Today we're going to look at the Cafelat Robot,
a little manual lever espresso machine.
A lot of you have asked for this review, so here it is,
and this is kind of a first look review.
I'm gonna pour some shots, get a feel for it,
let you know what I'm thinking.
Now this review, like all my reviews is powered by Patreon.
Thank you to all of you who give me a budget
to go out and buy these things,
not owe anyone anything, I can be honest,
I can tell you the truth about how I feel,
and I'm gonna give this away to a Patreon backer afterwards.
This is, I think, the Barista Model,
so it has a little pressure gauge on it.
It is a $370 manual espresso machine,
and it looks cool.
I think this thing looks really really good.
This is in the green, they do do a kind of silver version,
but green all the way for me.
Now, when you buy this thing
you get a few more things in the box,
and talking you through them,
it's gonna be a nice little explainer about
how this whole thing works cause it's a little bit different
to some of the other manual espresso machines out there.
Most of the magic is gonna happen in this thing here,
this is your portafilter basket,
slash portafilter itself, slash brew chamber,
slash dispersion screen.
I will explain, so inside here there's kind of three pieces.
You've got this, which is just a holder,
this is what you're gonna use to lock in the basket
into the machine, and this, this is your basket,
and it's just like a kind of regular double basket
that you would get from espresso machine,
except the walls are really long
because it's also gonna act as kind of your brew chamber.
So you're gonna put coffee in here
like you would any other espresso machine basket,
you're gonna tamp it down, and then this goes on top,
which is kind of a dispersion screen,
so it sits on top of the coffee.
Now, what's gonna surprise people
is that you then put your hot water
straight off the boil into this basket.
Drop it in there, you lock it in to the machine,
you're gonna use these to just
drive the water through the coffee
to create a delicious espresso,
and this one does have a pressure gauge,
so you can see how much pressure you're applying
in real time, which is kind of nice.
That's most of what you get,
you get a tamper that fits, interesting little design.
It does also come with spouts,
and this is a kind of a cool little choice.
So easiest way to explain this,
these just gasket on to the bottom of that.
Now, I would say, nine and a half times out of 10
people using this thing aren't gonna use this,
they're gonna wanna see that kind of naked extraction.
And I would also add, there are a couple of downsides
to using the sort of splitter
that I'll talk about a little bit later on.
My unit did also come with a pressurized portafilter,
so here it look like a regular
espresso machine basket there,
but there's kind of one tiny hole,
and the idea behind this is that you add a lot of pressure
through this sort of restriction point here
that your coffee isn't providing
cause it's that sort of medium grind stuff
in supermarkets that can't make espresso
that's labeled for espresso.
Who knows what they're thinking?
But that's kind of what this is for,
so if you want to use pre-ground coffee
and get some decent results,
then pressurized portafilters are pretty good for that,
but if you've got a good grinder,
no, no, no, that's not what we need,
we want the proper basket.
Let's make some coffee.
That's what we're here to do.
I'm gonna talk you through how I've been making coffee
and hopefully answer a few questions
you might have along the way,
and I'll kind of nitpick a few little things
and talk about things that I really like as well.
The basket can go from, I think, about 10 grams
all the way up to 20,
though at 20 it's gonna be pretty physical.
I have been brewing, so far, about 17 grams,
so let me just weigh that out.
17.1 should be fine.
Now this nearly, nearly fits perfectly
on the Niche dosing cup, but not quite.
It's not a bad thing though, it works well enough.
Immediately, you're probably thinking about
thermal management.
In reviews of other manual espresso makers,
I've talked a lot about the challenges
of thermal management with these kind of things.
This basket's pretty much cold, and that's okay
because essentially the liquid when it brews
is really just gonna pass through the bottom of the basket
and go straight to the cup,
so not a huge thermal loss there.
Again, once we've tamped this...
Just a slightly weird, but not unpleasant experience,
and we put the basket on top.
We're gonna put pretty much just off boiling water
on top of this, that's rapidly gonna heat the basket
it doesn't weigh that much,
it'll pull just a little temperature off
the very, very hot water and we should then be brewing
in a pretty sweet spot in terms
of espresso brewing temperatures.
Now, there's a couple of ways you could approach
how much water to put in.
You could put in more than you need
and just stop your shot early.
The challenge with that is
that I've yet to find a set of scales
that neatly fits under here.
I've got a cheap brand, like I said,
off of Amazon that's a bit too wide.
The Acaia Lunar espresso scales are a little bit too wide,
so that's harder for me to know
exactly when to stop the shot.
With a little bit of trail and error,
you can kind of work out how much you want out
plus how much you might lose to the coffee itself,
and then just put in as much as you need.
I've generally been chasing 17 grams in about 38 grams out,
a slightly longer ratio than two to one,
and to do that, I've been putting in about 58 to 60 grams.
Most makes it through,
but the coffee itself does absorb some,
not as much as it would do in say a filter coffee
because most of the water
is being squeezed out of those grounds,
so they absorb a bit more than a gram per gram,
but not a lot more, not two grams per gram anyway.
About 60 grams in works really well for me
to get 38 grams out with a 17 gram dose.
Let's pour some water.
So this is just off the boil,
I'm gonna add about 60 grams there.
This isn't hot yet,
and then there's a slightly unusual feeling
when you actually lock it in because it feels kind of loose,
but once you apply pressure, you should be okay.
