a start up.

If you decide to take tools into your own hands, please be careful.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way–here’s a great mod that we really had to share. Stephen J. from the UK wanted to add a little more stability to his grinding routine, and at the same time preserve the aesthetics of his grinder.

now you see it

Stephen came up with the brilliant idea of tapping four M10 holes into the bottom of the base, stopping about a third of the way from the opposite surface.

and now you don’t

The next step was to drill through his work surface, and mount the grinder from below. The biggest advantage to Stephen’s idea is it offers a steady and potentially easier grinding experience.
 

How easy do you ask?
 

The video speaks for itself!