Ceramic Coffee Mill by Sovrano Int'l ~ Manual Conical Burr Grinder~ Professional Grade Ceramic Burrs

I'll say that it might serve certain purposes, but it's not great for mine. I'll start out by saying that the glass enclosure, the solid upper ABS body, and the shape are solid and an easy fit in the hand. The piece to grasp to turn with your hand is small, though, so for the time that you need to grasp it to turn, it could leave your hand feeling a bit crampy. It did mine a little bit.The grind mechanism itself does not leave the grounds the most consistently ground, leaving some pieces a bit larger than others. If you need absolute consistent grinding, this many not be the best model. I found, though, that if you're really grinding finely, the grinding is more consistent than at medium or larger. Also, the way you adjust the fineness of the grinding involves turning the top knob, which is also the knob which affixes the handle to the unit and also allows you to open the unit to fill with beans. This is not a set-the-grind-consistency-once-and-you're-all-set type of grinders. For some, being able to adjust on the fly, as you can with this one, may be a selling point. I could see you liking this unit if you were to use it to grind many different things - coffee, spices, etc. With many other portable units, you have to open up the unit to make an adjustment. BUT...once you've adjusted it to your liking, you're done, once and for all.Allison, the customer service person from Sovrano, suggests tightening the knob screw on top until it stops, and then counting the number of turns of unscrewing until you get to that desired grind. But the unit is not marked in a way which easily allows you to count turns with precision. The difference between a quarter or eighth of the turn is actually quite a bit in the coffee world. And you could screw the top knob tight, but then move it a little bit more, so that could throw off your adjustment. For me, I think I'd rather have an internal adjustment than the way this one is done. In a perfect world, I'd have an adjustment on the outside you could set and forget, but that may not be possible in a portable sized mechanical grinder.Secondly, I have a Keurig brewing machine, and it has particular needs. In case you don't know, it forces a temperature controlled how water stream through the K-cup or coffee holder. The system is a bit of an environmental disaster, though, leaving k-cups mounting in landfills. I have a couple of the Solofil K-cups which allow you to use your own coffee, therefore avoiding the disposable k-cups. I have found Keurig is very finicky as to the coarseness of the grounds. Too fine, and the grounds get absorb the water, allowing very little liquid through, creating coffee sludge in the coffee holder. Too coarse, and the water shoots right through it and you get rather useless warm brown water. Getting medium grounds and no finer, but tamping down the grounds so they're more compacted, is the best way to go here in my limited experience with grinding my own (I have been a K-cup user for years, after meeting one of the VPs for the company. While they have been committed to trying to find Fair Trade sources and whatnot, they have had difficulty in creating plastic cups which decompose properly into the environment. For me, I really like the coffee which comes out of the Keurig, but know it can be improved upon. Using the same coffee brand and style as one of the k-cups I drink, Peet's Major Dickenson's, but using fresh beans, the fresh ground does come out somewhat smoother, but the vacuum packed K-cup is still pretty good. And it's damn convenient!).Which comes to my final point about this grinder. Filling the coffee bean holder in the grinder, I can't even get two full K-cup holders' grounds out of one filling. It amounts more to 1 1/2 or so. So if I'm making a single cup of coffee for both my wife and myself, I have to fill the holder with beans, find the right grinding setting, grind all the beans, open up the grinder, refill it, find the right setting again (with fingers crossed a bit), and grind some more. I'd prefer to find a larger grinder that would allow me to grind at least 2 k-cup's worth of coffee, and even better, if I could find one that would do 4 of them. That way, I'd essentially have enough for 1 cup each plus a refill.Note: I wasn't sent one of these free for reviewing purposes. The opinions within this review are entirely my own. :-)

It does the job.- Adjusting to the right grind can be a little tricky.- Finding out the right amount for your brew set-up can also be tricky (especially if you have 5+ types of coffee, and don't want to have left-overs or overbrew).- Great quality overall!- Easy to clean.- A little annoying to have to pull three pieces off and put on for every bean refill. Occasionally my adjustment knob (?) will not sit right, and end up throwing off my grind.I purchased this to have a little bit more physical connection in brewing my coffee. This piece definitely provided. I like it quite a bit, but there are a few design qualities I would have changed. However, for the price, I'm quite satisfied.EDIT: 1 year check-in. I had to knock off another star. While I still liked it for the appearance and price, and it did work for awhile, one of the c-clips began to fall off when using, causing the entire system to collapse into the jar. I purchased more clips, but the problems continued. To the seller's credit, they did offer me a different unit when I initially commented about disliking the refill process, but I still wanted the unit despite that.

I bought this for myself but ended up giving it to my son who quit using it after a few uses for the same reason. The grinder works well but unless you like spending 2-3 minutes grinding for a cup of coffee I would say move on. 2-3 minutes doesn't seem long until you are actually turning the handle and then it seems like forever,I finally bought an electric burr grinder by Capressa that I just love because I guess I am lazy and don't want to put that much effort into getting a fresh grind. The Sovrano product did a very good job of grinding, nice even grind from espresso fine all the way to french press coarse....and was great because you could grind just enough for a double shot and there was not much mess because the open top of the glass receptacle fits right into the filter cup so you could just tump it in without losing grinds all over the place. It was easy to clean too. Still....I got tired of turning and the small knob was hard for me to hold on to.

I bought this to replace an electric burr grinder that stopped working after a few months. I figured a manual grinder is likely to fail and leave me without coffee. I have been using this grinder for a couple weeks now and I'm pretty happy with it. The adjustment can be a little funny. I use this for a French press so I need a course grind, but if I don't keep an eye on it the nut will loosen and it will get too course. My only other complaint is that I make 40 oz of coffee every morning and I fill the hopper twice(jar once). Not a huge deal but it would be nice if the hopper were larger. All in all I a am happy with this grinder and I think it will last a long time.

I bought this because I like a fresh cup everytime I brew. It has fallen apart a couple times, but after reassembling, it wworks just fine. It does require a little muscle to grind the beans. I felt I got a great deal for an item that was perfect for my needs. Some people bought it for espresso or seeds, but it clearly is titled as a COFFEE mill. I'll give it 4 stars for what it is. The pieces are good quality. The glass is thick and the handle is strong. If it does fall apart, it will require about 5-20 mins to put it back together because the end part is really tiny. Happy shopping!

Like most of these hand crank grinders, everything you grind will be pretty uneven, and the grinder burrs themselves are a bit too small, so you're stuck grinding for quite a long time.