I'm gonna pull this into the new Cru espresso glass.
All right, espresso time.
So I'm around nine bars there, working hard.
I should have my espresso, if I take away the pressure,
it should stop dripping.
There we go, got myself a little double espresso.
It smells pretty good,
and I have to say, tastes pretty good.
I've had some really, really nice shots from this thing.
That is, I mean, that is a good shot.
That is sweet, it's well extracted,
I think it definitely benefits from
a little bit more length.
I just find coffee easier to brew
at a slightly more than two to one,
especially in these type of setups.
The Niche is a grinder that tends to give you
a little bit more texture than it does clarity,
and in this kind of a setup,
I think that works really well.
A lot of what people like about levers
is having a lot of control
and also quite textural shots that you get from them.
That was good.
A little bit messy, but I'm okay.
I could have dealt with that before drinking my coffee,
but I'm always in a hurry.
The cleanup's okay.
You would all wipe off the piston at the bottom here,
but very little coffee really comes in contact with it
cause the shower screen is in the way.
Your shower screen really needs to go to the sink, right.
There's no simpler way to wash that,
so put it in a sink, give it a wash,
it's very simple, very easy,
and then you got your basket.
Now, the top is still okay to hold temperature wise,
so you can tap it out, taps out reasonably clean.
Again, generally speaking,
the more compressed your puck is at the end of that shot,
the easier it will be to tap it all out.
If you're kind of declining your pressure through the shot,
which is totally a thing people do and enjoy,
you might have a slightly looser puck, but that's fine.
You can wipe the rest of it out with a towel
or give it a rinse in the sink if you want to.
If you're gonna brew straight away,
I'd probably clean it out with a towel and just go again,
but if I'm not gonna use it till tomorrow, to the sink,
and that's kind of it, that's the bits to clean.
Obviously, the base of it gets messy,
needs a wipe, but that's it.
I have to say, it's just nice to use.
The workflow seems a little funny to watch, right,
the pouring the water in
then getting the hot water into the machine.
The first few times, you do feel a little conscious of that.
The more I use it, the less I thin about that, actually.
I did say I would mention the spouts again.
These are lovely, well-made, but they're very heavy,
and because of that, they have a large thermal mass,
which means if they're not very, very, very hot,
they will pull heat from your espresso liquid.
That means that your shots will brew at a nice temperature,
but be cooled on their way to the cup,
so you can preheat this.
you could leave it in some boiling water
and just kind of clip the brew chamber on top of it
to sort of create that seal
and pick it up and drain it out.
It's a little bit fussy.
Most people would wanna see a naked extraction
or just are gonna drink the double out of it.
There's no huge use for them.
It's nice that it comes with it,
but just be aware that it will mean a little bit more work.
The other sort of small frustrations
that I've had with it to date,
the brewing gauge is not always the easiest to see,
it depends how you're using it.
I know I'm a littler taller,
but getting a good angle to sort of
be able to push down and look isn't the easiest.
It's not the worst either,
I've certainly been able to see
what pressure I'm brewing at.
It's interesting to feel that pressure in a different way.
I'm not saying it's harder,
the Flair is a little different, for example.
This, you've got two points of pressure,
these are a nice length,
you're certainly able to exert high pressures with it,
but I did feel like I was doing some work
to hit my nine bars, I really did.
Don't put it in the dishwasher.
I don't know if I need to tell you that, but don't.
It's really easy to clean.
I wish this was a bit wider
or I wish it was easier to get a scale underneath,
be it having the legs wider
or just finding a scale that fits.
I would like to have the ability to stop a shot
based on liquid in the cup
cause that's just how I think about espresso,
that's the easiest way to nail your shot
time after time after time.
I think it's beautiful,
I think it's a really well-made solid feeling thing.
I think it's absolutely worth the money.
I really enjoy using this, actually.
Maybe I'm slowly becoming a kind of manual espresso person,
you know, I enjoyed using things like
the Flair and the ROK and this.
This I think is excellent, I really do.
I've really enjoyed the shots,
the workflow did freak me out initially,
but, actually, it's not too bad at all.
There's moments when I kind of wish
that the little handle piece
didn't sit as close to the lever as it does,
that's not the end of the world though.
Overall, I'm impressed, as a first look, I'm impressed.
I would enjoy having this in my life.
I really enjoyed the coffee I've gotten from it,
I don't worry too much about thermal management with it,
which is kind of interesting compared to some other brewers.
Yeah, well done Cafelat.
From my point of view, that is a nice little brewer.
So if you're a long time subscriber
or even a short time subscriber,
you might notice that this is a different sort of
place for me to stand and review than usual.
This is kind of a new additional space.
A space where I can stand up, work standing up,
get more physically involved with things
like lever espresso machines,
and be able to do more interesting stuff
then I could before.
It will evolve, it's gonna improve,
we've got lot's of work to do on it still,
it will look better, it will sound better,
but this is the beginning.
So I hope you join me, you know,
follow along for the kind of evolution
of this space and these videos,
but now, it's time to ask you some questions,
do you have one of these?
What do you think?
What did I miss?
What do you like about it?
What frustrates you about it?
How are your shots?
Do you now want one of these?
I could understand that,
it is a pretty cool little home brewer,
let me know down in the comments below.
Thank you so much for watching,
and I hope you have a great day.