scan-to-brew espresso ,🟢 new green coffee plant in CN , 🇮🇳 investment in India start-up: This Week in Coffee
The Big Three
Nunc automatic-espresso goes on pre-order
I exchanged emailed with Nunc founder Robert Haufe after he reached out to me and I was pleasantly surprised by the level of detail and imagination that the team has put into this new product. I’d encourage you to check the project out.
There are two essential problems with all ‘automatic’ espresso machines, and there are two equally essential reasons why people buy them anyway. Nunc, I think, is designed to answer the two problems without compromising on the benefits.
People buy automatic machines because they believe they will never ‘get the best out of their coffee’ and because the machines are quick. But, these all-in-one coffee slaves actually don’t do a good job because they’re not dialled in and because of the inner-workings are always full of coffee oil. The tight enclosed channels and chutes make them impossible to clean. Yes, you could make the effort to disassemble and properly remove the oil but you’re not going to do that because if you were, then you wouldn’t be the type of person who owns an automatic coffee machine…
The Nunc requires an inevitable coffee pod subscription where selected beans come with bar-coded for the grinder to process according to their exact needs. This alongside the automatic adjustments inside the espresso machine should mean that your coffee servant robot will actually dial in. Plus, it’s a traditional espresso group head so clean it of coffee will be a quick and easy job.
They’re a young dynamic startup in Germany trying something new and I wish them all the best! If anyone pre-orders one and has thoughts - I’d love to hear from you.
Lukin opens green coffee plant in China
There’s a trend we’ve talked about before of increased coffee (especially espresso-style coffee) consumption in China and India with increasingly large organisations investing seriously in the region.
The recent multi-million dollar investment by Lukin in a green coffee processing plant is another part of their vertical integration in the region. The plant opened in Yunan province and can process at least 5000 tonnes per year.
Subko raises $10m for roasting operations in India
Following on from the news in China, India is seeing similar investment just earlier in the cycle. The news from Subko is part of a trend of Indian investors putting their money into coffee start ups in the country. I’m no expert on the rules but am aware that there are rules in India which make investment in international start-ups both expensive and challenging - so we should expect to see more like this.