Chemically Imbalanced (espresso-jogged screeds)

mypressi a sulawesi

injection-molded spro.

then there was the mypressi twist, revolutionary espresso device of simplicity and ease. or so they said.

without question, the idea of brewing espresso with the punch of a nitrogen cartridge in a hand-held portafilter amounts to heretical folly of the most rankling sort. what will all those la marzocco factory workers do when we replace them with the injection-molded pocket BICs of espresso making?

and so, this blog can’t really blame that curmudgeonly tom — who definitely didn’t put the “sweet” in “sweet maria’s” — for lathering himself up with a bit of belligerent zeal soap. “best new product” inDEED.

and yet: the espresso, we insist, tasted non-horrible.

first we heard of the device in atlanta last week, helfen was waving a flyer and talking about how nine bars of espresso brewing pressure was somehow coming from the handle of this thing. turns out your basic whipped cream nitrogen cartridge supplies the oomph. you grind and pack a regular portafilter basket, fill the chamber just above with boiling water, and pull the trigger.

and then spro happens.

it’s tempting to imagine an application in which, just after hitting the snooze button, this blog could roll over, pull a shot INTO ITS BED MOUTH, and be quasi-juvenated from the comfort of our sheets. alas, the craftsmanship and theater of espresso is part of what pulled us in. also, there would almost certainly be some splashing. we don’t mind brown-flecked pillows so much, but the blogwife might.

the shots of hairbender we had from the mypressi convention booth were actually passable, if somewhat sour. this is likely because the boiling water had obviously been poured in far too long before “brewing.” also, it seemed kind of insane to demonstrate such a product with an espresso as demanding as hairbender.

we ended up thinking that, if we could figure out a way to duct-tape it to our mazzer for safe travel, it wouldn’t make a bad camping brewer — for lazy louts. caffeine addicts, in other words. sold on the virtues of industrialized user ease. with a gamer’s weakness for pressurized gas and triggers. yeah, them.

target demographic = perfectly clear.