Dan with sweet Maria's here. I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about this new portable Espresso machine
we're carrying
called the Flair and in particular how it compares to the Rok another portable Espresso machine in its class.
We've had this particular
Model of the Rok in house for a few years now a test model
and so I've had a lot of time to to test it out, and there's a couple things
We really like about the Rok. One is the build it's extremely sturdy
made almost entirely of cast metal parts, and so under normal use you really shouldn't have any issues with bending or breaking the Rok.
It's also a really portable machine which is nice and it's marketed as such.
It's two pieces when it's assembled which is the portafilter, and then you have this body
which is fairly light just a couple pounds, and it's narrow, so it lays really nicely in like a suitcase
or you could throw it in your backpack to stow away.
The Flair also is both of these things it's almost entirely cast metal parts as well. So really sturdy
stable base and
it comes with this nice little carrying case for packing it away which is useful.
It's a few more pieces than the Rok and so kind of a bit of a puzzle getting into the carrying case
so I'd say hold on to this card which has a little diagram
showing how to stow this machine away; Make sure you don't lose this.
The biggest difference between these two that we found is in regards to heat retention. The Rok,
you essentially pour hot water you're going to want to pour hot water into the brew head here to sort of preheat this before you
pull a shot of Espresso.
As you can see this is the one
plastic part of the machine and plastic isn't the best material for keeping heat in. But um,
perhaps the biggest issue with heat retention is with regards to the the
piston mechanism inside.
So the way you get water into this brew head is by pouring hot water in the top
you lift both handles and the piston as it raises up allows water to pass through these little side channels and
what happens is that water
aerates as it's trickling down into the brew head and does lose a little bit of temperature along the way. It's kind of like
pouring hot water between two glasses to cool it down
and so then you press the water through and there's your espresso extraction
with the Flair you actually can pull this whole brew head piece off
you can take this little basket out that you put your grounds in and both of these pieces
can just sit in like a couple mugs or bowls with hot water on top and get really hot and when it's finally time to
pull your shot of Espresso
you can pull these out by the rubber base Which is not going to be hot,
put them together
Drop them in your Flair, pour your hot water and then immediately cover it with this little plunger that has a nice little o-ring around it
that'll help to seal that hot water in.
You pull the handle and
that's your espresso extraction. We tested both machines
without coffee in the Portafilter, um
Measuring the water temperature exiting at the shower screen after fully heating at both machines and with the Rok
measuring with a Thermopro we
got a
temperature readings of 190 degrees Fahrenheit with the Flair it was
195 degrees, which is really the bottom end of
Where you want to be
In order to achieve a really good
extraction and
So that was a big separator for us
That the the espresso shots we pulled on the Rok were a bit more like
Watery Espresso or really strong coffee and the flare was very comparable with what we were getting with a pump machine
the pump machine we used in house here and
Really quite impressive. One other difference between the two that we noted is the ability to clean the machines
The Flair is a lot of parts
And so it's a little bit more to clean however since you have access to all the individual pieces you can break this down completely
A lot easier to get to do a thorough cleaning without having to disassemble the machine in any way.
With the Rok
It's only two pieces however there are these different
Like with the shower screen for instance there's a little rubber
showerhead that
Pulls away from the sides of this the brew head
And so we found that grinds can get stuck up in there and be a little tricky to get out without
Using quite a bit of water to flush this thing out.
Similarly the piston though it can be this group can be removed and you can gain access to inside this chamber
Without pulling that off if you can't really clean inside and so that can [be] you know just a little bit problematic
Especially if you're on the road as well. The last thing we'll say about these two machines is they both come in at under
$200 the Rok retails for 200 bucks for the basic set up right now. The Flair is a hundred [forty-four] all of this right here
Neither the rock or the flare have a standard basket size
So you're going to want to buy the tamper produced by the manufacturer. The Rok has a tamper that's 70 dollars
And this little Flair Tamper is
$30 and both fit the baskets very snug
So yeah, I hope that comparison helps to answer any questions that customers have and thanks for checking out the video
We have another video online actually
that
Outlines, the Flair
How to use the Flair in a little bit more detail and so check it out, thanks